Sir Peter Thomson was an eighteenth century collector of choice books, manuscripts, and literary curiosities. After his death in 1770, his collection went to the hammer. Here the trace ends, for how Sir Peter got the manuscript is not disclosed. Mr. Stevens endeavored to find a permanent place for the precious thing in the library of some American historical society or in the British Museum. At length, these endeavors failing, after two or three years, he disposed of it in England to Sir Thomas Phillips, another noteworthy collector, whose library at Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, became a storehouse of historical treasure. Here it lay till 1868, when it was practically rediscovered by another American—the learned Reverend Doctor Leonard Woods, fourth president of Bowdoin College, in Maine. President Woods was at that time in England searching for certain papers of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the founder of Maine, and in this quest he visited Thirlestane House. He was one of those whose attention had been called to the manuscript by Mr. Stevens when it was in the latter’s possession. But then the Maine scholar did not fully comprehend its nature. As soon, however, as he had examined it at Thirlestane House he recognized its historical worth. Thereupon he caused an exact transcript to be made, and printed it for the first time in the Maine Historical Society’s Collections for 1877.
The thesis originally bore the caption Mr. Rawley’s Voyage; but subsequently a title more explicitly defining its character was affixed to the copy from which the print is made; and this title in turn has been reduced for popular service to A Discourse on Western Planting.
This “Discourse” boldly set forth the bearings of Raleigh’s enterprise upon the power of Spain (with which war was ultimately proclaimed). If pursued at once it would be “a great bridle of the Indies of the King of Spain,” and stay him from “flowing over all the face” of the firm land of America. Raleigh’s plan contemplated a flank movement upon Spain in the seas of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, while England was preparing for intervention in the Netherlands. From her American possessions, in the wealth which her treasure-ships brought thence, Spain was deriving the sinews of her strength. With this wealth she was enabled to support her armies in Europe, build and equip fleets, keep alive dissensions, bribe, in her interests, “great men and whole states.” Her power in her American possessions Raleigh would break. English colonies planted on the North American continent would be in position to attack her at a vulnerable point and arrest her treasure-ships. A surprising weakness of her defences in Spanish America, through the withdrawal of her soldiers to maintain her armies in the Netherlands, had been discovered by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake in recent voyages. In this unprotected condition of the region was found a powerful inducement to English colonization as now proposed.
The necessity of “speedy planting in divers fit places” upon these “lucky western discoveries” was also urged to prevent their being occupied by other nations which now had “the like intentions.” The queen of England’s title to America, “at least to so much as is from Florida to the circle artic,” by virtue of the Cabot discoveries, was reasserted as “more lawful and right than the Spaniard’s or any other prince’s.” The various “testimonies” to this claim were again enumerated. Stress also was again laid upon the “probability of the easy and quick finding of the Northwest Passage.” The value to England, through her opening of the West, in the yield to her of “all the commodities of Europe, Africa, and Asia,” as far as her adventurers might travel, and in the supply of the wants of England’s decayed trades, was dwelt upon. It was shown that, with the possession of this region planted by Englishmen, England would obtain every material for creating great navies—goodly timber for building ships, trees for masts, pitch, tar, and hemp—all for “no price.” Thus it was apparent “how easy a matter it may be to this realm swarming at this day with valiant youths rusting and hurtful for lack of employment, and having good makers of cable and all sorts of cordage, and the best and most cunning shipwrights of the world, to be lords of all those seas, and to spoil Philip’s Indian navy, and to deprive him of yearly passage of his treasure into Europe.” As for the religious argument, the zealous Protestant advocate reasoned that by planting in America from England the “glory of the gospel” would be enlarged, “sincere religion” be advanced therein, and a safe and sure place be provided “to receive people from all parts of the world that are forced to flee for the truth of God’s word.”
The first copy of this illuminating Discourse was delivered to the queen by Hakluyt in person, in August, shortly before the return of Raleigh’s “twoo barkes.” Another copy was given to Elizabeth’s chief secretary, Walsingham; and a third, it is believed, to Sir Philip Sidney.
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF “DIVERS VOYAGES.”
From the copy in the New York Public Library (Lenox Building).
Like Divers Voyages it had a signal effect. The two barks had been sent out in April, within a month from the issue of a patent to Raleigh, as a preliminary expedition, under two experienced navigators, to reconnoitre the southern coast above Florida and report. They were back in September, bringing glowing accounts of the region visited—the islands of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds—together with report of their having taken formal possession of the country for the queen of England, and, as tangible evidence, two tawny natives of the wilderness. With this happy outcome the Hakluyt Discourse clinched the matter, and Raleigh’s policy was adopted. Elizabeth immediately bestowed upon the region the name of Virginia, in token of her state of life as a virgin queen; Raleigh was knighted for his valour and enterprise; Parliament confirmed his patent of discovery; and in April following, 1585, his first colony of one hundred and eight persons sailed from Plymouth in a fleet of seven vessels and landed at Roanoke.
From that time for twenty years, till the forfeiture of Elizabeth’s grant by the attainder of James, in 1603, all that was done for American colonization by the English race was under Raleigh’s title, and with every step Hakluyt was repeatedly contributing informing literature to the cause to keep aflame the now aroused spirit of adventure.
In 1586, then in Paris, he had published, at his own expense, a manuscript account of Florida, written after the explorations of the French navigators Ribault and Laudonnière, in 1562–1564, and the attempted planting of Huguenot colonies there, ending tragically in a massacre by Spaniards. This manuscript he had come upon in archives, where it had lain hidden for above twenty years, “suppressed,” as he averred, “by the malice of some too much affectioned to the Spanish cause.” The narrative was brought out in French, edited by a friend and fellow scholar, Martin Basanière, a professor of mathematics, and dedicated by the editor to Raleigh with high praise for his efforts to open the Western country. The following year Hakluyt issued in London an English translation of this book under the enticing title, A Notable Historie containing four Voyages made by certayne French captaynes into Florida, wherein the Great Riches and Fruitfulness of the country with the Maners of the people, hitherto concealed, are brought to light; and to this edition he prefixed his own “Epistle Dedicatorie” to Raleigh, encouraging him, undismayed by previous failure, in the good work of Virginia colonization, which must ultimately prosper as these French captains’ exposition of the advantages and resources of the region demonstrated.