es eastward to
Calicut, in passing by the Cape of Good Hope, are enforced to make divers
courses, the current there being so swift, as it striketh from thence,
all along westward, upon the straits of Magellan, being distant from
thence near the fourth part of the longitude of the earth: and not having
free passage and entrance through that frith towards the west, by reason
of the narrowness of the said strait of Magellan, it runneth to salve
this wrong (Nature not yielding to accidental restraints) all along the
eastern coasts of America northwards so far as Cape Frido, being the
farthest known place of the same continent towards the north, which is
about four thousand eight-hundred leagues, reckoning therewithal the
trending of the land.

8. So that this current, being continually maintained with such force as
Jacques Cartier affirmeth it to be, who met with the same, being at
Baccalaos as he sailed along the coasts of America, then, either it must
of necessity have way to pass from Cape Frido through this frith,
westward towards Cathay, being known to come so far only to salve his
former wrongs by the authority before named; or else it must needs strike
over upon the coast of Iceland, Lapland, Finmark, and Norway (which are
east from the said place about three hundred and sixty leagues) with
greater force than it did from the Cape of Good Hope upon the strait of
Magellan, or from the strait of Magellan to Cape Frido; upon which coasts
Jacques Cartier met with the same, considering the shortness of the cut
from the said Cape Frido to Iceland, Lapland, etc. And so the cause
efficient remaining, it would have continually followed along our coasts
through the narrow seas, which it doeth not, but is digested about the
north of Labrador by some through passage there through this frith.

The like course of the water, in some respect, happeneth in the
Mediterranean Sea (as affirmeth Contorenus), where, as the current which
cometh from Tanais and the Euxine, running along all the coasts of
Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, and not finding sufficient way out
through Gibraltar by means of the straitness of the frith, it runneth
back again along the coasts of Barbary by Alexandria, Natolia, etc.

It may, peradventure, be thought that this course of the sea doth
sometime surcease and thereby impugn this principle, because it is not
discerned all along the coast of America in such sort as Jacques Cartier
found it, whereunto I a