ally be pursued, it will
prooue farre more beneficiall in diuers respects vnto this our realme,
then the world, yea many of the wiser sort, haue hitherto imagined. (M348)
The particular commodities whereof are wel knowen vnto your selfe and some
few others, and are faithfully and with great iudgement committed to
writing, as you are not ignorant, by one of your followers, which remained
there about a tweluemonth with your worshipful Lieutenant M. Ralph Lane,
in the diligent search of the secrets of those Countreys. Touching the
speedy and effectual pursuing of your action, though I wrote well it would
demaund a princes purse to haue it throughly followed without lingering,
yet am I of opinion, that you shall drawe the same before it be long to be
profitable and gainful aswel to those of our nation there remaining, as to
the merchants of England that shall trade hereafter thither, partly by
certaine secret commodities already discouered by your seruants, and
partly by breeding of diuers sorts of beasts in those large and ample
regions, and planting of such things in that warme climat as wil best
prosper there, and our realme standeth most in need of. (M349) And this I
find to haue bin the course that both the Spaniards and Portugals tooke in
the beginnings of their discoueries and conquests. (M350) For the
Spaniards at their first entrance into Hispaniola found neither sugercanes
nor ginger, growing there, nor any kind of our cattell: But finding the
place fit for pasture they sent kine and buls and sundry sorts of other
profitable beastes thither, and transported the plants of suger canes, and
set the rootes of ginger: the hides of which oxen, with suger and ginger,
are now the chiefe merchandise of that Island. The Portugals also at their
first footing in Madera, as Iohn Barros writes in his first Decade, found
nothing there but mighty woods for timber, whereupon they called the
Island by that name. Howbeit the climate being fauourable, they inriched
it by their own industry with the best wines and sugers in the world.
(M351) The like maner of proceeding they vsed in the Isles of Acores by
sowing therin great quantity of Woad. So dealt they in S. Thomas vnder the
Equinoctial, and in Brasil and sundry other places. And if our men will
follow their steps, by your wise direction I doubt not but that in due
time they shall reape no lesse commodity and benefite. Moreouer there is
none other likelihood but that her Maiesty, whi