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To the right worshipfull and
most vertuous Gentleman master
Phillip Sydney Esquire.
Maruaile not a little (right worshipfull) that since the first discouerie of America (which is nowe full fourescore and tenne yeeres) after so great conquests and plantings of the Spaniardes and Portingales there, that wee of Englande could neuer haue the grace to set fast footing in such fertill and temperate places, as are left as yet vnpossessed of them. But againe when I consider that there is a time for all men, and see the Portingales time to be out of date, & that the nakedness of the spaniards, and their long hidden secretes are nowe at length espied, whereby they went about to delude the worlde, I conceiue great hope, that the time approcheth and nowe is, that we of England may share and part stakes (if wee will our selues) both with the spaniarde and the Portingale in part of America, and other regions as yet vndiscouered. And surely if there were in vs that desire to aduaunce the honour of our Countrie which ought to bee in euery good man, wee woulde not all this while haue foreslowne the possessing of those landes, whiche of equitie and right appertaine vnto vs, as by the discourses that followe shall appeare most plainely. Yea if wee woulde beholde with the eye of pitie howe al our Prisons are pestered and filled with able men to serue their Countrie, which for small roberies are dayly hanged vp in great numbers euen twentie at a clappe out of one iayle (as was seene at the last assises at Rochester) wee woulde hasten and further euery man to his power the deducting of some Colonies of our superfluous people into those temperate and fertile partes of America, which being within sixeweekes
