beyond the bare data of his birth and antecedents the story of richard hakluyt’s life is gathered largely from his own writings, found for the most part in shreds of autobiography running through the several extended “epistles dedicatorie” introducing his published volumes. it is a winsome and an inspiriting story of a man of action behind the scenes of great performances rather than in the forefront: of a singularly modest man not forth-pressing among his contemporaries, yet ranking in great accomplishments with the best of “queen elizabeth’s men.”
even the exact place and date of his birth are not stated by any of his biographers. all that appears to be definitely fixed is that he was born near london about the year 1553. that was the year that edmund spenser was born; one year after the birth of sir walter raleigh, and one year before the birth of sir philip sidney, both of whom were to become his confrères in schemes of american colonization. he was five years old when elizabeth came to the throne. eleven years after his birth shakspere was born, and he died the same year that shakspere died. thus we have the chronology 18of his life, 1553–1616, his active career extending through the blossom and the bloom of the dazzling elizabethan period.
richard hakluyt was of an ancient hertfordshire family, dating back in that historic county to the thirteenth century. the family seat was at yatton, or eyton, not far from the old town of leominster. they were of welsh extraction, and our cosmographer may have indulged a personal pride in the legend of “the most ancient discovery of the west indies,” made by a welshman in the twelfth century, three hundred years before columbus. hakluyts appear to have been early preferred for public station in hertfordshire. the name (then generally spelled hackluit) is found in the lists of high sheriffs for the county from the reign of edward the second to henry the eighth. in the second year of henry the fourth leonard hackluit, knight, was sheriff. walter hakelut was knighted in the thirty-fourth year of edward the first. others of the name are seen among early members of parliament. thomas hakeluyt was chancellor of the diocese of hertford in 1349, in the latter part of edward the third’s reign. richard hakluyt of yatton, afterward of london, an elder cousin of our richard, was a cosmographer before him, and esteemed in his time “as well by some principal ministers of state as by several most noted persons among the mercantile part of the kingdom, as a great encourager of navigation and improvement of trade, art, and manufactures.”
our richard hakluyt was the second of four brothers, 19all of whom were liberally educated. the eldest, thomas, was trained at the westminster school and at trinity college, cambridge. he became a celebrated physician. richard followed thomas at the westminster school when he was fourteen years old, being elected one of the queen’s scholars to that “fruitfull nurserie,” as he terms it. he remained at westminster for six years and then passed up to christ college, oxford. while a schoolboy the love of geography and maritime discovery was implanted in him by his cousin richard, and so agreeably that he determined to make the pursuit of these branches of science his life-avocation. how this came about let him relate in his own quaint language, translated, for more comfortable reading, into modern english.
“i do remember that being a youth and one of her majesty’s scholars at westminster, that fruitful nursery, it was my hap to visit the chamber of m. richard hakluyt, my cousin, a gentleman of the middle temple, well known unto you, at a time when i found lying open upon his board certain books of cosmography with an universal map. he seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof began to instruct my ignorance by shewing me the division of the earth into three parts after the old account, and then according to the latter & better distribution, into more: he pointed with his wand to all the known seas, gulfs, bays, straights, capes, rivers, empires, kingdoms, dukedoms, and territories of each part; with declaration also of their special commodities & particular 20wants, which by the benefit of traffic & intercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied. from the map he brought me to the bible, and turning to the 107 psalm, directed me to the 23 & 24 verses, where i read, that they which go down to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep, &c. which words of the prophet together with my cousin’s discourse (things of high and rare delight to my young nature) took in me so deep an impression, that i constantly resolved, if ever i were preferred to the university, where better time and more convenient place might be ministered for their studies, would by god’s assistance prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature, the doors of which whereof (after a sort) were so happily opened before me.”
hakluyt entered oxford in 1570, and took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1574 and master of arts in 1577. while diligently and faithfully pursuing the regular college course, true to his boyhood resolution he devoted all his spare time to his self imposed studies. he became so proficient in them that after taking his master’s degree he was chosen to read “public lectures” on the science of cosmography and navigation. the lectures were delivered presumably in london and with much satisfaction to his hearers, among whom we may be sure were found master mariners and common seamen, as his relation proceeds:
“when not long after i was removed to christ-church in oxford, my exercise of duty first performed, 21i fell to my intended course, and by degrees read over whatsoever printed and written discoveries and voyages i found extant either in the greek, latin, italian, spanish, portugal [portuguese], french, or english languages, and in my public lectures was the first that produced and shewed both the old and imperfectly composed, and the new lately reformed maps, globes, spheres, and other instruments of this art for demonstration in the common schools, to the singular pleasure and general contentment of my auditory.”
possibly at these lectures, certainly soon after, he was advocating with much earnestness the pressing need of popular technical education to produce informed and skilful mariners, and this he continued persistently to urge in all his after writings. he would have had established in london a lectureship, or a school of nautical crafts, from which english seamen might be graduated complete navigators. to this end he dwelt much upon the advantages of the navigators of rival nations, gained largely through their scientific training. at that time spain was maintaining in seville, at the “contractation house,” or exchange, a “learned reader” in the art of navigation and a board of examiners, of which the reader was a member, and no man in spain could obtain the charge of a ship for the indies till he had attended the reader’s course and had passed the examining board. a century earlier the “hero nation” of portugal had established a school of navigation, instituted by that heroic figure in maritime discovery, prince henry, surnamed 22“the navigator.” despite, however, the force of hakluyt’s sound arguments, and the endorsement of his proposition by such seasoned mariners as sir francis drake and by various men of affairs, the lectureship never was founded, greatly to his regret.
when hakluyt began his studies in cosmography systematically the only english work at his hand touching the subject was the historie of travayle by richard eden, dating from 1555. this was the first work of its kind produced in england, and a new edition was brought out while hakluyt was a student at oxford. although it was a classic from a scholarly englishman, it presented only a limited view of maritime discovery. consequently the young student was obliged to pursue his investigations chiefly in various foreign works, and among manuscripts deposited in private libraries or collections. he had not progressed far before he had become impressed with the backwardness of england in western occupation since the discovery of the north american continent under her auspices in 1497 and 1498. great deeds had been performed by intrepid english explorers to the north and northeast, and english commerce had been advanced in the rich regions of the east; but on the western continent no further attempt of moment toward exploration or settlement had been made by englishmen from the finish of henry the seventh’s reign to elizabeth’s time. meanwhile other nations had established foothold in these “fair and fruitful parts,” to england’s disadvantage. thus hakluyt came clearly to see that maritime 23traffic united with american colonization must be the means that england should adopt, without further delay, if she were to improve the condition of her people and become a naval power in the world.
imbued with these convictions he early set out, perhaps while still delivering the “public lectures,” definitely to promote this policy with voice and pen. early he is found in close touch with men leading in state affairs and in bold enterprises. he is much in correspondence with sir francis walsingham, the queen’s chief secretary. he gets points from sir francis drake after that great navigator’s return, in 1580, from the first circumnavigation of the globe by an englishman, loaded with treasure, the spoil of spanish harbours on the pacific, and crowned with honours for the discovery of california for the english and its occupation as “new albion.” he has intimate intercourse with sir humphrey gilbert, to whom, in 1578, elizabeth had given her letters patent to discover and to colonize “remote, heathen, and barbarous lands”—the first grant of the kind ever made by an english sovereign,—and, as we have seen, prepares his first book, divers voyages, in aid of sir humphrey’s project. walter raleigh, gilbert’s half-brother and associate, who had known hakluyt and was conversant with his studies in cosmography when he was at college, became his patron. philip sidney, to whom he dedicates the divers voyages, had been his fellow-student at oxford.
hakluyt planned to accompany gilbert’s fatal expedition of 1583, but before its departure he was appointed 24chaplain to sir edward stafford, the queen’s ambassador to paris. this preferment evidently came to him directly through his interest in nautical affairs. those who obtained it for him believed that his services to the cause of western discoveries and colonization would then be most valuable from that post of observation and influence. walsingham expected him to make diligent enquiry of “such things as may yield any light unto our western discoveries,” and he justified this hope by undertaking shrewdly to collect information of the movements of the spanish and as well the french, and to recommend measures for the furtherance of the cause which he had most at heart. no sooner was he established at paris than he became absorbed in this special mission, and it continued almost his sole occupation while he remained with the embassy, which was for a period of five years.
upon the failure of the gilbert enterprise and the loss of sir humphrey he is ardently enlisted in raleigh’s project, furnishing in its interest, at raleigh’s request, “discourses both in print and written hand.” these “discourses” are supposed to have been embodied in raleigh’s memorial to the queen which brought him his patent of march, 1584, as liberal as gilbert’s. the important document on mr. rawley’s voyage, or a particular discourse on western planting, may have embodied some of the features of the memorial. hakluyt wrote the “discourse” in london when ostensibly on a summer vacation from his duties at paris. at the same time he was busied in judicious 25“trumpeting” of the enterprise among statesmen and merchant adventurers.
he continued hand in hand with raleigh through the latter’s repeated attempts to plant his virginia colonies, encouragingly buoyant and hopeful in each new venture following dismal and sometimes tragic failure; and he became foremost in the company of gentlemen and merchants to whom raleigh was compelled to assign his patent in 1588. afterward, upon the accession of james the first, he was the chief promoter of a petition to the king for a new grant of patents for virginia colonization that brought the royal charter of april, 1606, under which were formed the corporations subsequently known as the london and the plymouth companies, between whom was to be equally divided the great tract of country lying between the thirty-fourth and the forty-fifth degrees of latitude and reaching to the backwoods without bound. he was made one of the patentees of the london, or south virginia, company, which effected the first permanent english settlement—at jamestown, in 1606.
his great work of the principal navigations was in preparation while raleigh’s projects were under way. its scheme was drawn at the outset with remarkable breadth and on a lofty scale. while in stafford’s service at paris he tells us, “i both heard in speech and read in books, other nations miraculously extolled for their discoveries and notable enterprises by sea, but the english of all others, for their sluggish security, and continual neglect of the like attempts ... either 26ignominiously reported or exceedingly condemned [? condensed].... thus both hearing and reading the obliquy of our nation, and finding few or none of our own men able to reply herein; and further, not seeing any man to have care to recommend to the world the industrious labours and painful travels of our countrymen; for stopping the mouths of reproachers, myself ... determined, notwithstanding all difficulties, to undertake the burden of that work wherein all others pretended either ignorance or lack of leisure, or want of sufficient argument, whereas (to speak truly) the huge toil and the small profit to ensue, were the chief causes of the refusal.”
in the laborious collection of his material, much “dispersed, scattered, and hidden in several hucksters’ hands,” as he says, he sought the assistance of the foremost scholars, bibliographers, and writers, and cultivated the acquaintance of all classes of men who could give him information. he tells of talking with don antonio, the portuguese pretender, when in paris, and with several of antonio’s “best captains and pilots, one of whom was born in the east indies.” he became friendly with travelled french sailors. one of them gave him a piece of supposed silver ore, and showed him “beasts’ skins draped and painted by indians.” another exhibited “a piece of the tree called sassafras brought from florida, and expounded its high medical virtues,” which afterward was much sought by voyagers to america. he browsed in the king’s library at paris. he established friendly relations 27with foreign cosmographers and exchanged letters with them and with other foreign scholars. in london he found and copied rare manuscripts in lord lumley’s “stately library”; had access to the queen’s privy gallery at westminster; and to a rich cabinet of curiosities brought home by travellers. he sought english sea-captains upon their return to port and had informing interviews with them about their adventures. some brought him tales from spain about the natives of florida. once he travelled two hundred miles on horseback to interview one thomas butts, then the only survivor of a disastrous english voyage to newfoundland in 1536.
the initial volume was completed after his final return to england at the end of his term with the french embassy. its publication was a distinct event in english letters. the lofty motives that impelled him to the production of the enlarged edition in three volumes he details in his picturesquely phrased “epistle dedicatorie” to lord charles howard, prefixed to volume one.
“right honourable and my very good lord,” he here writes, “after i had long since published in print many navigations and discoveries of strangers in divers languages, as well here at london as in the city of paris during my five years abode in france with the worthy knight, sir edward stafford, your brother-in-law, his majesty’s most prudent and careful ambassador ligier with the french king; and had waded on still further and further in the sweet study of the history 28of cosmography, i began at length to conceive that with diligent observation, something might be gathered which might commend our nation for their high courage and singular activity in the search and discovery of the most unknown quarters of the world.... the ardent love of my country devoured all difficulties, and, as it were, with a sharp goad provoked me and thrust me forward into this troublesome and painful action. and after great charges and infinite cares, after many watchings, toils, and travels, and wearying out of my weak body, at length i have collected three several volumes of the english navigations, traffics, and discoveries to strange, remote, and far distant countries. which work of mine i have not included with the compass of things duly done in these later days, as though little or nothing worthy of memory had been performed in former ages, but mounting aloft by the space of many hundred years, have brought to light many very rare and worthy monuments which long have lain miserably scattered in musty corners and wretchedly hidden in misty darkness, and were very like for the greatest part to have been buried in perpetual oblivion.”
in his preface to the same volume, addressed to the “friendly reader,” he further emphasizes this point with the quaintly fashioned statement that in bringing these “antiquities smothered and buried in dark silence” to light, he has incorporated “into one body the torn and scattered limbs of our ancient and late navigations by sea, our voyages by land, and traffic of 29merchandise by both,” and restored “each particular member being before displaced, to their true joints and ligaments.” in other words, by the help of geography and chronology, which he terms “the sun and the moon, the right eye and the left of all history,” he has “referred each particular relation to the due time and space.” he narrates again in this preface the toils that have been involved in bringing his work into this “homely and rough-hewn shape.” “what restless nights,” he exclaims, “what painful days, what heat, what cold i have endured; how many long and chargeable journeys i travelled: how many famous libraries i have searched into; what variety of ancient and modern writers i have perused; what a number of old records, patents, privileges, letters, etc., i have redeemed from obscurity and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance i have entered; what expenses i have not spared; and yet what fair opportunities of private gain, preferment, and ease i have neglected!” yet, “howbeit, the honour and benefit of this commonweal wherein i live and breathe, hath made all difficulties seem easy, all pains and industry pleasant, and all expenses of light value and moment unto me.”
here speaks the true scholar and the genuine patriot.
in 1585, while he was yet in france, ecclesiastical preferment came to hakluyt, the reversion of the next prebendal stall that should become vacant being that year secured to him by queen elizabeth’s mandate; and the following year, upon the death of its incumbent, he took possession of the first stall in the cathedral 30of bristol, although he did not give up his chaplaincy at the british embassy and finally return to england till 1588. in the spring of 1590 he was instituted to the rectory of wetteringsett cum blochford, in the county of suffolk. in 1602 he became prebendary of westminster. in 1612 he obtained the rectory of gedney in lincolnshire. he married about the year 1594, when occupying the wetteringsett rectory.
these various clerical duties were apparently not exacting. at all events they did not interrupt the steady prosecution of his work of historical research and publication, nor abate a jot of his ardour for the advancement of american colonization. in his latter years he gathered around him a group of young men whom he inspired further to pursue or continue the work to which he had practically devoted his life. at his suggestion and through his friendly encouragement translations by various hands of standard works on africa, china, and other little known parts, were then brought out. his own final publications were dated from westminster.
he died presumably in his apartment at westminster, on the twenty-third day of november, 1616, seven months after shakspere. his burial place was in st. peter’s church, westminster abbey, but no inscription marks his grave.
he left a fair estate, comprising “the manor house of bridge place” and several houses in westminster. this estate passed to his only son, edmund hakluyt, a trinity college man, who, we are told, had not the 31prudence to keep it, but dispersed it through usurers’ and sheriffs’ hands.
like raleigh, hakluyt never came to america, although more than once planning to make the voyage. with the permanent colonization of virginia at last achieved, he was offered the living of jamestown; but in place of himself he supplied it with a curate.
equally with raleigh he shares, and is awarded, the title of virtual founder of the english colonies in north america.
