And Further This Friar Told The King Of Portugal (As He Returned By
That Country Homeward) That There Was Of
Certainty such a passage
north-west from England, and that he meant to publish the same;
which done, the king
Most earnestly desired him not in any wise to
disclose or make the passage known to any nation. For that (said
the king) IF ENGLAND HAD KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE THEREOF, IT WOULD
GREATLY HINDER BOTH THE KING OF SPAIN AND ME. This friar (as Salva
Terra reported) was the greatest discoverer by sea that hath been in
our age. Also Salva Terra, being persuaded of this passage by the
friar Urdaneta, and by the common opinion of the Spaniards
inhabiting America, offered most willingly to accompany me in this
discovery, which of like he would not have done if he had stood in
doubt thereof.
And now, as these modern experiences cannot be impugned, so, least
it might be objected that these things (gathered out of ancient
writers, which wrote so many years past) might serve little to prove
this passage by the north of America, because both America and India
were to them then utterly unknown; to remove this doubt, let this
suffice, that Aristotle (who was 300 years before Christ) named the
Indian Sea. Also Berosus (who lived 330 before Christ) hath these
words, GANGES IN INDIA.
Also in the first chapter of Esther be these words: "In the days of
Ahasuerus, which ruled from India to Ethiopia," which Ahasuerus
lived 580 years before Christ.
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