TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL AND MOST VERTUOUS GENTLEMAN MASTER PHILLIP SYDNEY, ESQUIRE

Summary

I 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 But againe, when I consider that there is a time for all men, and see the Portingales time to be out of date, and that the nakednesse of the Spaniards and their long hidden secretes are nowe at length espied, whereby they went about to delude the worlde, I conceiue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.