Castilla del Oro, and the villages upon the rivers of Cenu and Chagre;
Peru hath, besides those, and besides the magnificent cities of Quito
and Lima, so many islands, ports, cities, and mines as if I should name
them with the rest it would seem incredible to the reader. Of all which,
because I have written a particular treatise of the West Indies, I will
omit the repetition at this time, seeing that in the said treatise I
have anatomized the rest of the sea towns as well of Nicaragua, Yucatan,
Nueva Espana, and the islands, as those of the inland, and by what means
they may be best invaded, as far as any mean judgment may comprehend.

But I hope it shall appear that there is a way found to answer every
man's longing; a better Indies for her Majesty than the king of Spain
hath any; which if it shall please her Highness to undertake, I shall
most willingly end the rest of my days in following the same. If it be
left to the spoil and sackage of common persons, if the love and service
of so many nations be despised, so great riches and so mighty an empire
refused; I hope her Majesty will yet take my humble desire and my labour
therein in gracious part, which, if it had not been in respect of
her Highness' future honour and riches, could have laid hands on and
ransomed many of the kings and caciqui of the country, and have had a
reasonable proportion of gold for their redemption. But I have chosen
rather to bear the burden of poverty than reproach; and rather to endure
a second travail, and the chances thereof, than to have defaced an
enterprise of so great assurance, until I knew whether it pleased God
to put a disposition in her princely and royal heart either to follow
or forslow (neglect, decline, lose through sloth) the same. I will
therefore leave it to His ordinance that hath only power in all things;
and do humbly pray that your honours will excuse such errors as, without
the defence of art, overrun in every part the following discourse, in
which I have neither studied phrase, form, nor fashion; that you will be