must acknowledge, that more matter and substance could in no wise be
comprised in so little a roome. [Footnote: The poem here alluded to was
written between 1416 and 1438, as appears from the lines:

"For Sigismond, the great Emperour
Wich yet reigneth, when he was in this land
With King Henryy the fifth" etc.

Sigismund died in 1438, and visited England in 1416.] And notwithstanding
(as I said) his stile be vnpolished, and his phrases somewhat out of vse,
yet, so neere as the written copies would giue me leaue, I haue most
religiously without alteration obserued the same, thinking it farre more
conuenient that himselfe should speake, then that I should bee his
spokesman, and that the Readers should enioy his true verses, then mine or
any other mans fained prose.

Next after the conclusion of the last mentioned discourse, the Reader may
in some sort take a vieu of our state of merchandise vnder K. Edward the
fourth, as likewise of the establishing of an English company in the
Netherlands, and of all the discreet prouisoes, iust ordinations, &
gratious priuileges conteined in the large Charter which was granted for
the same purpose.

Now besides our voyages and trades of late yeeres to the North and
Northeast regions of the world, and our ancient traffique also to those
parts; I haue not bene vnmindefull (so farre as the histories of England
and of other Countreys would giue me direction) to place in the fore-front
of this booke those forren conquests, exploits, and trauels of our English
nation, which haue bene atchieued of old. Where in the first place (as I am
credibly informed out of Galfridas Monumetensis, and out of M. Lambert his