they haue, vnlesse they bee occupied in this or some other the like
expedition. And to this ende and purpose giue me leaue (I beseech you) to
impart this occurrent to your honourable and prouident consideration: that
in the yere one thousand fiue hundred eighty and seuen, when I had caused
the foure voyages of Ribault, Laudonniere, and Gourges to Florida, at mine
owne charges to bee printed in Paris, which by the malice of some too much
affectioned to the Spanish faction, had bene aboue twentie yeeres
suppressed, as soone as that booke came to the view of that reuerend and
prudent Counseller Monsieur Harlac the lord chiefe Iustice of France, and
certaine other of the wisest Iudges, in great choler they asked, who had
done such intolerable wrong to their whole kingdome, as to haue concealed
that woorthie worke so long? Protesting further, that if their Kings and
the Estate had throughly followed that action, France had bene freed of
their long ciuill warres, and the variable humours of all sortes of people
might haue had very ample and manifold occasions of good and honest
emploiment abroad in that large and fruitfull Continent of the West Indies.
The application of which sentence vnto our selues I here omit, hastening
vnto the summarie recapitulation of other matters contained in this worke.
It may please your Honour therefore to vnderstand, that the second part of
this first Treatise containeth our auncient trade and traffique with
English shipping to the Ilands of Sicilie, Candie, and Sio, which, by good
warrant herein alleaged, I find to haue bene begun in the yeere 1511. and
to haue continued vntill the yeere 1552. and somewhat longer. But shortly
after (as it seemeth) it was intermitted, or rather giuen ouer (as is noted
in master Gaspar Campions discreet letters to Master Michael Lock and
Master William Winter inserted in this booke) first by occasion of the
Turkes expelling of the foure and twentie Mauneses or gouernours of the
Genouois out of the Ile of Sio, and by taking of the sayd Iland wholie into
his owne hand in Aprill, 1566. sending thither Piali Basha with fourescore
gallies for that purpose; and afterward by his growing ouer mightie and