Hauing for the benefit and honour of my Countrey zealously bestowed so many yeres, so much trauaile and cost, to bring Antiquities smothered and buried in darke silence, to light, and to preserue certaine memorable exploits of late yeres by our English nation atchieued, from the greedy and deuouring lawes of obliuion: to gather likewise, and as it were to incorporate into one body the torne and scattered limmes of our ancient and late Nauigations by Sea, our voyages by land, and traffiques of merchandise by both: and hauing (so much as in me lieth) restored ech particular member, being before displaced, to their true ioynts and ligaments; I meane, by the helpe of Geographie and Chronologie (which I may call the Sunne and the Moone, the right eye and the left of all history) referred ech particular relation to the due time and place: I do this second time (friendly Reader, if not to satisfie, yet at least for the present to allay and hold in suspense thine expectation) presume to offer vnto thy view this first part of my threefold discourse. For the bringing of which into this homely and rough-hewen shape, which here thou seest; what restlesse nights, what painefull dayes, what heat, what cold I haue indured; how many long & chargeable iourneys I haue trauailed; how many famous libraries I haue searched into; what varietie of ancient and moderne writers I haue perused; what a number of old records, patents, priuleges, letters, &c. I haue redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I haue entered; what expenses I haue not spared; and yet what faire opportunities of priuate game, preferment, and ease I haue neglected; albeit thyselfe canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do finde & feele, and some of my entier friends can sufficiently testifie. Howbeit (as I told thee at the first) the honour and benefit of this common weale wherein I liue and breathe, hath made all difficulties seeme easie, all paines and industrie pleasant and all expenses of light value and moment vnto me.