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In witnesse whereof we haue caused these our Letters to be made patents: Witnesse the King at Westminster the sixt day of Ianuarie, in the second yeere of his raigne. The yeere of our Lord 1548. A discourse written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight, to proue a passage by the Northwest to Cathaia, and the East Indies. Capitulo 1.
This was all which was said on that day, but never was explorer more eager than Gilbert. He wrote a "Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cathaia and the East Indies" published without his knowledge by George Gascoigne.
To proue by authoritie a passage to be on the Northside of America, to goe to Cathaia, and the East India.
Narratives of Early Voyages undertaken for the Discovery of a Passage to Cathaia and India by the North-west; with Selections from the Records of the Worshipful Fellowship of the Merchants of London, trading into the East Indies, and from MSS. in the Library of the British Museum, now first published, by Thomas Rundall, Esq.
Being come to 50 degrees of latitude, they found a strait passing to the west, through which they arrived in India, and gave battle to the king of Cathaia, after which they returned to Rome. Whether this story may appear possible or not, true or false, I can only say that I give it as I found it written in the histories of these times.
I haue trauelled 40 daies iourney beyond the said sea, towards the Oriental India, and Cathaia, through diuers deserts and wildernesses, and passed through 5 kingdomes of the Tartars, and all the land of Turkeman and Zagatay, and so to the great citie of Boghar in Bactria; not without great perils and dangers sundry times.
It is reported that the Romans sent an army by sea to India, against the great khan of Cathaia, 200 years before the Incarnation; which, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, and running to the north-west, found ten islands opposite to Cape Finisterre; producing large quantities of tin, which perhaps may have been those afterwards called the Cassiterides.
Item, it is to be had in mind that you use all ways and means possible to learn how men may pass from Russia, either by land or by sea, to Cathaia, and what may be heard of our other ships, and to what knowledge you may come, by conferring with the learned or well- travelled persons, either natural or foreign, such as have travelled from the north to the south.
Before long Gilbert wrote a pamphlet, entitled "A Discourse to Prove a Passage by the Northwest to Cathaia and the East Indies," which was shown by Gascoigne, a friend of Gilbert, to the celebrated mariner Martin Frobisher, and stimulated him to his glorious voyages to the northeast coast of North America.
But it seemeth that God doeth yet still reserue this great enterprise for some great prince to discouer this voyage of Cathaia by this way, which for the bringing of the Spiceries from India into Europe, were the most easy and shortest of all other wayes hitherto found out.
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