Lincoln's Briefs

by Wayne, Michael

  There were two Richard Hakluyts.

  XXI

  There were two Richard Hakluyts. Richard Hakluyt the elder, to use the name given him by historians, was born sometime during the 1530s to a prominent landowning family in Herefordshire. In 1555 he moved to London to pursue a career in law, settling in as a student at the Middle Temple. Although for much of the rest of his life he remained a practicing lawyer, he is best known for the role he played in encouraging English trade and exploration. He amassed a vast collection of original documents relating to overseas ventures and collaborated with many of England’s leading figures involved in attempts to found colonies in North America.

  He is significant to us, however, because of the formative influence he had on the career path of his more famous cousin of the same name. Richard Hakluyt the younger, whose family origins also traced back to Herefordshire, was born in 1552 in London. The defining moment of his life appears to have been a visit to his cousin at the Inns of Court in 1568 when he found “lying upon his board certain books of cosmography with a universal map …” It spurred an undying interest in foreign exploration, and when he became a student at Christ Church, Oxford, he read everything he could find on the subject, including, or so he later claimed, works in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

  Although he took holy orders and eventually rose to a position of some standing in the Anglican Church, his principal passion became the advancement of English interests overseas, especially westward, across the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, his two vocations were closely linked, since he believed that the Spanish, champions of Catholicism, were “dragons and infidells” and that Spanish settlement in the Americas represented a grave danger to the advancement and ultimate triumph of English liberty. He further believed that God had designated the English monarch as guardian of His interests and that the destiny of humankind would be determined on the shores of the New World. “The people of America,” he wrote, “crye oute unto us their nexte neighboures to come and helpe them, and bringe unto them the gladd tidinges of the gospell.”

  Hakluyt knew and advised the celebrated English explorers of his age—Frobisher, Drake, Gilbert, Hudson—and he played a key role in the development of several ambitious schemes to establish settlements in North America. It was his writing, however, for which he was and is best known. Drawing on letters and records collected by his cousin, as well as journals from merchant companies, interviews he himself conducted with individuals involved in overseas expeditions, and official documents obtained through his connections at the royal court, he published, in 1582, Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America, asserting the right and necessity for Englishmen to plant the cross of St. George on American soil:

  I consider that there is a time for all men, and see the Portingales time to be out of date, and that the nakedness of the Spaniardes, and their long-hidden secretes are now at length espied, and whereby they went about to delude the worlde, I conceive greate hope, that the time approcheth and nowe is, that we of England may share and part stakes (if we will our selves) both with the Spaniarde and the Portingale in part of America, and other regions as yet undiscovered. And surely if there were in us that desire to advance the honour of our Countrie, which ought to be in every good man, we would not all this while have foreslown the possessing of those lands which of equitie and right appertain unto us …

  Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America secured him the patronage of the Lord Admiral, which in turn led to his appointment, in 1583, as chaplain to the English ambassador to France. While in Paris he collected extensive documentation on Portuguese, Spanish, and French exploration and began writing the work that, with justice, he came to regard as the crowning achievement of his life: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation made by sea or over land to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compass of these 1500 yeares. Published first in 1589 and then, in considerably expanded form, a decade later, The Principal Navigations—the “prose epic of the modern English nation,” in the judgment of one distinguished scholar—was a compilation, with English translation where necessary, of a vast array of letters, travel accounts, and official records chronicling English exploration and colonization over the centuries. Hakluyt himself did not shrink from making readers aware of his devotion to the cause he sought to serve. As he explained in the preface:

  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 have indured; how many long & chargeable journeys I have traveiled; how many famous libraries I have searched into; what varietie of ancient and moderne writers I have perused; what a number of old records, patents, privileges, letters, & c. I have redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I have entred; what expenses I have not spared; and yet what faire opportunities of private gaine, preferment, and ease I have neglected; albeit thy selfe canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do finde & feele, and some of my entier friends can sufficiently testifie. Howbeit the honour and benefit of this Common weale wherein I live and breathe, hath made all difficulties seeme easie, all paines and industrie pleasant, and all expenses of light value and moment unto me.

  Queen Elizabeth I read the writings of Richard Hakluyt the younger with enjoyment and greatly respected his opinions on the New World and its inhabitants. So did Yale Templeton’s mother, both in the days when, as a young woman in Toronto, she liked to imagine herself as Elizabeth I surrounded by admiring courtiers, and years later, after her only son had graduated from university and left home, when she finally and completely lost the ability to distinguish between her fantasy and reality. And so when a series of pictures arrived from Canada depicting what she took to be one of her devoted subjects caught in the most extraordinary and disturbing of circumstances, she concluded that her only recourse was to summon Richard Hakluyt for advice. Unable, however, to remember his current place of abode—a sad reminder of her advancing age, she told herself—she decided to put a notice in the Help Wanted sections of the major London newspapers as well as the Hereford Times (taking care to reveal as little as possible about her intentions so as not to arouse the suspicion of the Spaniardes or Portingales):

  I request a meeting, at the earliest convenience, with Richard Hakluyt the younger to draw on the extensive knowledge he has accumulated over the past many years in service both to myself and to the realm.

  And she signed it simply “E.R.”

  Responses began to arrive within days. She heard from Richard Hakluyt, “Cardiff’s most trusted plumber since 1955,” who heralded his “new no-dig technology” and promised twenty-four-hour service; she heard from Richard Hakluyt, DPodM, SRCh, MchS, FCPodS, a Shropshire podiatrist specializing in bunion and hammertoe surgery; she heard from Richard Hakluyt, second-story man (“free estimates and no overtime”), who alas would be unavoidably detained for the next two to four years, although he might be reached by post at Dartmoor Prison; she heard from RichardHakluyt.com who promised astonishing results from new non-surgical techniques in penis enlargement and offered Viagra, Sanoma, and Phentermine at “shockingly low” prices; and she heard from Melvin Garfinkle, a life insurance salesman from Golders Green. However, in the end she decided to place her trust in Richard Hakluyt the younger, rector of Wetheringsett, author of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation made by sea or over land to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compass of these 1500 yeares. “I am readie, as ever,” he wrote, “to perform such deedes as Your Majestie may think best to advance the honour and benefit of this Common weale wherein I live and breathe.”

  XXII

  He arrived on horseback, dressed, as one might expect, in the rather dismal attire of a sixteenth-century Church of England cleric. On being admitted to her presence he dropped to one knee and bowed his head, t
ill she did bade him rise. He then made her a gift of one of his earliest pamphlets, “A particular discourse concerning western discoveries,” as well as a signed copy, in which he had penned a lengthy dedication, of a recent disquisition he had written on the political philosophy of ancient Greece.

  She thanked him with the graciousness for which she believed she was admired throughout the land and made known to him the great indebtedness she felt for all the many services he had performed on behalf of the realm. She then explained the circumstances that had prompted her to seek his advice and spread before him the disturbing pictures that she had received from Canada. There were a total of nine: four in which Bobbi Jo Jackson was entirely naked except for the Nazi storm trooper’s cap and spiked collar, three in which she no longer had on even the cap, and two in which her face was smeared in shoe polish, her platinum hair pulled back in pigtails. In the first seven pictures Yale Templeton was attired in nothing except simulated whipped cream and a bewildered look. In the last two he had on, in addition, a stovepipe hat, a beard, and assorted jams and jellies.

  “Of all my courtiers, I do believe he is my favourite,” she confided. “Even more so than Essex. I have come to think of him almost as a son, and he to address me as his mother.” And a tear rolled from her eye, stopping to rest on the circular layer of bright red rouge that protruded from the white chalkiness of her cheek.

  He studied the images for several minutes and then asked, “And thou sayst that these were sente from Canada, Your Majestie?”

  “Indeed,” she replied, showing him the envelope. “It is a most fearsome beast pictured on the postmark, is it not?”

  “A moos or moosh, the natives do call it. They worshipe it as a god.”

  “How extraordinary!”

  “And was there no letter?” he asked.

  “A brief note,” she admitted, “although I confess, I am almost loath to show it to you, it has so sorely confounded me.” But putting aside her reservations, she crossed the floor to her writing desk and retrieved a piece of paper, which she handed to him. It read:

  My Dear Mother,

  I thought you might adjudge these pictures to be of some interest. I trust they find you in good health.

  With filial devotion,

  Y.

  P.S. I am the one on the bottom.

  Richard Hakluyt read the note several times, turned it around and upside down, held it in front of one of the sconces on the wall to see if perhaps some secret message would reveal itself on exposure to candlelight, read it once more, and then commented, “Most curious. Written, perhaps under duress. Might I inquire how it is that thy servant Y. came to be in Canada?”

  “Although I expressed deep misgivings about it at the time, he chose to cross the seas to take up a position as a teacher.”

  “To educate the Savages?!”

  “Yes. Precisely.”

  “How remarkable! What a man of courage and depe conviction he must be.”

  “Indeed. He traces his ancestry back to the noblest and most honoured families of Cambridgeshire.”

  “‘Tis odd that our paths have not crossed. Wouldst thou be soe kinde as to allow me to retaine the letter for the nonce. I shoulde like to showe it to severall former associates of mine at Oxford who have a genius for the deciphering of secrete scripte.”

  She thought for a moment, then replied, “By all means.” And he slipped the note into the pocket of his jacket.

  “Nowe, as to the images,” he commented, “I can, I beleve, make some preliminary judgments, albeit I think twoulde be best if Your Majestie were to allow me to examine them at my lesure. I shoulde like to review some writings I collected during my yeares in Paris, in particular Voyage Au Canada by the French explorer Cartier.”

  “Of course.”

  Then setting aside the final two photographs, the ones in which Bobbi Jo Jackson appeared in shoe polish, he continued: “Here we see Y. with a typicall Savage of the Americas. Nowe, we learne from De Orbe Novo by the greate Florentine humanist Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, tutor at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, that there are founde in the New Worlde two types of native peoples: those who are friendly, of which the Arawaks of Hispaniola may serve as an example, and those who are hostile and unlovely, such as the Cannibals. It shalbe necessary for us to determine whether the Savages who have captured Y. be friendly or unfriendly.”

  “Why, Cannibals, surely! The female in the image is wearing nothing save a collar.”

  “Sadly ’tis the way of most peoples who have not yet receved the worde of our Saviour.”

  She shook her head.

  “Be not discouraged, Your Majestie. If the Savages are friendly, it shalbe possible for us to showe them the benefitt of gentle English governance and bringe them the healing balme of the gospell.”

  “A very comforting thought, indeed.”

  “Truly.”

  “And what of those other images?” she asked, pointing to the photographs Hakluyt had earlier set aside.

  “Yes, very interesting. Very interesting,” he replied. “The Portingales, of course, have solde Africans to the Spaniardes in Hispaniola and to the other Spanish colonies in the West Indies, although I have neither heard nor seen any reporte of Africans arriving at the shores of Canada.”

  “I have heard barbaric tales of the blacks,” she said in a whisper. “That they are a people of beastly living, without a god, law, religion, or commonwealth. That they mutilate their own bodies with knives and take part in human sacrifice. I have even heard it said that their females …” and here she discreetly averted her gaze “… engage in behaviour of a sort so indecent that I dare not speak its name.”

  “’Tis true, as thou sayst, that Africans live a primitive existence, without Christe or manner of civilization. Howbeit they may yet prove to be of service to us.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I am thinking here of the Symerones, Your Majestie.”

  “You mean the escaped slaves that Sir Francis Drake encountered on his last voyage to the Americas?”

  “Nere the towne of Panama, yes. The Symerones are a people detesting the proude governance of the Spaniardes and shal easily be transported by Drake or others of our nation to the Northwest Passage, and there may be planted by hundreds or thousands, how many as we shal require. And placing over them good English captens, and maintayning in the bayes of the Northwest Passage a good navie, there is no doubt but that we shal gaine entrie to all the riches of Cathay.”

  “But surely the Africans would perish if sent to the extremities of the New World.”

  “The Spaniarde, bothe for his breeding in a hote region and for his delicacie in dyett and lodging, shal not be able to endure in the coldness of the North. But the Symeron, although borne in a hote region, hath been bredde as a slave, in all toyle farre from delicacie. He shalbe able to endure the climate, and think him selfe a happy man when he shal finde him selfe plentifully fed, warmly clothed, and well lodged and by our nation made free from the tyrannous Spaniarde, and quietly and courteously governed.”

  She sat silently contemplating the possibilities, so extraordinary one might have thought that they had been invented by a fabulist.

  “But to return to the images, Your Majestie,” he said, drawing her back to the purpose for which she had summoned him, “permitt me to offer some speculation.”

  “I would very much appreciate it.”

  “It doth appere that, in all probabilitie, Y. hath been taken captive by a bande of Savages in league with escaped African slaves.”

  “It was what I feared,” she admitted.

  “Nowe if the Savages are Cannibals, I think we may conclude that even as we speake, they have made of him a very tastie meale.”

  She moaned softly, then quickly collected herself, mindful of her responsibility to keep a brave face in the presence of her subjects.

  “And, of course, shoulde the Savages and Africans be in the service of the Spaniardes …” he continued, “Well then
I woulde not wish to contemplate the hideous tortures that Y. hath endured.”

  She took a long, deep breath.

  “Allow me but a fortnight to examine the images and seek counsell on the secrete meaning of the missive. Then I shal return and make a full report.”

  “Go with my blessing,” she replied, her heart now very heavy.

  “Your Majestie,” he said, bowing, then taking his leave, after which she retired to her throne, removed her crown, and in the privacy of her thoughts, shed a single tear.

  XXIII

  The moose’s heaviness and lack of grace have sometimes given him the reputation of being stupid. But the moose belongs to one of the oldest families in the animal kingdom, and it is by intelligence rather than by stupidity that the family has been able to survive the changes of climate, the attacks of predatory animals, and all the other vicissitudes of the countless ages since the moose first appeared on the continent.

  SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK

  When we last saw the Great White Moose, he was, like Stephen Leacock’s memorable Lord Ronald, tearing “madly off in all directions.” That was some years ago, and since then he has travelled many kilometres and had adventures too numerous and sometimes too unseemly to mention. The Glidden Cold Weather Exterior Latex Flat Winter White that Joseph Brant Lookalike sprayed on him has dulled to a shade of ivory and picked up mud and burrs, and there are brown patches here and there where his fur has been torn away in encounters with branches, thorns, rocks, and on one notable occasion—an example of those unseemly instances I mentioned a moment ago—a nearsighted porcupine. But on the whole, he looks remarkably similar to the way he did on the day he was resurrected (if I might use that heavily weighted term) as the Great White Moose.