ABSTRACT
William Bourne spoke of himself as a gunner, and it was as a gunner that Gabriel Harvey commended him; nevertheless it is by his services to navigation that he deservesrecognition to-day. His simple manual, A Regiment for the Sea, was re-edited or reprinted at least ten times, I and was even translated into Dutch, although the Dutch were reckoned in the sixteenth century to be our masters in navigation techniques. His Regiment or Rule for the Sea contained the substance ofthe earlier Rules, some of them repeated verbatim, but in style and format, as well as in its enlarged content it is decidedly an improvement on its predecessor. Not only was the author now more confident and more mature, he had secured an unusually excellent printerpublisher in the person ofThomas Hacket. Hacket (or Haquet) was an immigrant Frenchman who had come over from Normandy in 1534 and established himselfas a printer and stationer near the Royal Exchange. He produced an attractive and wellset title-page for the first edition ofBourne's book, and adorned it with an interesting woodcut ofa sea astrolabe. On the verso of the page there was the woodcut portrait of a ship which is undoubtedly the Lord High Admiral's flagship, for it carries his standard,s It was to Admiral Lord Clinton, recently created Earl of Lincoln, that the work was dedicated by his 'poore
lIS
servant', as Bourne describeshimself And this can be no figure of speech for he writes, 'all my labours be due unto your honorable Lordship.' It may be inferred that he was in some way attached to the Earl's household, whether salaried or no. It is, however, often necessary to allow for verbal exaggerations in his mode of writing, as when he terms his book not only 'simple' (as it was intended to be) but 'barbarous'. This, however, was in accordance with the custom ofhis day.
