ABSTRACT
In North America, his 'Westerne Atlantis', Richard Hakluyt centred his immediate hopes for the expansion of the English enterprise overseas. John Oxenham, sailing a pinnace off the coast of Darien in 1575, is recorded by Hakluyt in 1589 as the first Englishman to sail a ship in the Pacific. The history of Pacific discovery prior to Drake and Cavendish thus received from Hakluyt, of necessity, a treatment less systematic and more restricted than its importance justified. In Professor Walter Raleigh's view Hakluyt 'speaks somewhat slightingly of Drake's great voyage', showing 'a certain tenderness of conscience with regard to sheer piracy'. When Hakluyt thought himself debarred from including Drake's voyage in the main body of his work, he contented himself instead with that of Cavendish. For his new edition of The principal navigations Hakluyt had the opportunity of much enlarging his material on the Pacific.
