Note 95 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Among the many works whose publication was inspired by Hakluyt, was the issue in 1612 of an English version of the eight Decades of Peter Martyr, translated by Michael Locke, thus laying before the English reader whatever that industrious chronicler had written concerning Sebastian Cabot. The first three Decades, as we have already seen, had been translated by Richard Eden, many years before, and those were now adopted by Locke into his completed version; the work was entitled De Novo Orbe, or the History of the West Indies, etc., London, 1612. It contained a Latin dedication to Sir Julius Cæsar, and an address in English to the reader. The same sheets were also issued with another titlepage without date, and omitting the Latin dedication, and also again in 1628 with a new title, calling the book a second edition. [Copies of either issue are worth from £5 to £10, and even more. Fifty years ago Rich (1832, no. 130) priced one at £1 16s. The text was reprinted in the supplement to the 1809 edition of Hakluyt.—Ed.]