It was from hence that the very notion of sailing round the earth took rise; and the ingenious Genoese first laid down this system of the world, according to his conception, and then added the proofs derived from experience.

It is much to be deplored that we have not that plan of discovery which the great Christopher Columbus sent over thither by his brother Bartholomew to King Henry VII., for if we had we should certainly find abundance of very curious observations, which might still be useful to mariners: for it appears clearly, from many little circumstances, that he was a person of universal genius, and, until bad usage obliged him to take many precautions, very communicative.
It was from this plan, as it had been communicated to the Portuguese court, that the famous Magellan came to have so just notions of the possibility of sailing by the West to the East Indies; and there was a great deal of theory in the proposal made by that great man to the Emperor Charles V.

Sir Francis Drake was a person of the same genius, and of a like general knowledge; and it is very remarkable that these three great seamen met also with the same fate; by which I mean, that they were constantly pursued by envy while they lived, which hindered so much notice being taken of their discourses and discoveries as they deserved.

But when the experience of succeeding times had verified many of their sayings, which had been considered as vain and empty boastings in their lifetimes, then prosperity began to pay a superstitious regard to whatever could be collected concerning them, and to admire all they delivered as oraculous.

Our other discoverer, Candish, was likewise a man of great parts and great penetration, as well as of great spirit; he had, undoubtedly, a mighty genius for discoveries; but the prevailing notion of those times, that the only way to serve the nation was plundering the Spaniards, seems to have got the better of his desire to find out unknown countries; and made him choose to be known to posterity rather as a gallant privateer than as an able seaman, though in truth he was both.
After these follow Schovten and Le Maire, who were fitted out to make discoveries; and executed their commission with equal capacity and success.