HAKLUYT, RICHARD (c. 1553-1616), British geog rapher, was born in or near London about 1553. The Hakluyts were of Welsh extraction, not Dutch as has been supposed. They appear to have settled in Herefordshire as early as the 13th cen tury. The family seat was Eaton, 2 m. S.E. of Leominster. Hugo Hakelute was returned M.P. for that borough in 13o4—o5. Richard went to school at Westminster, where he was a queen's scholar; while there his future bent was determined by a visit to his cousin and namesake, Richard Hakluyt of the Middle Temple. His cousin's discourse, illustrated by "certain bookes of cosmog raphie, an universall mappe, and the Bible," made young Hakluyt resolve to "prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature." He entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 157o, and shortly after taking his M.A. (1577), he began at Oxford the first public lectures in geography that "showed both the old imperfectly composed and the new lately reformed mappes, globes, spheares, and other in struments of this art." Hakluyt's Divers Voyages touching the Discoverie of America (1582) brought him to the notice of Lord Howard of Effingham, and so to that of Sir Edward Stafford, Lord Howard's brother-in law ; accordingly at the age of thirty, being acquainted with "the chiefest captaines at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation," he was selected as chaplain to Stafford, English ambassador at Paris (1583). In accordance with the instructions of Secretary Walsingham, he occupied himself chiefly, in collecting information of the Spanish and French movements, and "making diligent inquirie of such things as might yield any light unto our westerne discoverie in America." The results are embodied in his A particuler discourse concerning Western dis coveries written in the yere 1584, by Richarde Hackluyt of Ox forde, at the requeste and direction of the righte worship f ull Mr. iV alter Raghly before the comynge home of his twoo barkes. This long-lost ms. was at last printed in 1877. Its object was to recommend the enterprise of planting the English race in the un settled parts of North America. Hakluyt's other works consist mainly of translations and compilations. He revisited England in 1584, laid before Queen Elizabeth a copy of the Discourse "along with one in Latin upon Aristotle's Politicks," and obtained, two days before his return to Paris, the grant of the next vacant prebend at Bristol, to which he was admitted in 1586 and held with his other preferments till his death.
While in Paris Hakluyt translated the ms. journal of Laudon niere, the Histoire notable de la Florida, as A notable historie containing foure voyages made by certayne French captaynes in to Florida (London, 1587, 4to.). De orbe novo Petri Martyris Anglerii decades octo illustratae labore et industria Richardi Hackluyti (Paris, 1588) contains the exceedingly rare copper plate map dedicated to Hakluyt and signed F. G. (supposed to be Francis Gualle) ; it is the first on which the name of "Vir ginia" appears.
In 1588 Hakluyt finally returned to England, after a residence in France of nearly five years. In 1589 he published the first edition of his chief work, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (fol., London, 1 vol.) . In the preface to this we have the announcement of the intended pub lication of the first terrestrial globe made in England by Moly neux. In 1598-1600 appeared the final, reconstructed and greatly enlarged edition of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Tra ffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (fol., 3 vols.) . Some few copies contain an exceedingly rare map, the first on the Mercator projection made in England according to the true prin ciples laid down by Edward Wright. Hakluyt's invaluable col lection has been truly called the "prose epic of the modern English nation." In 16o1 Hakluyt edited a translation from the Portu guese of Antonio Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (4to., London). In the same year his name occurs as an adviser to the East India Company, supplying them with maps, and informing them as to markets. Hakluyt received many preferments : a Suffolk rectory, the archdeaconry of Westminster, a chaplaincy at the Savoy, the prospective living of Jamestown, Virginia, and the rectory of Gedney, Lince. He was one of the chief pro moters of the petition to the king for patents to colonize Vir ginia. He was also a leading adventurer in the London or South Virginia Company. His last publication was a translation of Fernando de Soto's discoveries in Florida, entitled Virginia richly valued by the description of Florida her next neighbour (1609) . This work was intended to encourage the young colony of Virginia; to Hakluyt, it has been said, "England is more indebted for its American possession than to any man of that age." At the sug gestion of Hakluyt, Robert Parke translated Mendoza's History of China (London, 1588-1589) and John Pory made his version of Leo Africanus (A Geographical History of Africa, London, 1600) . Hakluyt died in 1616 (November 23) and was buried in West minster Abbey (November 26) ; by an error in the abbey register his burial is recorded under the year 1626.
A number of his mss., sufficient to form a fourth volume of his col lections of 1598-160o, fell into the hands of Samuel Purchas, who inserted them in an abridged form in his Pilgrimes (1625-26, fol.). Others are preserved at Oxford (Bib. Bod. ms. Seld. B. 8), which consist chiefly of notes gathered from contemporary authors.
Besides the mss. or editions noticed in the text (Divers Voyages (1582) ; Particuler Discourse (1584) ; Laudonniere's Florida (1587) ; Peter Martyr, Decades (1587) ; Principal Navigations (1589 and 1598 1600) reprinted in 8 vols. (1927) ; Galvano's Discoveries (16o1) ; De Soto's Florida record, the Virginia richly valued (5609, etc.) , we may notice the Hakluyt Society's London edition of the Divers Voyages in 185o, the edition of the Particuler Discourse, by Charles Deane in the Collections of the Maine Historical Society (Cambridge, Mass., 187o, with an introduction by Leonard Woods) ; also, among modern issues of the Principal Navigations, those of 5809 (5 vols., with much addi tional matter) , and of 1903-05 (Glasgow, 12 vols.) . The new title page issued for the first volume of the final edition of the Principal Navigations, in 1599, merely cancelled the former 1598 title with its reference to the Cadiz expedition of 1596 ; but from this has arisen the mistaken supposition that a new edition was then (i 599) published. Hakluyt's Galvano was edited for the Hakluyt Society by Admiral C. R. D. Bethune in 1862. This Society, which was founded in 1846 for printing rare and unpublished voyages and travels, includes the Glas gow edition of the Principal Navigations in its extra series, as well as C. R. Beazley's edition of Carpini, Rubruquis, and other mediaeval texts from Hakluyt (Cambridge, 1903, i vol.). Reckoning in these and an issue of Purchas's Pilgrimes by the Glasgow publisher of the Hak luyt of 1903-05, the society has now published or "fathered" i5o vols. See also Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America, being Select Narratives from the Principal Navigations, by E. J. Payne (Oxford, 188o ; 1893 ; new edition by C. R. Beazley, i 907) .
For Hakluyt's life the dedications of the 1 589 and 1 598 editions of the Principal Navigations should be especially consulted; also Winter Jones's introduction to the Hakluyt Society edition of the Divers Voyages; Fuller's Worthies of England, "Herefordshire" ; Oxford Univ. Reg. (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii., iii. 39; Historical MSS. Commission, 4th report, appendix, p. 614, the last giving us the Towneley mss. referring to payments (prizes?) awarded to Hakluyt when at Oxford, May lath and June 4th,