Hakluyt, Rev. Richard, a celebrated naval historian, born about 1555, brought up at Westminster School, and graduated A. B. at Christ Church College, Oxford, February 19, 1573; M. A. June 27, 1577. His interest in navigation was early excited by the example and teaching of his cousin Richard Hakluyt, Sr., and he devoted himself to the study of geography and collecting and publishing the accounts of travels and discoveries. In 1582 appeared his "Divers Voyages;" in 1584 he wrote his "Discourse on Western Planting" for Raleigh, in which he pictured the advantage of an English settlement in America; in 1586 he caused the journals of Ribault and others to be published; in 1587 he published an improved edition of Peter Martyr's work, "De Orbe Novo," after wards translated in English and published under the title of "The Historie of the West Indies;" in 1588 he applied himself to his greatest work, "Principal Navigations," which he published in 1589; and shortly after he issued a second edition. In 1601 he published a translation of Antonio Galvano's "History of Discoveries," and in 1609 a translation of Ferdinand De Soto's "Description of Florida." During this time he filled many offices. He was appointed at a very early age to read public lectures at Oxford upon cosmography; in 1582-83 he was chaplain of the English embassy at Paris, where he remained five years; during his absence he was appointed rector of Wetheringset in Suffolk. He took great interest in the colonization of Virginia, and was one of the four incorporators mentioned by name in the patent granted to the Virginia Company of London in 1606. On the recommendation of Dr. Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, the post of minister at Jamestown was offered to him, but he declined in favor of Robert Hunt. Hackluyt died at Eton in Hertfordshire in November, 1606, and was buried among the illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey. No man did more for the English occupation of America, since by his numerous works he fired the imagination of the nation and inspired the navigators with the zeal of crusaders to whom no sea or enterprise, however hazardous, had any terrors.
