East Indies: February 1553 | British History Online

Calendar of State Papers Colonial, East Indies, China and Japan, Volume 2, 1513-1616. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1864.

Citation:

'East Indies: February 1553', in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, East Indies, China and Japan, Volume 2, 1513-1616, ed. W Noel Sainsbury( London, 1864), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/east-indies-china-japan/vol2/p3 [accessed 29 November 2024].

February 1553



1553 Feb. 14.	3. “Letters missive which the Right Noble Prince Edward the Sixth sent to the kings, princes, and other potentates inhabiting the north–east parts of the world, toward the mighty empire of Cathay, at such time as Sir Hugh Willoughby, Knight, and Richard Chancelor, with their company attempted their voyage thither.” The King having licensed Sir Hugh Willoughby and others to take a voyage by sea into far countries to them heretofore unknown “as well to seek such things as we lack, as also to carry unto them from our regions such things as they lack,” desires “you Kings and Princes, and all others to whom there is any power on the earth,” to permit those his servants free passage through their dominions, “for they shall not touch anything of yours unwilling unto you. Consider you that they also are men;” and to entertain them with the same humanity and favour that those Princes would like shown towards their subjects if at any time they should pass through His Majesty’s dominions, which the King promises to do. [Three pages and a half. Domestic, Eliz., Vol. CXCVI., pp. 60–62. Copy made in 1668, probably for Sir Jos. Williamson. Printed in Hakluyt, I., 257–8, in Latin and English., who adds that this letter was written also in Greek and divers other languages.]