a history of Peru from the discovery of Pizarro to the departure of Gasca. He had access to the best official sources of information, and his work is not without value, though strongly prejudiced. The Historia del descubrimiento y conquista del Peru (The strange and delectable history of the discoverie and conquest of the provinces of Peru) is the foundation of all the subsequent histories of the events to which it refers. This is the first English translation, by Thomas Nicholas, who also translated Francisco López de Gómara’s La conquista de Mexico. Nicholas was employed by the Levant Company in the Canary Islands and spent several years in prison there and in Spain for alleged heresy. On his release and return to England he published his translations of Spanish works which were probably written during his imprisonment. 1582–1600 Richard Hakluyt wrote and published his book, The principal navigations, voyages, and discoveries of the English nation. Hakluyt was a graduate of University of Oxford, where he later lectured on geography. He was a scholar, a collector and a fervent advocate of colonial expansion. Hakluyt sincerely believed that England was obliged to carry the Protestant gospel to the Native American people. To enforce his argument, Hakluyt emphasized the advantages that England would receive if his demand for overseas colonies was met. His first book, Divers voyages touching the discoverie of America, published in 1582, introduced the English-speaking world to the discoveries made in North America by the Cabot's, Verrazano and Ribaut. In 1589, he compiled his principal navigations—this is the second, enlarged edition that was published in the following year. Hakluyt's second edition documents a life devoted to the promotion of English colonization and commerce, through an exploration of the less-known or recently discovered parts of the world. The publication has been called "the prose epic of the modern English nation". The third volume is solely concerned with America and Hakluyt gathered firsthand narratives of exploration for posterity—its importance in relation to English discovery and colonization in America has been stated. 1589 Walter Bigges' is an account of Drake's expedition of 1585–86 against the Spaniards. The king of Spain had laid an embargo on all English ships and goods found in his country, and Elizabeth I had replied by letters of reprisal, and by ordering that a fleet of twenty-five sail be equipped "to revenge the wrongs offered her and to resist