Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/259

 where the citie may bee newe built on a certaine plaine ground which lieth at the foot of certaine mountaines, which bee not very high; and in this place there runne three little riuers of fresh water very sweete and good, and here is good arable ground to till and to sow Maiz and other kinds of graine. Also in this circuite there are great stones to make lyme, and these stones must needes prooue very good as I doe thinke, but we neuer had any triall thereof.

This harbour hath all things necessary to builde a citie, where your maiestie may haue your armies and fleetes of shippes to ride at anker in safetie without danger of loosing: and it is a very healthful countrey, and where the citie shall be builded it is all stony ground: and forasmuch as the raine water which doth fall from the mountaines may doe hurt vnto the citie, there at the foote of the mountaine wee will make a great pond to receiue in all the water which doth fall from the mountaines, and so from thence to goe into the sea, as more at large your maiestie may see by my platforme.

If it would pleaae your maiestie, it were good that the citie of Nombre de Dios might bee brought and builded in this harbour: it would not bee very chargeable vnto the citizens by reason that all their houses are made of timber, and they may benefite themselues with the same againe, and likewise with the tyles of their houses: the greatest charge will be to land timber and to cut downe the mountaine of wood.

If it please your maiestie that the sayd citie of Nombre de Dios should bee builded in this harbour the first thing which must be finished is to make vp this high way, and so to pull downe the Church which is in Nombre de Dios, and the Contraction house, and so newe build it in this harbour: and then to command all the fleetes of shippes from time to time to come and vnlade their goods in this said Puerto Bello: And that those marchants and factors of Spaine which are lygers in Panama and Nombre de Dios shall come to this harbour and builde anew their warehouses for receiuing of their goods. So by these meanes in short time it will be greatly inhabited with people: also the fleete shall not passe so many dangers as they dayly doe in Nombre de Dios: neither will there so many people die as there dayly doe in Nombre de Dios: and the cause thereof is, that those labouring men which doe vse to vnlade those marchandize, are all the whole day wading in the water vp to the armepits to bring the packs of cloth