Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A book of American explorers

Thus we shipped five savages, two canoes, with all their bows and arrows. .. Tuesday, the 11th of June, we passed up into the river¹ with our ship about six and twenty miles, of which I had rather not write than by my relation to detract from the worthiness thereof. . . .

As we passed with a gentle wind up with our ship in this river, any man may conceive with what admiration we all consented² in joy. Many of our company who had been travellers in sundry countries, and in the most famous rivers, yet affirmed them not comparable to this they now beheld. Some that were with Sir Walter Raleigh in his voyage to Guiana, in the discovery of the River Orenoque,³ which echoed fame to the world's ears, gave reasons why it was not to be compared with this, which wanteth the danger of many shoals and broken ground, wherewith that was encumbered. Others before that notable river in the West Indies called Rio Grande; some before the River of Loire, the River Seine, and of Bourdeaux, in France, which, although they be great and goodly rivers, yet it is no detraction from them to be accounted inferior to this, which not only yieldeth all the aforesaid pleasant profits, but also appeareth infallibly to us free from all inconveniences.

I will not prefer it before our River of Thames, because it is England's richest treasure; but we all did wish those excellent harbors, good deeps in a continual convenient breadth, and small tide-gates, to be as well therein for our country's good as we found them here