Richard Hakluyt devoted his life to recording every piece of evidence that could contribute to English participation in the colonization of the New World. He listened to the tales of returning voyagers and repeated them for a broad reading audience. He supported the adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh; he urged England to confront Spain and claim the great rewards of "raysing trades" and other profits that England could have if it applied itself with zeal and purposefulness to colonization. Stern anti-Catholic arguments of Protestant England - the Spanish flinging overboard English prayer books and the like - complemented the political and economic arguments for planting English colonies in the New World.