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A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY

I

OF

VOYAGES INTO THE ARCTIC REGIONS;

UNDERTAKEN CHIEFLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF

DISCOVERING A NORTH-EAST, NORTH-WEST,

OR

POLAR PASSAGE

BETWEEN THE

ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC:

TBOM THE EARLIEST PERIODS OF SCANDINATIAN NAVIGATION, TO THE

DEPARTURE OF THE

RECENT EXPEDITIONS,

UNDER THE ORDERS OF

CAPTAINS ROSS AND BUCHAN.

" How shall I admire your heroicke courage, ye marine worthies, beyond all names of worthiness ! that neyther dread so long eyther presence or absence of the suune ; nor those foggy mysts, tempestuous winds, cold blasts, snowes and hayle in the ayre : nor the un- equall seas, which might amaze the hearer, and aniate the beholder, where the Tritons and Neptune's, selfe would quake with chilling feare, to behold such monstrous icie ilands, rent- ing themselves with terrour of their owne massines, and disdayning otherwise both the sea's sovereigntie, and the sunne's hottest \aolence, mustering themselves in those watery plaiues where they hold a continual civill warre, and rushing one upon another, make windes and waves give backe ; seeming to rent the eares of others, while they rent themselves with, crashing and splitting their congealed armours." — Purchas.

By JOHN BARROW, F.R. S.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1818.

j[ HE two expeditions recently fitted out for ex- ploring a northern communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were of a nature to excite public attention and to engage a large share of general conversation. But as many crude and absurd notions seemed to be entertained on the sub- ject, it was thought that a brief history, arranged in chronological order, of the dangers and diffi- culties and progressive discoveries of former attempts, might serve as a proper introduction to the narratives of the present voyages, which, whether successful or not, will be expected by the public.

In the compilation of this brief history no pre- tensions are set up to authorship — the collecting of the materials, though widely scattered through many large and some few scarce volumes, employed no great share either of the writer's time or research ; in their present form they may be the means of saving both to those who feel disposed to acquire a general knowledge of what has been and what yet remains to be accom- plished.

London, \st August , 1818,

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTH, FROM THE EARLY PERIODS OF SCANDINAVIAN NAVIGATION TO THE END OF JHE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and Newfoundland disco- vered by the ancient Scandinavians. — Discoveries of Nicolo and Antonio Zeno — Columbus — John and Sebas- tian Cabota — the Cortereals 1

CHAPTER II.

DISCOVERIES MADE IN THE NORTH DURING THE SIX- TEENTH CENTURY.

Aubert and Jacques Cartier — Estevan Gomez — The Domi- nus Vobiscum — The Trinitie and the Minion — Sir Hugh Willoughby — Richard Chancellor and Stephen Burrough — Sir Martin Frobisher — Edward Fenton — Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman — Sir Humphry Gilbert — John Davis— Maldonado — Juan de Fuca — Barentz — William Adams ,49

CHAPTER IIL

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTHERN REGIONS DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

George Weymouth— James Hall, 1st, 2d, and 3d Voyages —John Knight— Henry Hudson, 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th Voyages— Sir Thomas Button-rJames Hall, 4th Voyage

CONTENTS,

— Captain Gibbons —Robert Bylot — Bylot and Baffin — Voyages of a mixed Character between l6()3 and 1 6 15 — Jens Munk — Luke Fox — Thomas James — Zachary Gil- lam — Wood and Flawes 1^4

CHAPTER IV.

Discoveries in the northern regions during the

eighteenth century.

Knight, Barlow, Vaughan, and Scroggs — Middleton and Moor — Moor and Smith — Hearne — Phipps — Cook and Gierke — Pickersgill — Young — Duncan — Lowenorn and Egede — Mackenzie 271

CHAPTER V.

VOYAGES OF NORTHERN DISCOVERY UNDERTAKEN IN THE EARLY PART OE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Lieutenant Kotzebue — John Ross, David Buchan, William Edward Parry, and John Franklin 357

APPENDIX.

No. L

Mr. Buchan's Expedition into the Interior of Newfound- land 1

No. II.

A Relation of the Discovery of the Strait of Anian ; made by Capt. Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, in the Year 1588; in which is given the Course of the Voyage, the Situation of the Strait, the Manner in which it ought to be fortified, and also, the Advantages of this Navigation, aijd the Loss which will arise from not prosecuting it 24

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTH, FROM THE EARLY PERIODS OF SCANDINAVIAN NAVIGATION, TO TPIE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTUtlY.

Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and 'Newfoundland disco- vered hy the ancient Scandinavians. — Discoveries of Nicolo and Antonio Zeno — Columbus — John and Sebas" tian Cabota — the Cortereals,

The piratical expeditions of the ancient Scandi- navians spread terror and dismay, by their destruc- tive ravages, among all the maritime nations of Europe. " We cannot read the history," says M. Mallet, " of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centu- ries, without observing, with surprize, the sea covered with their vessels, and, from one end of Europe to the other, the coasts of those countries, now the most powerful, a prey to their depreda- tions. During the space of two hundred years, they almost incessantly ravaged England, and fre- quently subdued it. They often invaded Scot- land and Ireland, and made incursions on the coasts of Livonia, Courland, and Pomerania. — They spread like a devouring flame over Lower Saxony, Friezeland, Holland, Flanders, and the

VOL. I. B

2 DISCOVERIES OF A7l.S6l.

banks of the Rhine, as far as Mentz. They pe- netrated into the heart of France, having long before ravaged the coasts : they every where found their way up the Somme, tlie Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone. Within the space of thirty years, they frequently pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Poitiers, Bour- deaux, Toulouse, Saintes, Angouleme, Nantes, and Tours. They settled themselves in Cam argue, at the mouth of the Rhone, from whence they wasted Provence and Dauphiny, as far as Va- lence. In short, they ruined France, levied im- mense tribute on its monarchs, bnrnt the palace of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and, in con- clusion, caused one of the finest provinces of the kingdom to be ceded to them." And he adds, what one would wish to be true, that these daring robbers, " sometimes animated by a more pacific spirit, transported colonies to unknown or unin- habited countries, as if they were willing to repair in one place the horrid destruction of human kind occasioned by their furious ravages in others."*

One of these pirates, in proceeding to the Faroe islands, in the year 861, was driven, by an eas- terly gale of many days continuance, so far to the westward, that he fell in with an island utterly unknown to him, and to which, from the great -quantity of snow on the mountains, he gave the

* Mallet's. Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p. 245*

^n. 865. THE SCANDINAVIANS. 3

name of Si20W-land, Three years after his return, a Swede, of the name of Gardar Suaifarson, was mduced to undertake a voyage in search of this newly discovered island, which he was fortunate enough to find; and, having spent the winter upon it, and reached home in safety the following- year, he gave so lively a description of its fair woods and fertile soil, that one Flocke, or Flokko^ was induced to try his fortune on Snowland. The mariner's compass being at that time unknown, and the foggy and clouded atmosphere of the north frequentl}' hiding the face of the sun for days to- gether, Flokko took the precaution of providing himself with a raven, or, as some say, four ravens, which, like Noah, being let loose in the midst of the ocean, might serve as a guide for him to follow. The first is supposed to have flown back to the land it had left ; but on the second directing his flight to the w est ward, he followed the course taken by the bird, and found the land he was in quest of. He also passed the winter on the island, and, on his return, gave a less inviting picture of its ap- pearance than that which had been painted by Gardar. From the severity of the weather, and the vast quantities of drift ice which filled all the bays on the northern side of the island, he changed the name to that of Iceland, which it ever after retained. Some of his companions, however, de- scribed it as a pleasant and fertile country ; but no attempts appear to have been made towards a re-

b2

4 DISCOVERIES OF 874.

gular establishment upon it, till the year 874, when one Ingolf, and his friend Leif, or Hiorleif, dissatisfied with the arbitrary authority of Harold Harfagre, king of the Norwegians, determined to aliandon their countr}^, and, as voluntary exiles, to seek an asylum in Iceland. On approaching the island, Ingolf, conformably with an ancient superstition of his country, threw overboard a wooden door, determining to make his first land- inp' on that part of the coast to which the S'ods

't?

pa

should direct this floating guide ; but the current having carried it away fi'om his sight, he landed in a fiord or gulf on the southern part of the island, which still bears his name.*

The report of their arrival having reached Nor- way, a number of families, with their followers and connexions, taking with them their cattle and furniture and implements of husbandry, embarked for this new colony, with a view of establishing their future residence there. It is mentioned as a fact in the Iceland annals, whose authenticity has rarely been called in question, that these early Norwegian colonists were fully persuaded that the island had been inhabited before their coming- there ; as wooden crosses, bells, and even books, were found near the shore, such as w^ere then in use in Britain and Ireland. The distance is so short from Ireland, that it is not improbable that some

* Arngrim Jonas. Chri)moga:a.

982. THE SCANDINAVIANS. 5

of its fishermen might have been driven thither, and left behind them these rehcs of Christianity ;* or, as Forster supposes, some of the Norman pirates, with their booty, after plundering Ireland, may have directed their course to the westward, and left there these articles of their booty, j

Towards the close of the tenth centuiv, a man of the name of Thorw^ald, being obliged to fly on account of a murder, set sail for Iceland. His sou, Eric Rauda, or Eric the Redhead, having also been guilty of murder and many irregularities, soon fol- lowed. The latter set out from hence on an expe- dition to the westw ard in 982, and fell in with that part of the east coast of Greenland called lierjolfs Ness, and standing to the southward, entered a large inlet, which was called by him, or after him, Eric's Sound.:}: He passed the winter on a pleasant island in this sound, explored the coast in the fol- lowing year, and in the third year returned to Ice- land ; and by a lively description and the most lavish praises of its green and pleasant meadows, and the abundance of fine fish on the coast, he induced a number of settlers to accompany him to this newly discovered country, to which, in com- parison of its appearance with Iceland, he gave the name of Greenland. Such is the account of this discovery, as given by the northern historian

* INIallet's Northern Antiquities. . t Forster's Northern Voyages. X Tarfei Green. Ant.

b3

6 DISCOVERIES OF 1001.

and Icelandic judge Snorro; but Toifseus and some others contend that this country, as well as Iceland, was known before the times above men- tioned; and the grounds for this opinion rest chiefly on the privilege granted to the cliurch of Ham- buro'h in 834 bv Louis the Debonnair, and a bull of Pope Gregory IV., wherein permission is granted to the Archbishop Ansgarius to convert the Sueones, Danes, Sclavonians, Icelanders and Gr^eenlajiders ; but it is now supposed that the last two names have been interpolated by the church of Hamburgh, with a view to secure to itself certain rights over these countries ; and that, the better to carry on this pious fraud, it had falsi- fied the documents. Whether this be really the case or not, the church, it would appear, succeeded in its object, the Norwegian colonies having con- tinued to pay to the bishops and the holy see, in the way of tythe and Peter-pence, two thousand six hundred pounds, in weight, of the walrus or sea-horse teeth.

The Norweo-ians and the Normans flocked in great numbers to Iceland, and a regular trade was established between the colonists and the mother countrv. About the vear 1001, as one of the colonists, of the name of Herjolf, with his son Biorn, were proceeding on a trading voyage, their ships were separated by a storm, and Biorn was driven to Norway, where he soon afterwards learnt that his father Herjolf was gone to Green- land. On this information he set sail to the west-

1001. THE SCANDINAVIANS. 7

ward, intending to join him, but being driven by a storm a great way to the south-west he dis- covered, by chance, a fine plain country well clothed with wood. The relation which he gave of this new discovery, on his return to Iceland, inflamed the ambition of Leif, the son of Eric, who had founded the colony on the coast of Greenland. He immediately equipped a proper vessel, and taking with him his friend Biorn, they proceeded together in quest of the newly dis- covered land. On approaching the coast they ob- served a barren and rocky island, which they there- fore named Helleland ; and to the low sandy shore beyond it, which was covered with wood, they gave the name of Mai^kland. Two days after this they fell in with a new coast of land, to the northward of Avhich they observed a large island. They ascended a liver, the banks of Avhich were covered with shrubs, bearing fruits of a most a2:reeable and delicious flavour. The temperature of the air felt soft and mild to the Greenland adventurers, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the river abounded with fish, and par- ticularly with excellent salmon. On proceeding upwards they discovered that the river issued from a lake, near which they resolved to pass the winter. On their return, they mentioned, among other things, that, on the shortest day, the sun was visible above the horizon eight hours ; that a

B 4

8 DISCOVERIES OF 1001.

German, who was one of the crew, in strolling into the woods, met with wild grapes, which he informed the Scandinavian navioators were such as, in his country, were used to make wine, upon which they gave to the island the name of Vinland.

The latitude deduced from the observation of the length of day, supposing it to be correct, would point out some of the rivers on the eastern coast of Newfoundland as the spot on which the adven- turers wintered, several of which rivers take their rise in lakes ; or it w ould equally answer to the coast of Canada, near the mouth of the river St. Lawrence. It is now known that vines grow wild in various parts of Canada, some of them pleasant to the taste and agreeable to the eye, such as the Hjitis labrusca, vulpina, and arborea;^ but whether , any species may grow on Newfoundland, wx know so little of the interior, or even of its shores, that, after a settlement of more than two hundred years, no attempt has yet been made to collect a Flora of the island. But it is by no means necessary to sup- pose that the fruit found by the German was the grape. TVunb<^r or mn-ber (wine-berry)t is the generic name, among the nations where the grape was not known, for the i^ibesia and grossularia (the various species of currants and gooseberries) ;

* Forster's Northern Discoveries.

t Dr. Percy — Trandation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities,

1001. THE SCANDINAVIANS. g

and of the former of these, Canada, Labrador, the shores of Hudson's Bay, and Newfoundland, afford several species.^ There is, therefore, no reason to call in question the veracity of the relation on ac- count of the circumstance which gave the name of Vinland to the new-discovered country.

Though Newfoundland has now been settled more than two hundred years, it is scarcely yet known with certainty whether, in the interior, any natives are found with permanent habitations on the island, or whether they are not merely annual visitors, who come over from the continent in the summer months for the purposes of killing deer, bears, wolves, and other animals, whose skins are valuable for clothing and their flesh as food ; and for catching salmon in the rivers, and collecting fowls and eggs on the intermediate islands. Many of these Indians have occasionally been met with in their boats near the coast, but from the ill treat- ment they experienced from the European fisher- men, they withdrew themselves at an early pe- riod from their intruders, and have since studious- ly avoided all intercourse with them. It is this which makes a recent expedition into the interior of the island, under the command of Captain

* Kibes prostratum is a native of Newfoundland ; and R. re- curvatum, bearing a black berry resembling a grape, is found on the shores of Hudson's Bay. Persoon, Synop. Plant, i. p. 251.

10 DISCOVERIES OP lOOi.

Buchan, now on the northern voyage of discovery, the more interesting, from whose manuscript jour- nal an abstract will be given in its proper place in the sequel.

Whether we are to consider Vinland as Labrador or Newfoundland is a matter of little importance, as the Scandinavians do not appear to have made any progress in the colonization of either country, though a recent discovery would seem to indi- cate the remains of an ancient colony, of which we shall presently have occasion to speak. These northern hordes, however, " thrust out of their exuberant hive," flourished with great rapidity on Iceland, in spite of its barren soil and rigorous climate. Religion and literature even took deep root where every luxury and frequently the com- mon necessaries of life were wanting. The ge- nius of native poetry survived amidst eternal ice and snows. The want of shady groves and verdant meadows, of purling streams and gentle zephyrs, was amply supplied by the more sublime and aw^ful objects of nature, — storms and tempests, earthquakes and volcanos, spouts of Hquid fire and of boiling water, volumes of smoke and steam and ashes darkening the air and enveloping the whole island, were the terrific visitors of this ultima Thule of the inhabitable world. '' The scalds or bards," says Pennant, " retained their fire in the inhospitable climate of Iceland, as vigorously as

1001. THE SCANDINAVIANS. H

when they attended on their chieftains to the mild air of Spain, or Sicily, and sung their valiant deeds."*

The Greenland colonies were less fortunate. The great island (if it be not a peninsula) known by the name of Greenland, is divided into two distinct parts by a central ridge of lofty mountains, stretching north and south, and covered with perpetual ice and snow. On the east and the west sides of this ridge, the ancient Scandinavians had established colonies. That on the west had progressively in- creased until it enumerated four parishes, containing one hundred villages : but being engaged in per- petual hostility with the native tribes, in possession of this territory and of the neighbouring islands, to whom they gave the name of Skroelings, but who have since been known by that of Eskimaux, the colony on that side would appear to have been ulti- mately destroyed by these hostile natives. The ruins of their edifices were still visible in 1721, when that pious and amiable missionary Hans Egede went to that country, on its being re-colonized by the Greenland Company of Bergen in Norway, and have since been more circumstantially described.

The fate of the eastern colony was, if possible, still more deplorable. From its first settlement by Eric Rauda in 983 to its most flourishing period

* Introd. to Arct. Zool. i. p. 44.

12 DISCOVERIES OF 1001.

about the commencement of the fifteenth century, it had progressively increased in population ; and, by the latest accounts, consisted of twelve parishes, one hundred and ninety villages, one bishop's see, and two convents — one of which is supposed to have been that which is described by Zeno as si- tuated near the spring of hot water. A succession of sixteen bishops is recorded in the Iceland an- nals; but when the seventeenth w^as proceeding from Norway in 1406 to take possession of his see, a stream of ice had fixed itself to the coast and rendered it completely inaccessible ; and from that period to the present time, no intercourse whatever has been had with the unfortunate colo- nists. Thormoder Torfager, however, relates, in his History of Greenland, that Amand, bishop of Skalholt in Iceland, in returning to Norway from that island about the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury, was driven by a storm near to the east coast of Greenland, opposite to Herjolfsness, and got so near as to be able to distino'uish the inhabitants driving their cattle in the fields ; but the wind coming fair, they made all sail back for Iceland. Hans Egede conceives this account of Amand worthy of credit, from which, he observes, " we iearn that the eastern colony continued to flourish at least one hundred and fifty years after com- merce and navigation had ceased between it and Greenland ;" and he adds, *' for aught we know to

138(1 THE SCANDINAVIANS. 13

the contrary, it is not yet wholly destitute of its old Norwegian inhabitants.'**

The several attempts that have been made to approach this coast, bound in chains of '' thick- ribbed ice," and to ascertain the fate of the un- happy colonists, will be noticed in their proper places. Hitherto, all endeavours have been fruit- less, but the recent disruption of the ice from that coast may afford the opportunity of exa- mining into the fate of the wretched inhabitants, and of ascertaining, if possible, in what manner they perished, after the closing of the icy barrier upon them, and whether any and what records or ruins have been left behind them. Such a research is at least an object of rational curiosity, and it would be a reproach to the Danish government, if it neglected the only opportunity that may occur for instituting this inquiry.

NICOLO AND ANTONIO ZENO. 1380.

The history of the noble family of Zeno is well known and celebrated in the records of Venice.

* Hans Egede, Crantz, Torfaeus, and a host of writers, concur in the planting and destruction of these two settlements; yet in spite of these authorities, and the repeated attempts on the part of the Danish government to examine into the state of the ancient colony on the eastern coast, a M. Eggers undertook to prove, in 1792, that the eastern colony never had existence, and that it was only called East Greenland from being situated on the 'west side. This question will more properly be examined in the descriptive volume.

14 DISCOVERIES OF 1380.

The extraordinary adventures of the two brothers NicoLo and Antonio, in the northern seas, were first pubhshed by Francesco MarcoHni, in 1558, and afterwards in Ramusio's Collection of Voyages and Travels.* They are stated to have been drawn up from the letters sent by Antonio Zeno to his eldest brother Carlo, and delivered to Marcolini for publication by a descendant of the Zeno family, who laments the imperfect state into which they had fallen, by his ignorance of their importance at a time when he was incapable of exercising a judgment on their contents, and had carelessly and thoughtlessly destroyed some of them ; that, however, in more mature years, he had collected together their scattered remains, and put them into order, with the view of preserving the me- mory of these early and interesting discoveries, made by his two noble relations.

From this circumstance, it is evident that great allowances must be made for what may appear to be inaccurate or mysterious ; but the relation, as we have it in its mutilated state, contains so much curious and correct description, and so many inte- resting discoveries, that it must always maintain its ground as one of the most important in the his- tory of early navigation. From this relation, it appears that Nicolo, being desirous of seeing foreign countries, fitted out a ship at his own ex-

* Dello Scoprimento del I'lsole Frislanda. Ramusio, Navig. et Viaggi, vol. ii. p. 220.

1380. N. AND A. ZENO, 15

pense, and passed the Strait of Gibraltar, with an intention of visiting England and the Low Coun- tries; but, in the course of his voyage, a violent storm arose, and his vessel was cast away on the coast of a large island which is called Frisland. Fortunately for him and his crew, he was saved from a savage attack made on them by the natives of the island, by the interference of a chieftain of the name of Zichmni, under whose protection he placed himself and all his people. This prince was also lord of certain small islands to the southward, called Borland^ and duke of Sorano^ lyi"g oppo- site to Scotland. " Of these northern parts," says the narrator, ^' I drew out a copy of a navigation chart, which I still possess among the antiquities of our house."

This Zichmni, being a great warrior by sea, and finding Nicolo a man of judgment and discretion, and well experienced in sea affairs, engaged him in an expedition to the westward. It consisted of thirteen vessels, with which they took possession of Ltdavo and Ilofe^ and some other small islands, in which the Venetians obtained great renown, as well for their valour as their skill in sea affairs. On their return to Frisland, Nicolo was made captain of Zichmni's fleet, and so well pleased with the honours he received, that he wrote to his brother Antonio to join him; who accordingly fitted out a ship and proceeded thither, where he remained fourteen years, ten of them alone, and four in company with his brother Nicolo; the

16 DISCOVERIES OF 1380.

latter of whom was again sent out on an expe- dition against Estland, which is situated between Frisland and Norway. After this he attacked and phmdered seven other islands, which are named Talas, Broas, Iscant, Tjyius, Mimanty Dambere, and Bres, in the last of which he built a fort. In the following year, having fitted out three ships, he set sail in July towards the North, and arrived in Engroneland, where he found a monastery of predicant friars, dedicated to Saint Thomas, and situated close to a mountain, which threw out flames like Vesuvius and .^tna.

There was besides in this place a fountain of hot water, with which the church of the monastery and the chambers of the friars were heated, and wdiich was also brought into the kitchen so boiling- hot, that no other fire was made use of for dressing their victuals ; and by putting their bread into brass kettles without water, it became baked as well as if it had been in a heated oven. They had also little gardens, covered over during winter, which being watered with this water, were defen- ded against the snow, and cold, which, in those parts, by reason of their situation so near the pole, is most severe ; and by these means the friars produced flowers and fruits, and herbs of various sorts, just as well as in more temperate countries ; so that the rude and savage people of those parts, seeing these supernatural effects, considered the friars as gods, and brought them presents of chick- ens, flesh, and other articles, and held them iu the

1384. N. AND A. ZEXO. 17

greatest awe and respect. When the frosts and •snows are severe, the friars heat their houses in this manner, and temper the heat or cold at pleasure. Their buildings are made of the stones which are thrown out like burning cinders from the mountain, and which by throwing water on them becoaie excellent white lime ; when cold and not dissolved with water, they shape them with iron tools and use them in their buildino-s.

Th*eir winter is said to continue for nine months their food to consist of wild fowl and fish; for the warm water runneth into a capacious haven, which, on account of its heat, it preventeth from freezing, and in consequence of this there is such a concourse of sea-fowl and such abundance of fish, that both are easily taken in vast multitudes, and enable the friars to maintain a great number of people, whom they keep in constant employment, in construct- ing their houses, in taking sea-fowl and fish, and in a thousand other matters relating to the monastery.

The trade of these friars with Norway and the neighbouring islands is then described ; and it is observed, that to this monastery of Saint Thomas resort the friars of Norway, of Sweden, and of other countries, but mostly from Iceland. The boats of the fishermen are described as being in shape like a weaver's shuttle, and made of the skins and bones of fishes.

This curious account of Engroneland or Green- land is p'iven bv Nicolo to his brother Carlo ; and

VOL. I. C ' ,

IS DISCOVERIES OF 1384 ta

it appears that, during his residence at this monas- tery, being unused to such severity of weather, he fell sick, and died shortly after his return into Fris- land. This Nicolo left behind him two sons in Venice, from one of whom was descended the celebrated Cardinal Zeno.

On the death of Nicolo, his brother Antonio succeeded to his property, and, unwillingly as it would seem, to all his dignities and honours, for he wished to return to his own country ; but all his entreaties with Zichmni were unavailing ; for Zichmni, " being a man of great courage and valour, had determined to make himself lord of the sea." At this time one of his fishermen re- turned to Frisland, after an absence of six and twenty years, and gave an account of his having been driven by a violent storm upon an island called Estotiland, about a thousand miles to the westward of Frisland. He related that the island was well peopled ; that a man was brought to him who had likewise been shipwrecked, and who spoke Latin ; that the island was nearly as large as Iceland, and more fertile, the people ingenious and skilled as artisans ; that the prince had Latin books, but did not understand them ; that they had gold and all manner of metals ; that they raised com, made beer, traded with Greenland, from whence they procured furs, brimstone, and pitch ; that their buildings were made of stone ; that they had extensive woods, of which they built ships, and

1394, N. AND A. ZENO. JQ

traded with a countiy to the southward called Dt^ogio.

Zichmni, havmg heard this strange relation, which was confirmed by the crew who had come to Frisland with the fisherman, determined to set out with a great number of ships and men in search of these countries, and Antonio Zeno ac- companied him on this expedition of discovery.

As they proceeded to the westward, the first point they fell in with was called Icaria, and beyond this they came to another country, whose temperature is said to have been inexpressibly mild and pleasant. To the haven in which they an- chored they gave the name of Trin. In the in- terior were great multitudes of people, half wild, hiding themselves in caverns, of small stature, and very timid. Zichmni, finding this place to have a wholesome and pure air, a fruitful soil, and fair rivers, v/as so delighted with the country, that he determined to take possession of it and to build a city. But his people began to murmur and to express a desire to return, upon which he sent away Antonio to conduct back to Frisland all those who were unwilling to stay. They sailed for the space of twenty days to the eastward without seeing any land; then south-east five days, when they perceived the island of Neome, and, taking in fresh provisions, in three days more reached Frisland.

" What followed after the letter containing'

c 2

20 DISCOVERIES OF \3M tO

this intelligence," observes the narrator, " I know not :" but from a piece of another letter of An- tonio, it would appear that Zichmni built a town near the harbour on the island which he had discovered. The beginning of the letter he says is as follows : —

" Concerning those things that you desire to know of me, as of the men and their manners and customs, of the animals and neighbouring coun- tries, I have set down particularly in a book, which, by the blessing of God, I will bring with me ; wherein I have described the country, the mon- strous fishes, the laws and customs of Frisland, Island, Estland, the kingdom of Norway, Estoti- land, Drogio, together with the life of M. Nicolo, the knight our brother, with the discovery which he made, and the state of Engroneland. I have also written the life and acts of Zichmni, a prince as worthy of immortal memory as any that ever lived, for his great valour and singular humanity ; wherein I have described the discovery of Engrone- land on both sides and the city which he built. Therefore I will speak no further hereof in this letter, hoping to be with you very shortly, and to satisfy you in sundry other things by word of mouth."

The letters containing the curious and interest- ing narrative of the adventures and discoveries of the two Zenos were written by Antonio to his brother Qirlo ; " and it grieveth me/' says the

1394. N. AND A. ZENO. 21

narrator, " that the book and various other writ- ings concerning these things should so lamentably have been destroyed ; for being but a child when they fell into my possession, and not knowing of what importance they were, I tore them in pieces, as the manner of children is, which I cannot call to remembrance without the deepest grief"*

The more the narrative of the two Zenos has been scrutinized, the stronger has the internal evidence appeared in favour of its general veracity. The heating of the monastery, the cooking of the friars' victuals, and watering their gardens with hot water, were considered, however, by many as things utterly incredible. But we are now " wiser than of yore," and manage these things in the same manner as the monks of St. Thomas were wont to do in the fourteenth century. The great difficulty, however, among geographers was that of assigning a proper position for the island of Frisland ; a name which occurs in the life of Christopher Columbus, and is placed by Frobisher as the southern extre- mity of Greenland. Ortelius maintained that it was a certain part of the coast of North America. Delislef and some others supposed that Buss island, to the south of Iceland, was the remains of Friesland, which had been swallowed up by an

* Dello Scoprimento del Tlsole Frisland, Sec. per Fran. IVIarcolini, 1558.

t Hemisphere Occidental, 1720.

c 3

22 DISCOVERIES OF 1384 to

earthquake;^ and others again cut the matter short by considering the existence of Frisland, and even the whole voyage of the two Zenos, as a fiction. But M. Buache and IM. Eggers have gone far to prove the truth of the narrative on two different grounds ; the former having shewn that the geo- graphical position of Frisland corresponds with the cluster of the Feroe islands ;t and the latter, that the names given by Zeno correspond pretty nearly with the modern names of those islands. J Forster has tried the same thing, and finds a cor- responding island for every name mentioned in the narrative of the two Zenos. He has also dis- covered that one Henry Sinclair was Earl of Orkney and possessor of the Shetland islands so far down as the year 1406; and as Sinclair or Siclair to an Italian ear might sound like Zichmni, he concludes that Sinclair is the prince mentioned by Zeno.§ The name even of the aggregate, Feroesland, differs not materially from Frisland. Estotiland may be Newfoundland or Labrador.

* It is got rid of in this way by the Due d'Almadover, the Abbe Zurla and Amoretti ; (Voyage d, la Mer Atlantique, &c. tra- diiit par Ch. Amoretti;) and Buss island itself is gone, if it ever had an}' existence above water.

*t Mem. sur Tile de Frislande, dans I'Hist. de I'Acad. des Scien. 1784.

I Mem. sur I'Ancien Greenland. 1792.

§ History of Voyages and Discoveries made in the North, p. 209.

1394. N. AND A. ZENO. 23

The name, says M. Malte-Brun, appears to be Scandinavian ; ^' for Est-outUnul in English would signify land stretching farthest out to the east, which ao^rees with the situation of Newfoundland with reo-ard to the continent of America.'"* The same author observes, that the inhabitants of Es- totiland appear to be the descendants of the Scandinavian colonists of VinJand, whose lan- guage, in the course of three ages, might have been sufficiently altered to be unintelligible to the fishermen of Feroe. The Latin books (of which Zeno speaks) had doubtless, he thinks, been carried thither by that Greenland bishop, who, in 1121, betook himself to Vinland to preach the Christian religion in that country; that Drogio, on this hypothesis, w^ould be Nova Scotia and New England; and he concludes, that by bringing together under one point of view the discoveries of the Scandinavians in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the voyages of the two Venetians in the fourteenth, we must be persuaded that the New World has been visited by the nations of the north as far back as the year 1000; and that it may perhaps be thought that this first discovery, historically proved, after having been confirmed anew in 1 390 by Zeno, may have been known to Columbus in 1477, (1467) when he made a voyage

* Precis de la Geog, Universclle, torn. i. p. 405.

c 4

24 DISCOVERIES OF 1384 to

into the northern seas. At any rate, that the most prejudiced, on castmg a glance on the map, must be convinced that nature herself had designed New- foundland to be the first for receiving the visits of Europeans.*

With reo-ard to Columbus, too little remains on record, concerning his voyage to the north, even for hazarding any conjecture to what part, (beyond Iceland,) or for what purpose, it was undertaken. The discovery, however, which has just been made on Newfoundland would seem to corroborate the conjecture, that this island is the Estotiland of Zeno. A party of English settlers, in proceeding up the river which falls into Conception Bay, a little to the northward of St. John's, observed, at the distance of about six or seven miles above the bay, the appearance of stone walls, rising just above the surface. On removing the sand and alluvial earth, thev discovered the remains of an- cient buildings, oak-beams, and mill stones sunk in oaken beds. Enclosures resembling gardens were traced out, and plants of various kinds grow- ing about the place not indigenous to the island. But the most decisive proof of these ruins being the remains of an ancient European colony was in the different kinds of coins that were found, som.e of ductile gold, which the inhabitants con-

* Precis de la Geog. Univer. torn. i.

139'4. N, AND A. ZENO. 95

sldered to be old Flemish coins, and others of copper without inscriptions.*

The coins, which are said to be in the hands of many of the inhabitants of St. John's, will probably decide the question, Avhether these newly dis- covered remains of a former colony be that founded l^y Zichmni, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, or some attempt at the establishment of a colony by the descendants of Eric and Biorn from Iceland in the eleventh century. The Scandina- vians were in the practice of coining money before the tenth century, stamped with the im- pression of a sun, a star, or simply a cross, but w ithout any inscription ; and they also trafficked even before that period wdth foreign money, which they received principally from the Flemings.t One circumstance would seem rather to militate against the supposition of the recently discovered ruins being the remains of a Scandinavian colony. These northern settlers on Iceland and Greenland build chiefly with wood in countries where no wood grows. The ruins in question are of stone, and on a spot where timber grows abundantly. The probability, therefore, js in favour of their being the remains of the fort which Zichmni built on the banks of a fair river, if they may not be

* This information is received in a letter from Captain Buchan, written at the moment of his sailing on the Northern Expedition.

f Mallet's Northern Antiquities.

16 DISCOVERIES OF 1467-

referred to a later date than either ; for some of the old inhabitants, it seems, are impressed with the idea that Lord Baltimore had once intended to erect saw-mills in the neighbourhood of Port de Grasse, vestiges of which are said still to remain. It is an interesting subject, of which some more certain information it is to be hoped will speedily be procured.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 1467.

The extraordinary discoveries of the Portugueze, but that of all others which opened them a route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, aroused the cupidity of some of, and the curiosity of all, the nations of Europe, and excited that spirit of enter- prize in England, which, though it might sometimes languish, was never wholly extinguished; and which, indeed, is not likely ever to be extinguished so long as any part, hovv^ever obscure or remote, of this globe we inhabit remains to be discovered. The Italians were the most skilful navigators of those days; and among the foreigners who had engaged in the Portugueze service was a Genoese by birth, named Christoval Colon or Christopher Columbus, who, at the early age of fourteen, had betaken himself to a seafaring life, and had made considerable progress in geometry, cosmography and astronom}^ His first voyage, after leaving the Mediterranean, appears to have been into the

1467. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 27

northern seas, in which it is stated, in a memo- randum written by himself, that he had visited Iceland, to which a considerable trade was then carried on, particularly by the northern nations and among others by England, principally on account of its valuable fisheries. It is even said that he proceeded beyond this island, and advanced several degrees within the polar circle, but on what service and for what purpose does not appear.''^ It would have been satisfactory to know Avhether it was a mere trading voyage, or a voyage of discovery, that led this celebrated navigator into those inhospitable regions ; but there is little reason to hope that any further information will ever be obtained on this head. His subsequent grand dis- covery is too well known to be repeated, where it would be misplaced; but a word may be said on some recent attempts to rob this celebrated navi- gator of one of the greatest and most important discoveries recorded in the annals of navigation.

Doctor Robertson complains, and with a proper feehng for the honour of this great man, that some of the Spanish authors, with the meanness of national jealousy, have endeavoured to detract from the glory of his grand enterprize, by insinuating that he was led to the discovery of the new^ world, not by his own inventive or enterprizing genius, but by information which he had received from

* Life of Columbus.

23 DISCOVERIES OF 1467.

some old pilot whose name or nation is not even mentioned, and that some German authors had ascribed the honour of the discovery of America to their country uian Martin Behaim, a native of Nuremberg. This early geographer studied under the celebrated John Muller, better known by the name of Regiomontanus. He accompanied Diego Cam in his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1483, and settled on the island of Fayal, where he established a colouy of Flemings, having obtained a grant of it from the regent of Portugal. In 1492 he returned to Nuremberg, to visit his native country and family ; and there made a map of the globe, which is still preserved in the library of that city. Of this map Dr. Robertson procured a copy, as published by Doppelmayer, from which, he observes, " the imperfection of cosmographical knowledge is manifest. Hardly one place is laid down in its true situation. Nor can I discover from it any reason to suppose that Behaim had the least knowledge of any region in America."* He states, indeed, that he delineates an island, to which he gives the name of St. Brandon; but that he sus- pects it to be a mere imaginary island which had been admitted into some ancient maps on no better authority than the legend of the Irish St. Brandon or Brendan, whose story is so childishly fabulous as to be unworthy of any notice ; and he concludes that the account of his having discovered any part

* Robertson's Hist, of Amer. vol. i. p. 368.

1467. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 29

of the new v/oild appeared to bim to be merely conjectural. Indeed it is most unlikely that such a discovery of Behaim either would or could be concealed ; the ^clat which attended that of Colum- bus is alone sufficient to disprove the pretensions set up for Behaim.

Though the map of Behaim was constructed from the writings of Ptolemy, Pliny and Strabo, and from the modern travels of Benjamin of Tudela, Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo, yet the discoveries of the Portugueze had made no inconsiderable addition to the know- ledge of the globe, and a grand step in progressive geography. His countrymen, however, not satis- fied with what Behaim had sedulously collected and digested, have gone beyond the Spaniards in their attempt to rob Columbus of the honour of his discovery ; and by fabricated documents to transfer the merit of it to Behaim. According to the pretensions set up by them, he not only made the discovery of that part of America which is now called Brazil, but anticipated ^lagelhanes in that of the strait which bears his name ; nay, he even anticipated the intention of Magelhanes by naming the natives Patagonians, because the extremities of their bodies were covered with a skin which resembled the paws of a bear rather than the hands and feet of human beings;* all of which is

* " Our Captain-general, Magaglianes," says Pigafetta, *' gave to these people the name of P«/fl!o^o;zi-- because they wore on their

so DISCOVERIES OF 1467-

extracted from pretended letters of Behaim himself, written in j486, and preserved in the archives of Nuremberg; and from these, it would further appear, that ^' Martin Behaim, traversing the Atlan- tic ocean for several years, examined the American islands, and discovered the strait which bears the name of Magellan, before either Christopher Colum- bus or Magellan sailed those seas; whence he mathematically delineated, on a geographical chart, for the king of Lusitania, the situation of the coast around every part of that famous and re- nowned strait, long before Magellan thought of his expedition." It would require better support, than that they have hitherto met with, to make such clumsy fabrications pass current in the world. ^ It was not at all necessary for Columbus to receive any information from Behaim ; he was too well acquainted with the nature of the sphere not to know that India could be approached by proceed- ing to the wxst as well as to the east, if no other land should be found to intervene; and it is quite evident, from all his endeavours to pass to the East Indies by a western route, that the continuity of the continent of America was entirely new to, and wholly unexpected by, him. His hope had been- to find a direct passage to Cathay and Zipangu, names

feet the hairy skin of the guanaco, which gave them the appear- ance of bears' feet."

* Paper by Citizen Otto, in Amer. Phil. Trans, vol. ii. Nichol- son's Journals, vol. ii. and iii. Sup. to Ency. Britt.

1467- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 31

wliicli, since the return of Marco Polo, had become "^ famihar as household words." It is true that the cosmographers of those days had carried China much beyond its real extent to the eastward, and, as Herrera observes, '' the more it extended to the east, the nearer it must approach to the Cape de Verd islands." Columbus could not be ignorant of this ; and indeed so much were the discoveries made by him considered as a part of Asia, that they had the name of the " Indies" immediately be- stowed on them : and it became necessary, on de- tecting the mistake, to distinguish the two coun- tries by the names of the East and the West Indies. And thus, as IMajor Rennel has justly observed, ^' the splendid discoveries of Columbus were prompted by a geographical error of most extra- ordinary magnitude.'**

The whole story of Behaim's discovery seems to have had its origin in a passage of Pigafetta's narrative, which is certainly remarkable : " The Captain General (Magelhanes) knew that he must make his passage through a strait much con- cealed, as he had seen on a chart, in the depot of the king of Portugal, made by that most excellent man Martin de Boemia ;" wdiich might also receive an additional colour from the assertion of Herrera, that Magellan was in possession of a terrestrial globe, made by Behaim, to assist him in directing his course to the south seas ; and that Columbus

* Geog. of Herodotus, p. 685.

32 DISCOVERIES OF 149^.

was confirmed in his opinion of a western navi- gation by Martin de Bohemia, his friend. *

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOTA. 149^-

JoHNCABOTAorCABOT,acitizenof Venice, came over to England with his son Sebastian, then a boy, (besides two other sons,) and settled in Bristol. Being a skilful pilot and intrepid navigator, Henry VII., disappointed in the hope of engaging Cohim- bus, throusrh the misfortunes of his brother Bartho- lomew, encouraged Cabota to make discoveries by granting him a patent, in virtue of which he had leave to go in search of unknown lands, and to con- quer and settle them ; the king reserving to him- self one-fifth part of the profits. The patent bears date the 5th March, 149^, being the eleventh year of Henry's reign, and is granted to him by name, and to his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius. There is a sad disagreement in the date of the voyage in which Newfoundland is supposed to have been discovered ; and there is no possible way of reconciling the various accounts collected by Hakluyt, and which amount to no less a num- ber than six, but by supposing John Cabota to have made one voyage, at least, previous to the date of the patent, and some time between that and the date of the return of Columbus.t

* Herrera, Dec. i. See Burney's History of Voyages and Discoveries, vol. i. p. 3. t Either in the year 1594 or 1595,

1494. JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOTA. 33

Neither is it quite clear that, in the voyage under- taken after the patent was signed, (whether in the same year, or the following,) the father accompanied Sebastian ; for, if there be any truth in the report made to the Pope's legate in Spain, and printed in the collection of Ramusio, it would appear that Sebastian was alone on this voyage of dis- covery ; as in this document Sebastian is thus made to say : — " and when my father died, in that time when news were brouo-ht that Don Christoval Colon,^ the Genoese, had discovered the coasts of India, of which there was great talke in all the court of King Henry VII. who then reigned ; insomuch that all men, with o-reat admiration, affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane to saile by the West into the East, where spices growe, by a way that was never known before : by his fame and report, there increaseth in my heart a great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing ; and understanding by reason of the sphere that if I should saile by way of north-west I should by a shorter tract come into India, I thereupon caused the king to be advertised of my devise, who immediately commanded two caravels to bee furnished with all things appertayning to the voyage, which was, as farre as I remember, in the year 1496, in the beginning of summer ; I

♦ This again is at variance with the patent of Henry, in which John is mentioned by name.

VOL. I. D

,'34 DISCOVERIES OF 1497-

beean therefore to sail toward the north-west, not thinking to find any other land than that of Cathay, and from thence to turn toward India; but after ccrtaine dayes I found that the land ranne toward the north, which was to me a great displeasure. Nevertheless, sayling along by the coast to see if I could finde any gulfe that turned, I found the lande still continued to the 66 degree under our pole. And seeing that there the coast turned to the east, despairing to find the passage, I turned backe again, and sailed downe by the coast of that land toward the equinoctiall, (ever with intent to finde the saide passage to India,) and came to that part of this firme lande which is nowe called Florida, where my victuals failing, I departed from thence and returned into England, where I found great tumults among the people and preparations for warres in Scotland, by reason whereof there was no more consideration had to this voyage."*

The probability therefore is, that the father and son jointly, in their first voyage, discovered New- foundland, to which they gave the name of Prima Vista, " the first seen." They describe the natives as being clothed in skins of beasts, and using, as arms, bows and arrows, clubs and pikes. They saw bears and large deer, caught plenty of seals, fine salmon, and soles above a yard in length ; but

*Ramusio; and Hakluyt's voyages.

1497. JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOTA. 35

the fish in greatest abundance was of a kind called by the natives baccallaos, a name by which the country was afterwards known, and which a small island on the eastern side still bears. The Dutch and Germans have adopted the native name of the cod-fish, by changing the latter / into j and transposing the letters b and c, making the word cabaljou.

From an extract made by Hakluyt out of Fa- bian's Chronicle, it would appear that the Cabots brought home three of the natives of Newfound- land. " These savages were clothed in beasts' skins, and did eate raw flesh, and spake such speach that no man could understand them; and in their demeanour like to bruite beastes, whom the king kept a time after."

Sebastian Cabota finding, on his return from the discovery of America, that the English government was not disposed to prosecute the enterprize thus happily begun, set out fo r Spain ; or, as Peter Martyr saith, " he was called out of England by the command of His Catholic Majesty of Castile, where he was made one of the council for the affairs of the New Indies ;" and he adds, '' Cabot is my very good friend, whom I treat with famili- arity, and delight to have frequently to keep me company at my own house."

Sebastian made several voyages in the service of Spain, and among others discovered the Rio

d2

56* DISCOVERIES OF 1497-

de la Plata, or River of SilvTr, on the coast of Brazil. After this he returned to England, pro- bably on the invitation of Mr. Robert Thorne, an Eno'lish merchant of Bristol, but resident at Seville, with whom he was intimately acquainted, and who had contributed largely to one of his expedi- tions.* Mr. Thorne was a native, and once had served the office of mayor, of the city of Bristol, where Cabota's father had lived. His return to England was in the year 1548, when Henry VIII. was on the throne. On the succession of Edward VI. the Duke of Somerset introduced him to the young king, who was so delighted with his conver- sation that he created him, by patent, pilot major, and settled on him a pension for life of 500 marks (166/. 13^. 4^.) a year, " in consideration of the good and acceptable services done, and to be done. "I Never was a reward, great as it was in those days, more deservedly bestowed. Placed at the head of the " Society of Merchant Adventurers," by his knowledge and experience, his zeal and penetration, he not only was the means of extend- ing the foreign commerce of England, but of keeping alive that spirit of enterprize, which, even in his life time, was crowned with success, and which ultimately led to the most happy results for the nation that had so wisely and honourably

* Lives of the Admirals, vol.i. p. 381. f Hakluyt's Voyages. Hymer's Foedera, vol. xv. p. 181.

1500. JOHN AXD SEBASTIAN CABOTA. 37

enrolled this deserving foreigner in the list of her citizens.

THE CORTEREALS. 1500.

The Portugueze, not content with having dis- covered a route to India by sailing round the tem- pestuous extremity of Africa, soon after engaged in an equally dangerous enterprize ; — that of finding a route to India and the Spice islands, by sailing westward round the northern extremity of America.

This bold undertaking was reserved for the CoRTEREALs, the enlightened disciples of the school of Sagres. The first navigator of the name of Cortereal, who engaged in this enterprize, was John Vaz Costa Cortereal, a gentleman of the household of the Infanta Don Fernando — Avho, accompanied by Alvaro Martens Hornen, explored the northern seas, by order of King- Alfonso the Fifth, and discovered the T'erra de Baccalhaos (the land of cod fish) afterwards called Newfoundland.

This voyage is mentioned by Cordeiro,^ but he does not state the exact date^ which however is ascertained to have been in 1463 or 1464; for, on their return from the discoverv of Newfoundland, or Terra Nova, they touched at tlie island of Terceira, the captaincy of which island having

« Historia Insulana, Cordeiro, 1 vol. fol.

D 3

38 DISCOVERIES OF 1500.

become vacant by the death of Jacome Bruges, they sohcited the appointment, and in reward for their services the request was granted, their patent commission being dated in Evora, 2d

April, 1464.

Notwithstanding this early date of a voyage across the Atlantic, there exists no document to prove that any thing further was done by the Por- tugueze, in the way of discovery, till towards the close of the fifteenth century ; and if the evidence of that in question rested on this single testimony of Cordeiro, and on the fact of the patent, it would scarcely be considered as sufficiently strong to deprive the Cabotas of the honour of being the first who discovered Newfoundland ; at the same time if the patent should specify the service for which it was granted, and that service is stated to be the discovery of Newfoundland, the evidence would go far in favour of the elder Cortereal. But there is another indirect testimony afforded by Francisco de Souza,^ who in 1570 wrote a treatise on the New Islands, and of their discovery ; as also con- cerning those Portugueze who went from Vianna, and from the islands of the Azores, to people the Terra Nova do Baccalhao twenty years before that period; which would prove that the Portugueze not only were in the habit of fishing on the banks

* Tratado das Ilhas noxaSy Sfc. 1570. Bibliotheca Lusitana.

1500. THE CORTEREALS. SQ

of Newfoundland, but of settling there also, towards the close of the fifteenth century.

The arduous enterprize of prosecuting disco- veries in the northern seas would seem however to have been reserved exclusively for the family of the Cortereals ; for it does not appear that any person had attempted, on the part of Portugal, to explore those seas navigated by John Vaz Cortereal, the father, nor by any nation, except Cabota in behalf of England, until the time of his son Caspar Cortereal.

The two ships which had been prepared for this voyage, and put under his command, sailed from Lisbon in the summer of 1500 — for although Galvam says that they sailed from the island of Terceira, this must only be understood on account of their having touched there to receive refresh- ments, to complete their crews, and to afford Cortereal an opportunity of taking leave of that part of his family which was settled in that island.

Departing from the Azores, or Western Islands, they steered a course which, as far as they knew, had never but once before been traced by any navi- gator, till they discovered laml to the northward, toAvhich they gave the name of 7err« Verde — that is, Greenland. Galvam places it (although w^ith little accuracy) in 50°* — and others, particidarly

* Misprinted probably for 60®, which would be correct.

D 4

40 DISCOVERIES OF 1500.

Goes, describe the qualities of the country, and the manners of the inhabitants.

In the first coUection of voyages which is known to have been pubhshed in Europe, and printed in Vicenza, by Francazano Montaboldo,* there is inserted a letter from Pedro Pascoal, ambassador from the repubhc of Venice to the court of Lisbon, addressed to his brother in Italy, and dated 29th October 1501, in which he details the voyage of Cortereal, as told by himself on his return.

From this authority, it appears that, having employed nearly a year in this voyage, he had discovered, between west and northwest, a con- tinent until then unknown to the rest of the w^orld ; tliat he had run along the coast upwards of eight hundred miles ; that according to his con- jecture this land lay near a region formerly ap- proached by the Venetians,! almost at the North Pole ; and that he was unable to proceed farther on account of the o-ieat mountains of ice which incumbered the sea, and the continued snows Vv^hich fell from the skv.

He further relates that Cortereal brought fifty- seven of the natives in his vessels — he extols the countiy on account of the timber which it pro-

* Mundo Nuovo e Paesi nuovamente retrovati,&c. Vicenza, 3507 ; a very rare book ; translated into Latin, by INIadrigano, under the title of " Itinerarium Portugalensium e Lusitania in Jndiam, &c."

t Nicolo and Antonio Zeno..

1500. THE CORTEREALS. 41

duces, the abundance of fish upon its coasts, and the inhabitants being robust and laborious.

To this evidence may also be added that of Ramusio, whose accuracy in such matters is well known. The foUowing extract is taken from his discourse on Terra Firma and the Oriental Islands. *' In the part of the new world which runs to " the northwest, opposite to our habitable con- *^ tinent of Europe, some navigators have sailed, " the first of whom, as far as can be ascertained, *' was Gaspar Cortereal, a Portugueze, who arrived " there in the vear 1500 with two caravels, " thinking that he might discover some strait " through which he might pass, by a shorter '' voyage than round Africa, to the Spice islands.

" They prosecuted their voyage in those seas " until they arrived at a region of extreme cold ; " and in the latitude of 60*^ north they discovered *' a river fdled with ice, to which they gave the '^ name of Rio Nevado — that is. Snow River. *' They had not courage however to proceed farther, *^ all the coast w^iich runs from Rio Nevado to " Porto das Malvas (Mallow Port) which lies in " 56^, and which is a space of two hundred leagues, " was well peopled, and they landed and brought " away some of the inhabitants — Cortereal also " discovered many islands, all inhabited, and to " each of which he gave a name."* We shall presently see what islands these were.

* Ramusio, Navigat. et Viaggi.

42 DISCOVERIES OF 1500.

This great country discovered by Cortereal is evidently that which at present is known under the name of Labrador, or rather Lavrador — a Portugueze word which characterises the inha- bitants.

As a further proof that this is the fact, there is a map in an old edition of Ptolemy, published in Rome in 1508, which gives to the land of Lavrador the name of " Corterealis," and on it is laid down the island of Demonios (Demons) on account of the trouble which the ships had there experienced.

Sebastian Munster, in his Chorography, printed for the first time in Basle in 1544, gives to New- foundland itself (Terra Nova) the name of Cortereal, and the celebrated Abraham Ortelius not only calls the land of Lavrador, Cortereal^ but he marks the Rio Nevado, and Bahia da Serra, close to the entrance of the strait now named Hudson's; and he places nearly in the middle of it, a river which he calls Rio da Tormenta, (Storm River,) to which succeeds another bay called Bahia das Medas (Rick Bay.) It does not how- ever follow that, because all these names are Por- tugueze, they must have first been given by Caspar Cortereal, nor that he actually entered Hudson's Bay, though the probability is in favour of such a supposition, if we take into consideration all the collateral circumstances of the narrative.

The same doubt howxver does not occur in

1500. THE CORTEREALS. 43

regard to the river St. Lawrence. Even without specific evidence it might safely have been con- cluded that, as a passage to India was the grand object of research, so large an opening as is presented by the mouth of this river could not have escaped examination. Independent however of this general reasoning, the evidence furnished by Ramusio is decisive. In describing the prin- cipal places on that coast, he says that beyond Cabo do Gado (Cattle Cape) whicli is in 54 degrees, it runs two hundred leagues to the westward, to a great river called St. Lawrence, which some con- sidered to be an arm of the sea, and which the Portugueze ascended to the distance of many leagues.

The extent of this navigation was probably limited to the ascertaining that it was not an arm of the sea, but a large river. As to the name of Canada, which was given to the country on the right of the entrance, it was by many geographers confined to a villao-e situated at the confluence of the Seguenai, and according to most writers ori- ginated in the following circumstance: — When the Portugueze first ascended the river, under the idea that it was a strait, through which a passage to the Indies might be discovered — on arriving at the point where they ascertained that it was 7iot a strait, but a river, they, with all the emphasis of disappointed hopes, exclaimed repeatedly, Ca, nada ! — (here, nothing !) which words caught the

44 DISCOVERIES OF 1500.

attention of the natives, and were remembered and repeated by them on seeing other Europeans, under Jacques Cartier, arrive in 1534 — but Cartier mistakes the object of the Portugueze to have been gold mines, not a passage to India ; and if the Portugueze account be true, he also mistook the ex- clamation of C^, nacla, for the name of the country.

It has been already stated that, in the course of this voyage, Cortereal discovered many islands, which he found were inhabited, and to which he gave Portugueze names. Ramusio, in his map, lays down the Ilha dos Baccalhaos (Cod Island) almost joining Terra de Cortereal ; the island of Boa Vista ; and another which he names " Monte de Trigo'' (wheat heap or hill); and in the map of Ortelius there is laid down, in lat. 43°, Ilha Redonda (Round Island) ; in lat, 47°, Ilha da area (Sand Island); and in lat. 57", Ilha dos Cysnes (Swan Island); and, finally, in the mouth of Hud- son's Straits, he places a little islet under the name of Ca?Ytmilo — from which it may almost be con- cluded that the Portugueze had been here also, as this name is only a mis-spelling of the Por- tugueze word Caramelo or Icicle.

These circumstances render it probable that during the enthusiasm excited by the voyages of Gama and of Magalhanes, other voyages were undertaken, and countries described, bv the Portu- gueze, which subsequent events caused to be neg- lected and forgotten.

1501. THE CORTEREALS. 45

As Gaspar Cortereal was fully persuaded that a north-west passage to India might be found, and that its discovery would be honourable to himself and highly advantageous to his country, he con- tinued his preparations for a second expedition, to which he had no difficulty in obtaining the king's consent ; and he sailed, accompanied by the anxious prayers and hopes of his countrymen, from the port of Lisbon, on the 15th of May, 150 1^ with two vessels.

The voyage is said to have been prosperous until they reached Terra Verde; but here he was separated by bad weather from his consort, who, after having long searched and waited for him in vain, returned to Lisbon, with the melancholy tidings of what had happened. It is stated, in several of the collections of voyages, that the name of Anian was given to the Strait supposed to have been discovered by Gaspar, in honour of two brothers \\\\o accompanied him ; but there are no grounds whatever for such a sup- position, nor for that of other geographers who pretend that the name of Ania^ as applicable to the north-western extremity of America, is mentioned by Marco Polo as a province of China, there being no such province in China, nor any such men- tioned by Marco Polo. The origin of the word is, in fact, utterly unknown.*

* 111 the earliest maps Ania is marked as the name of the north- western part of America. Ani in the Japanese language is said to signify brother ; hence probably the mistake.

46 DISCOVERIES OF 1502.

Michael Cortereal, grand door-keeper of the king Don Manuel, seeing himself thus deprived pf a hrother for whom he entertained the warmest affection, would not entrust the task of sendmg in search of him to any other, and therefore he him- self set sail with three vessels from Lisbon, on the 10th of May, 1302.

Antonio Galvam informs us that, upon their reaching the coast, they discovered many rivers and openings, and each vessel entered a separate one, with the understanding that they should all meet at a certain point on the 20th of August. Two of the vessels did so meet, but Miguel de Cortereal did not appear, nor was any thing more ever heard of him ; and the only memorial of his and his bro- ther's fate is the name of Coi^tereal given to the country.

When these two vessels returned to Lisbon with the melancholy news of the loss of this second Cortereal, there remained yet a third brothei', Vasco Eanes, master of the household, and one of the privy council of king Don Manuel, who im- mediately prepared to set out in search of his lost brothers ; but no entreaty, no influence, could ob- tain the king's consent, who constantly replied that in this undertaking he had already lost two of his most faithful servants and valuable friends, and was resolved at least to preserve the third ; he very readily, however, granted leave for other vessels being prepared and dispatched on this

1503. THE CORTEREALS, 47

search; but they also returned without any intel- ligence of these unfortunate navigators.

Notwithstanding these disasters, those voyages were nevertheless productive of great advantages to Portugal: they led to the establishment of a settlement on Newfoundland and to the prose- cution of verv extensive fisheries, in which were employed, at one period, between two and three hundred vessels from the ports of Vianna and Aveiro alone. But when Portugal had passed under the dominion of Spain, her commerce lan- guished and her marine was destroyed, from the combined effect of domestic oppression and foreign war; and the ports both of Aveiro and Vianna are at present, and have been for many years, by sheer neglect, nearly choaked with sand and mud, and can no longer receive vessels of burthen.

The family of Cortereal has long been extinct, but it was for many years one of the most distin- guished in Portugal. Tlie family name was ori- ginally Costa or Coste, and of French extraction, having come to Portugal along with the Count Alfonso Henriquez, under whom one of the Costas served in the taking of Lisbon and conquering of Portugal from the Moors.

The family settled in Algarve ; and when John Vaz da Costa (some say his father) came to the Portugueze court, he used to live in such a style of splendour and hospitality^, that the king observed to him, " Your presence, Costa, in my court,

48 DISCOVERIES, &c. 1503.

makes it a real court."' Others say, that it was not on account of his magnificent style of hving, but of his personal prowess on a particular occa- sion. Two strangers having appeared at court, and, accordins: to the manners of the times, chal- lenged any of the courtiers to wrestle or combat, Cortereal immediately accepted the challenge, and civilly shook hands with his antagonist before the contest; but so prodigious was the strength of Cortereal (until then called Costa) that he squeezed the stranger's hand until he cried out, in the greatest pain, that he could not attempt to contend with a man possessed of such extraordinary strength ; on which occasion the king is represented as being so delighted, that he exclaimed, " Truly, Costa, your presence. makes my court a real court. ''"^

* Mem. de Litterat. Portug. vol. viii. Lisbon, 1812. An Essay, by Sebastao Francisco Mendez Trigozo.

1J34. ( 49 )

CHAPTER II.

DISCOVERIES MADE IN THE NORTH DURING THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Aubert and Jacques Cartler — Estevau Gomez — The Domi' nus Vohiscum — The Trinitie and the Minion — Sir Hush Willoughhy — Richard Chancellor and Stephen Burrough — Sir Martin Frobisher — Edward Fenton — Arthur Pit and Charles Jackman — Sir Humphrey/ Gilbert — John Davis — Maldonado — Juan de Fuca — Barentz — Wil- liam Adams,

«

AUBERT AND JACQUES CARTIER. 1508 and 1534.

The French may almost be said to be the only maritime people of Europe who have seen, with apparent indifference, the exertions made by other nations for the discovery of a passage to India, either by the north-east or the north-west. Yet they very early availed themselves of the disco- veries of others: for we find the Normans and Bretons, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, frequenting the banks of Newfoundland for the purpose of fishing ; and one of their navigators, named Aubert or Hubert, sailed from Dieppe in 1508, in a ship called the Pensee, with the view, as it would seem, to examine the shores

VOL. T. E

60 DISCOVERIES OF 1535.

of Newfoundland, from whence he brought back to Paris one of the natives; but it does not ap- pear that any further discovery was the object of this voyage. Perhaps, however, the expedition of Jacques Cartier in 1534, under the auspices of Francis I., might be called a voyage of discovery, undertaken with the view of finding a short route to those countries, from which Spain derived so much wealth. The discovery he actually made, or at least claimed, was that of the gulf and river of Saint Lawrence; though there can be little doubt that Cortereal preceded him, and indeed it is gene- rally supposed that even Velasco had been before him. The etymology of the word Canada (already noticed*) has even been ascribed to the visit of Velasco, with as little accuracy perhaps as that which had before been assigned by Cortereal. It is stated that the former, disappointed in not finding any of the precious metals, in hastening to return, called out to his people Aca 7iada, " there is nothing here," which words being repeated by the natives to the next Europeans they saw^, it was concluded that Canada was the name of the country ; but both may probably be thought too forced and fanciful to be real. Cartier, in the narrative of his second voyage up the St. Lawrence in 1535, gives a more probable derivation of the name, when he says that an assemblage of houses or a town is called

* Under Art. " Corlercal."

1535. AUBERT AND J. CARTIER. 51

Canada in the language of the natives — ilz appel- lant une ville, Canada.^

The subsequent voyages of Roberval and of the Marqnis de la Roche had no other object of dis- covery than that of gold, or of finding out a desirable spot to establish a colony on the coast of America; and though they contain many very curious and interesting transactions with the native Indians, they come not within the scope of the present history, which is meant to be confined to the more northern regions. We hasten, therefore, to those brilUant periods of early English enter- prize, so conspicuously displayed in every quarter of the globe ; but in none, probably, to greater advantage, than in those bold and persevering- efforts to pierce through frozen seas, in their little slender barks of the most miserable description, ill provided w ith the means either of comfort or safety, without charts or instruments, or any pre- vious knowledge of the cold and inhospitable regions through which they had to force and to feel their wav : their vessels oft beset amidst end- less fields of ice, and threatened to be overwhelmed with instant destruction from the rapid whirling and bursting of those huge floating masses, known by the name of ice-bergs : yet, so powerfully in- fused into the minds of Britons was the spirit of

* In hk vocabulary of the language he calls a toun ** Canada.** r^Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 232. .

E 2

5^ DISCOVERIES OF 1524.

enterprize, that some of the ablest, the most learned, and most respectable men of the times, not only lent their countenance and support to expeditions fitted out for the discovery of new lands, but strove eagerly, in their own persons, to share in the glory and the danger of every daring adventure.

In point of time, however, there is one solitary voyage on record, though the particulars of it are so little known as almost to induce a suspicion whether any such voyage was ever performed, which takes precedence of any foreign voyage on the part of English navigators ; it is that of a Spaniard, or rather perhaps, judging from the name, of a Portugueze, for the discovery of a northern passage to the Moluccas ; and still more probably a Portugueze, from the circumstance of his having accompanied Magelhanes on his voyage into the south seas round the southern extremity of the continent of America. The following vague ac- count is all that can now be collected of Esteyan or Steven Gomez.

ESTEVAN GOMEZ. 1524.

The attempts which had been made by John and Sebastian Cabota on the part of England, by Cortereal on that of Portup-al, and by Aubert or Hubert, who was sent out by the French, to pro- secute discoveries in the north, very naturally alarmed the jealousy of the Spaniards, who, on

15£4. ESTEVAN GOMEZ. 53

account of their rich and valuable possessions in the east, were the most interested in confining the way to them to that, which should be as intricate and difficult as possible. The two grand routes to those possessions, which the two Portugueze, Vasco de Gama and Magelhanes, had succeeded in disco ver- ins;, were, it is true, both long and tedious, and, in those early periods of navigation, not altogether free from danger. That circumstance alone might not, therefore, have been sufficient to excite investigation on the part of Spain, if she had not witnessed other nations attempting to discover a shorter way to China and the Indies by the north. It would have argued the extreme of indifference, if the nation most interested in the speedy intercourse with the Avealthy countries of the east should have heen the most backward in profiting by those discoveries already made, and which augured such happy results. Accordingly we find that in the year 1524, Estevan Gomez, a supposed skilful navigator, employed on the part of Spain, sailed from Corunna with a view of discovering a northern passage to the Molucca islands from tlie Atlantic. This Gomez, as before mentioned, had sailed with IVIagelhanes on his voyage of discovery into the south seas. He was therefore personally acquainted with the difficulties and delays of a passage by that route, and capable of estimating the compa- rative advantages of one round the nortliern ex- tremity of America. But to what part of the coast

K 3

54 DISCOVERIES OF I59,4t'

of America, or Newfoundland, or Labrador, he directed his course is not at all known. It is evident, however, that he returned without bring- ing back with him any hope of a passage into the eastern seas, having contented himself with seizing and bringing off some of the natives of the coast on which he had touched. It is said, that one of hi^ friends, accosting him on his return, inquired with eagerness what success he had met witli, and what he had brought back; to which Gomez replying shortly esclavos (slaves), the friend concluded he had accomplished his purpose, and brought back a cargo of cloves (clavos), " On this," says Purchas, " he posted to the court to carry the first news of this spicy discovery, looking for a great reward; but the truth being known, caused hcreat great laughter."*

Caspar, in his history of the Indies, is the only authority for this voyage, of wdiich and of Steven Gomez, as Purchas has observed, "little is left us but a jest."

The Spaniards were not less alarmed on the side of the Pacific than thev were at home. Cortez, the conqueror and viceroy of Mexico, had received intelligence of the attempt of Cortereal to dis- cover a northern passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific, and of his having entered a strait, to which he gave the name of Anian. Alive to the importance of the intelligence, he lost not a mo-

* Purchas his Pilgrimage, vol. v. p. 810.

1542. ESTEVAN GOMEZ. 55

ment in fitting out three ships well manned, of which he is said to have taken the command in person, though nominally under the orders of Francisco Ulloa, to look out for the opening of this strait into the Pacific, and to oppose the pro- gress of the Portugueze and other Europeans who might attempt this passage. Little is known con- cerning this expedition of Cortez, but that it soon returned without meeting witli Cortereal, or dis- covering any thing that could lead to the suppo- sition of a passage from those seas to the Atlantic.

The Spaniards, however, were by no means easy at the attempts, feeble as they had hitherto been, to reach the Pacific by a northern route. Accordingly, in 1542, the viceroy Mendoza sent Coronado by land and Alarcon by sea to the north- ward from Mexico, to inquire into and, if possible, to discover the strait of Anian, which was then supposed to be the western opening of the passage into the Pacific; but both expeditions returned without having effected any discovery that could lead to the supposition of the existence of such a passage being well grounded.

The court of Spain were by no means satisfied with such negative testimonies, and gave orders, two years afterwards, for another expedition, the conduct of which was entrusted to Juan Rod- riguez de Cabrillo, a Portugueze in the service of Spain. He proceeded along the north-west coast of America as far as the latitude 44^ and

E 4

56 DISCOVERIES Iff 1527-

gave the name of Cape Mendocino, in compliment of the vicerov, to the land seen about the latitude 42°. The want of provisions, the sickness of the crew, the weakness of the ship, the turbulent sea, and the cold weather, were assigned as the reasons for their return, without proceeding- to a higher degree of latitude ; and it may well be a subject of wonder, that this enterprizing nation, the first which was lirmlv established on the coasts and islands of the Pacific, should have been the last to make discoveries in that part of the world.

THE UOMINUS VOBISCUM. 1527.

We ought, perhaps, to be less surprized at the indifference shewn for northern discovery by the maritime nations of Europe, when we find that, notwithstanding the liberal encouragement given by Henry VII. and his successor Edward VI., to Sebastian Cabota, the spirit of enterprize seems to have lain dormant in England for thirty years nearly ; at least no memorial of any voyage under- taken either for profit or discovery is left on record during that period. In fact the real spirit of ad- venture had not yet stimulated the mercantile part of the nation to engage in foreign trade or to make discoveries; and so little impression had the ex- ploits of Cabota and his suggestions for following them up made on the minds of the people of Eng- land, or of the governmetit, that this great pilot

1527. THE DOMINUS VOBISCUM. 57

seems to have left the country in disgust, and entered into the service of Spain ; from whence he was probably drawn, in the reign of Edward VI., on promise of the pension already mentioned, or, in general terms, of the king's patronage. It would seem, indeed, that although the prowess of EngHsh seamen had oft-times been displayed in contests on their native element with their con- tinental neighbours, in " carrackes, barges and balyngers," the kings of England, or their coun- sellors, were not yet aware of the great advantages of foreign trade and foreign enterprize towards the formation of a military marine. There is, how- ever, a document preserved in Hakluy t's collection, in the shape of a poem, complaining of the neglect of the navy in the time of Henry VI., and extolling *' the policee of keeping the see in the time of the marvelllous werriour and victorious prince. King Henry the Fift, and of his grete shippes."

t<

When at Hampton, he made the Great DromonSy Which passed other grete shippes of the Commons, The Trinitie, the Grace de Dieu, the Holi^ Ghost And other moe, which as now be lost, What hope ye was th& king's grete intent, Of thoo shippes, and what in mind he meant. It was not ellis, but that he cast to bee Lord Round-about, environ of the see."*

At length, however, the spirit of discovery and foreign enterprize burst forth in the reign of Henry

* English Policie exhorting all England to keepe the see, &c. — Hakluy t, vol. i. p. 187.

58 DISCOVERIES IN 1527.

VIII., and flourished in full vigour under the fostering hand of Elizabeth. The first enterprize undertaken solely by Englishmen, of which we have any record, w^as at the suggestion of Master Robert Thorne, of Bristol, who is said to have ex- horted King Henry VIII. " with very weighty and substantial reasons to set forth a discoverie even to the North Pole," w^iich voyage, as would appear from the Chronicles of Hall and Grafton, actually took place; for they inform us that " King Henry VIII. sent two faire ships well manned and victualled, havino- in them divers cunning men to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of the Thames the 20th day of May, in the Ipth veere of his raio-ne, which was the yere of our Lord 1527-' * Hakluyt took great pains to discover who these cunning men were, but all he could learn was that one of the ships was called the DoMiNUS VoBiscuM, and that a canon of St. Paul's, in London, a great mathematician and wealthy man, went therein himself in person ; that having sailed very far north-westward, one of the ships was cast away on entering into a dangerous gulph, about the great opening between the north parts of Newfoundland and Meta incognita or Greenland, and the other returned home about the beginning of October: "and this," says Hakluyt, " is all that I can hitherto learne or finde out of this voyage, by reason of the great negligence of

* Chronicles quoted by Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 12^.

1536. THE DOMINUS VOBISCUM. 59

the writers of those times, who should have used more care in preserving of the memories of the worthy actes of our nation.''^

THE TRINITIE AND THE MINION. 1536.

This voyage, we are told by Hakluyt, was set forth by Master Hore, of London, " a man of goodly stature and of great courage, and given to the studie of cosmographie." Assisted by the king's favour, several gentlemen were encouraged to accompany him in a voyage of discovery upon the north-west parts of America, many of whom were of the Inns of Court and of Chancery; " and divers others of good worship, desirous to see the strange things of the world. The whole number that went in the two tall ships were about sixe- score persons, whereof thirty were gentlemen, which were all mustered in warlike maner at Gravesend, and after the receiving of the sacra- ment they embarked themselves in the ende of

Aprill, 1536."t

After a tedious passage of two months they reached in safety Cape Breton; and shaping a course from thence to the north-east came to Pen- guin island, " very full of rocks and stones, whereon they went and found it full of great

* Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 129- I idem.

60 DISCOVERIES IN 1536*.

foules white and gray, as big as geese, and they saw infinite numbers of their egges." These birds they skinned and found to be good and nourishing meat, and the great store of bears, both black and white, was no mean resource, and, as we are told, no bad food.

Mr. Oliver Dawbeney, merchant of London, who was one of the adventurers on board the Minion, related to Mr. Richard Hakluyt the fol- lowing curious circumstances concerning this early voyage :

" That after their arrivall in Newfoundland, and having bene there certaine dayes at ancre, and not having yet scene any of the naturall people of the countrey, the same Dawbeney walking one day on the hatches spied a boate with savages of those parts, rowing downe the bay toward them, to gaze upon the ship and our people, and taking vewe of their comming aloofe, he called to such as were under the hatches, and willed them to come up if they would see the natural people of the countrey, that they had so long and so much desired to see : whereupon they came up and tooke viewe of the savages rowing toward them and their ship, and upon the viewe they manned out a ship-boat to meet them and to take them. But they spying our ship-boat making towards them, returned with maine force and fled into an island that lay up in the bay or river there, and our men pursued them into the island and the savages fledde and escaped ;

1556. THE TRINITIE AND MINIOV. 6\

but our men found a fire and the side of a beare, on a wooden spit, left at the same by the savages that were fled.

*' There, in the same place, they found a bootc of leather, garnished on the outward side of the calfe with certaine brave trailes, as it were of rawe silke, and found a certaine great warme mitten. And these caryed with them, they returned to their shippe, not finding the savages, nor seeing any thing else besides the soyle, and the things growing in the same, which chiefly were store of firre and pine trees.

" And further the said Mr. Dawbeney told him, that lying there they grew into great want of vic- tuals, and that there they found small reliefe, more than that they had from the nest of an osprey, that brought hourely to her yong great plentie of divers sorts of fishes. But such was the famine that encreased amongst them from day to day, that they were forced to seeke to relieve themselves of raw herbes and rootes that they sought on the maine : but the famine encreasing, and the reliefe of herbes being to little purpose to satisfie their insatiable hunger, in the fieldes and deserts here and there, the fellow killed his mate while he stooped to take up a roote for his reliefe, and cutting out pieces of his bodie whom he had mur- thered, broyled the same on the coles and greedily devoured them.

** By this meane the company decreased, and

60, DISCOVERIES 1'^ }536,

the officers knew not what had become of them ; and it fortuned that one of the company, driven with hunger to seeke a])roade for reliefe, found out in the fieldes the savour of broyled flesh, and fell out with one for that he would suffer him and his fellowes to sterve, enjoying plentie as he thought ; and this matter growing to cruell speaches, he that had the broyled meate burst out into these wordes: — If thou wouldest needes know, the broyled meate I had was a piece of such a man's buttocke. The report of this brought to the ship, the captaine found what became of those that were missing, and was perswaded that some of them were neither devoured with wilde beastes nor yet destroyed with savages : and hereupon he stood up and made a notable oration, containing ho we much these dealings offended the Almightie, and vouched the Scriptures from first to last wliat God had, in cases of distresse, done for them that called upon him, and told them that the power of the Almighty was then no lesse, then in al former time it had bene. And added, that if it had not pleased God to have holpen them in that distresse, that it had been better to have perished in body, and to have lived everlastingly, then to have relieved for a poore time their mortal bodyes, and to be condemned everlastingly both body and soule to the unquenchable fire of hell. And thus having ended to that effect, he began to exhort to repentance, and besought all the company to pray,

1536. THE TRINITIE A^D MINION. 63

that it might please God to look upon their present miserable state, and for his ovvne mercie to relieve the same. The famine encreasing, and the incon- venience of the men that were missing being found, thev agreed amongst themselves, rather than all should perish, to cast lots who should be killed- and such was the mercie of God, that the same night there arrived a French ship in that port, well furnished with vittaile, and such was the policie of the English that they became masters of the same, and changing ships and vittailing them they set sayle to come into England.

*^ In their journey they were so farre northwards, that they saw mighty islands of yce in the sommer season on which were hawkes and other foules to rest themselves being weary of flying over farre from the maine. They sawe also certaine great white foules with red bils and red legs, somewhat ^ bigger than herons, which they supposed to be storkes. They arrived at S. Ives in Cornewall about the ende of October, from thence they departed unto a certain castle belonging to Sir John Luttrell, where M. Thomas Buts, and M. Rastall, and other gentlemen of the voyage, were very friendly entertained ; after that they came to the Earle of Bathe at Bathe, and thence to Bristol, so to London. M. Buts was so changed in the voyage with hunger and miserie, that Sir William his father, and my Lady his mother, knew him not to be their sonne, until they found a secret mark.

64 DISCOVERIES IT^ 1536.

which was a wart, upon one of his knees, as he told me, Richard Hakluyt of Oxford, himselfe ; to whom I rode 200 miles to learn the whole trueth of this voyage from his own mouth, as being the onely man now alive that was in this dis- coverie.

" Certaine months after, those Frenchmen came into England, and made complaint to king Henry the VIIL ; the king, causing the matter to be ex- amined, and finding the great distresse of his sub- iects and the causes of dealing so with the French, was so mooved with pitie, that he punished not his subiects, but of his owne purse made full and royall recom pence unto the French.

" In this distresse of famine, the English did somewhat relieve their vitall spirits, by drinking at the springs the fresh water out of certaine wooden cups, out of which they had drunke their aqua composita before."'*'

SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 1553.

The attention of the merchants of England en- gaged in foreign trade appears to have chiefly been confined to the Flemish towns, the island of Ice- land, and to a limited fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, during the first h:Jf of the six-

* Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 130.

15S6, SIR HUGH M'lLLOUGHBT. 65

teenth century. But the return of Sebastian Cabota, and the knowledge of his great enter- prizes in the service of Spain, mfused into the minds of the merchants of England that spirit of enlarged adventure which had but feebly shewn itself at the commencement of the century, and then confined to one quarter of the globe. The reputation of this able navigator was so firmly established on his return to England that, in ad- dition to the liberal pension granted to him by Edward VI., he was constituted Grand Pilot of England, and ^' Governour of the mysterie and companie of the marchants adventurers for the discoverie of regions, dominions, islands and places unknowen." It was at his suggestion that a voyage was undertaken in the year 1553 for the discovery of a north-east passage to Cathaia ; and the ordinances and instructions drawn up by him on this occasion are such as do him infinite honour, not only for the chaste style in which they are written, but also for the liberal and enlightened sentiments which run throughout this early per- formance."^

The ships fitted out for this expedition of dis- covery were the Bona Esperanza, Admiral of the fleet, of the burden of 120 tons, having with her a

•* Ordinances, Instructions^ SfC. by M. Sebastian Cabota, Zsquier, Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 22().

VOL. I. F

56 DISCOVERIES OF 1553.

pinnace and a boat ; and Sir Hugh Wi lloughby, Knight, as Captain General of the fleet, was appointed to command her : the Edward Bonad- venture, of 160 tons, with a pinnace and a boat, the command of which was given to Richard Chan- celor, Captain and Pilot-Major of the fleet, and Steven Burough was master of the ship : and the Bona Confidentia of 90 tons, having also a pinnace, and a boat,of which Cornelius Durfoorth was master. The number of persons in the first ship was thirty- five, including six merchants ; in the second fifty, including two merchants; and in the third twenty- eight, including three merchants.

This first regular expedition for discoveries excited the most lively interest at the court and in the capital; and so sanguine were the promoters of the voyage of its success in reaching the Indian seas, that they caused the ships to be sheathed with lead as a protection against the worms which, they had understood, were destructive of wooden sheathing in the Indian climates,* and these are pro- bably the first ships that in England were coated with a metallic substance.! From the account of the

•* Clement Adams's account of the voyage. Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 243.

-f Sheathing with lead was in use till the reign of Charles II. but was discontinued on account of its wearing away irregularly and so soon washing bare in places, as to let in the worms ; and sheathing with wood was adopted in its place. In 1708, a pro- posal was made to the Navy Board to sheath ships with copper,

1553. SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 67

voyage written by Clement Adams, " schoolemaster to the Queene's henshmen," it would appear that several persons of great experience were candidates for the command, but that Sir Hugh Willoughby, a vahant gentleman and well born, was preferred before all others, " both by reason of his goodly personage (for he was of tall stature) as also for his sing^ular skill in the services of warre»" On the day appointed for the sailing of the expedition from Ratcliffe, which was the 20th May, " they saluted their acquaintance, one his wife, another his children, and another his kinsfolkes, and another his friends deerer than his kinsfolkes;" after which the ships dropped down to Greenwich, where the court then was. The great ships were towed down by the boats, " the marriners being all apparelled in watchet or skie-coloured cloth. The courtiers came running out and the common people flockt together, standing very thicke upon the shoare ; the Privie Consel, they lookt out at the win- dowes of the court, and the rest ranne up to the toppes of the towers ; the shippes hereupon dis- charge their ordinance, and shoot off their pieces after the maner of warre, and of the sea, insomuch

which was rejected without a trial. About sixty years after it obtained a trial and was favourably reported on — yet, so very difficult is the introduction of any thing new, that, ten years after this experiment, in Admiral Keppel's fleet, there was but one line of battle ship that was coppered, — M. S, Memoirs of the Navy.

6S DISCOVERIES OF 1553^

that the tops of the hilles sounded therewith, the valleys and the waters gave an echo, and the mariners they shouted in such sort, that the skie tano: ao'aine with the noise thereof.''''^

The result of this voyage, which held out such fair promises, was most disastrous to the gallant Sir Hugh Willoughhy and his brave associates; who, with the whole of the merchants, officers and ship's company, as well as those of the Bona Con- fidentia, to the number of seventy persons, perished miserably from the effects of cold or hunger, or both, on a barren and uninhabited part of the eastern coast of Lapland, at the mouth of a river called Arzi?ia, not far from the harbour of Kegor, The ships and the dead bodies of those who thus perished were discovered the following year by some Russian fishermen; and by some papers found in the admiral's ship, and especially by the date of his Will, it appeared that Sir Hugh Willoughby and most of the company of the two ships were alive in January 1554. They had entered the river on the 1 8th of September preceding. No papers, however, were ever published to give the least account of their proceedings and sufferings, which is somewhat sin* gular; as even common seamen, English, Dutch and Russians, who, at various times, have wintered in much higher latitudes, have kept regular journals of their proceedings. That of Sir Hugh is exceed-

* Clement Adams, Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 245.

1553. SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 69

ingly meagre, terminates just after their arrival in the Arzina, and contains only the following paragraph respecting their distressed situation.

'* Thus remaining in this haven the space of a wceke, seeing the yeere farre spent, and also very evill wether, as frost, snowx and haile, as though it had been the deepe of winter, we thought it best to winter there. Wherefore we sent out three men south south-west, to search if thev could find people, who went three dayes journey, but could finde none. After that we sent other three westward four dayes journey, which also returned without finding any people. Then sent we three men south-east three dayes journey, who in like sorte returned without finding of people or any similitude of habitation.''^

" It is singular," says Mr. Pennant, " that so very little has been preserved concerning that very illustrious character. Sir Hugh Willoughby. It appears that he was son of Sir Henry Willoughby, Knight and Baronet, by his third wife Elen, daughter of John Egerton,!Esq. of Wrine Hall in Cheshire. Sir Hugh married Jane, daughter of Sir Nicholas Shelley, of Shelley, in the county of Nottingham, Knight ; by her he had a son named Henry, of whom I do not find any account. They were originally of Riseley in Derbyshire ; Sir Hugh is styled by Camden, of Riseley. They

* Sir H. Willoughbfs note, Hakluyt, vol. p. 236,

F 3

70 DISCOVERIES ov 1555.

changed their residence to Wollaton in Notting- hamshire, the princely and venerable seat of Lord Middleton, who acquired it by the marriage of his ancestor, Sir Perceval Willoughby, with Brigitta, dauo-hter and sole heiress of Sir Francis Willough- by, founder of that noble pile. The portrait of the celebrated Sir Hugh is to be seen there ; a whole length, in very large breeches, according to the fashion of the times, in a room hung with velvet, with a table covered with velvet, and a rich carpet. From his meagre appearance, the servant tells you that it represents the attitude in which he was found starved. This trivial account is all that is left of so great a name."*'

A better fortune attended Master Richard Chancelor, in the Edward Bonaventure, who suc- ceeded in reaching Wardhuys, in Norway, the appointed rendezvous of the little squadron. Here he waited seven days looking in vain for his con- sorts, and was preparing to depart, when meeting with " certaine Scottishmen" they earnestly at- tempted to dissuade him from the further prosecu- tion of the voyage, magnifying the danger and using every eifort to prevent his proceeding; but he was not to be discouraged with '' the speeches and words of the Scots," and resolutely determined " either to bring that to passe which was intended, or els to die the death." Accordingly, on setting

* Pennant's Arct. Zool. Sup. p. 32.

1554. SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY. 71

out again, '' he held on his course towards that unknowen part of the world, and sailed so farre that hee came at last to the place where hee found no night at all, but a continuall light and bright- nesse of the sunne shining clearly upon the huge and mighty sea." At length he entered into a very great bay, and seeing a fishing-boat, en- quired of the people " what country it is, and what people, and of what maner of living they were ;" but these men seeing the large ship were greatly alarmed and fled. At last, however, they were overtaken, and immediately fell on their knees, ofFerino: to kiss Master Chancelor's feet. The report being spread abroad of the arrival of a strange people " of singular gentlenesse and cour- tesie," the inhabitants brought them presents of provisions and entered readily and fearlessly into trade with them.

Our navigators now learned that the name of the country was Russia or Moscovie, and that of their king Juan Vasilovich, who " ruled and go- verned farre and wide in those places." A nego- ciation speedily commenced, the result of which was a journey, undertaken and performed by Master Chancelor, of nearly fifteen hundred miles, to a city called Mosco, where he was well received ; and to his discreet and able representations Eng- land is indebted for the firm foundation of that commerce with Russia, which has continued almost without interruption ever since.

F 4

72 DISCOVERIES OF \555 and

The first interview with the Czar of Mosco is extremelv interestino; and curious. These adven- turers were received with every mark of distinc- tion, and invited to a splendid entertainment, at which were present the Czar and all his nobles. The display of gold and silver, the jewels and the rich robes, perfectly astonished the English travel- lers. The emperor kept them at great distance ; but Chancelor saluted him only in the manner of the Eno'lish court. On the second visit the Czar was more familiar. " The prince called them to his table to receive each a cup from his hand to drinke, and took into his hand Master George Killingworth's beard, which reached over the table, and pleasantlie delivered it the Metropoli- tane, who, seeming to blesse it, saide in Russ, ' this is God's gift;' as indeed at that time it was not only thicke, broad, and yellow coloured, but in length five foote and two inches of assize." Shortly after this he was dispatched with a proper escort to Archangel, with a letter from the Czar addressed to Edward VI., and sailing from thence the following spring arrived safely in England.

RICHARD CHANCELOR, AND STEVEN BUROUGH.

1555 and 1556.

The return of Chancelor to England with a letter from the Czar Vasilovich addressed to Ed-

1556. CHAXCELOR AND BUROUGH. 73

ward VI., and the prospects of vast profits which a trade with this extensive empire held forth, were deemed to have amply compensated the melancholy fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby, the supposed loss of the two ships, and the failure of the expedition in its main object ; and Philip and Mary, who were now on the throne, were readily prevailed on to grant a new charter '' to the community of merchants adventurers," and to appoint Sebastian Cabota governor thereof for the term of his natural life. A commission was also issued, constituting Richard Chancelor, George Killingworth, and Richard Gray commissioners from Philip and Mary, to carry a letter to, and to treat with, the Czar of Moscovie concerning the commercial priveleges and immu- nities which he might be pleased to grant to this newly chartered company. The Edward Bona- venture and the Philip and Mary were the ships appointed to carry out the commissioners, who, on their arrival at Archangel, were escorted to Mosco, where they were well received, and, we are told, made a profitable voyage. But though commerce was the immediate, it was not the only, object of this second expedition. By an article of their instructions the adventurers were particularly di- rected " to use all wayes and meanes possible to learne howe men may passe from Russia, either by land or by sea, to Cathaia." And so anxious was the company to follow up the attempt at a north- east passage to the Indian seas, that, without

^

74 DISCOVERIES OF \555 aud

waiting the result of Chancelor's second voyage, it was determined to fit out a small vessel the next year, 1556, to make discoveries by sea to the east- ward ; and Steven Burrowe or Burough was ap- pointed to command the Seixh thrift pinnace fitted out for this purpose. On the 27th April, being- then at Gravesend and ready for sea, the governor, accoinpanied with several gentlemen and ladies, paid a visit to the ship, " and the good olde gentle- man Master Cabota gave to the poore most liberall almes; and then, at the signe of the Christopher, hee and his friends banketted, and made mee and them that were in the company great cheere ; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery, he entered into the dance himselfe, amongst the rest of the young and lusty company." They left Gravesend on the 29th; on the 23d May passed the North Cape, so named on the first voyage, and on the 9th June entered the river Cola, and determined its latitude to be 65° 48' N.

One of the numerous Russian vessels called lodias, under the orders of one Gabriel, being bound for Petchora, led the way for the Serchthrift with great attention and civility until they came , to that river, which they reached on the 15th July. In proceeding to the eastward they fell in with much ice, in which they were enclosed before they were aware of it, and " which was a feareful sight to see." Jn latitude TO*" 15' they again encountered

1556. CHANCELOR AND Bo ivour^ H. 75

heaps of ice. But on the 25th they fell in with an object which seems to have inspired greater terror even than the ice. It was the first whale that our navigators had met with, and the impression it made on the crew is rather amusing. " On St. James his day, bolting to the windewardes, we had the latitude at noon in seventy degrees, twentie minutes. The same day, at a south-west sunne, there was a monstrous whale aboord of us, 60 neere to our side that we might have thrust a sworde or any other weapon in him, which we durst not doe for feare hee should have over- throwen our shippe ; and then I called my com- pany together, and all of us shouted, and with the crie that we made he departed from us ; there was as much above water of his backe as the bredth of our pinnesse, and at his falling downe he made such a terrible noise in the water, that a man would greatly have marvelled, except he had known the cause of it ; but, God be thanked, we were quietly delivered of him.'"^

The same day they came to an island which they named James's Island, Here they met with a Russian who had seen them at Cola, and who told them that the land a head x)f them was called Nova Zembla, or the New Land. On the Slst they reached the island of JVeigats. Here they had intercourse with several Russians, and learned

* Hakluyt's English Voyages, vol. i. p. 280.

fg ^tsCOVERIES OF 1556.

from them that the people who inhabited the great islands were called Samoeds, who have no houses but tents made of deer's skins. On landing they observed a heap of Samoeds' idols, at least three hundred in number, in the shape of men, women, and children, '^ very grossly wrought, and the eyes and mouth of sundrie of them were bloodie." Some of them are described as being " an olde sticke with two or three notches."

They remained near this place till the 23d August, without being able to get farther to the eastward on account of the constant north-east and northerly winds, thick weather, and abundance of ice ; and on the 10th September they arrived at Colmagro^ where they remained for the winter. In 1557 Burough returned to England, and was afterwards made Comptroller of the Royal Navy.

In the mean time, Juan Vasilovich sent, as his ambassador and orator to the court of London, Osep Napea, who embarked on the 20th July, 155(5, on board the Edward Bona venture, in the bay of St. Nicholas or Archangel, under the di- rection of Richard Chancelor, Grand Pilot, and accompanied by three other ships, the Bo7id Spe- ranza, the Philip and Mary, and the Cojijidentia. This homeward voyage was most disastrous. The Confidentia was lost on the coast of Norway, and all hands perished. The Bona Speranza wintered at Drontheim, and was lost on her passage to England ; and the Edward Bonaventure, after

1556. CHANCELOR AXD BUROUGH. 77

being four months at sea, came into Pitsligo Bay, on the east coast of Scotland, on the 10th Novem- ber, 1556, and was there wrecked, when, with great difficulty, the ambassador with a few of his atten- dants were saved ; but Richard Cliancelor, the Grand Pilot, and most of the crew were drowned. We are told by the writer of this unfortunate voyage, that " the whole masse and bodie of the goods laden in her, was by the rude and ravenous people of the country thereunto adjoining, rifled, spoyled, and carried away, to the manifest losse and utter destruction of all the lading of the said ship."* The ambassador was conducted to Lon- don in great pomp, and the connection between the two nations was from that time drawn closer every year. The English merchants trading with Russia extended their commerce far beyond the confines of that extensive empire ; but as their dis- coveries were made by land, they form no part of the present plan, and could not with propriety be introduced.

MARTIN FROBISHER — FlTSt VoyOge. 1576.

While this rapid progress was making in the north-east both by sea and land, under the auspices of the company of merchants trading to Russia, the question of a north-west passage round the northern coast of America to Cathaia and the East

* Voyages and Navigations, Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 28().

78 DISCOVERIES OF 1576.

Indies, was revived with greater ardour than at any former period, and the pens of the most learned men in the nation were employed to prove the existence, the practicability, and the great advantages of such a passage. Among others, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Mr. Lichard Willes composed very learned and ingenious discourses on the subject. That of the former, in particular, contains much curious argument in favour of such a passage, and was well calculated to infuse a spirit of practical inquiry and discovery among his countrymen ; and although it appears not to have been printed until the year 1576, being that in which Frobisher made his first voyage, yet, having been written many years before, while Sir Hum- phrey was serving in Ireland, it was undoubtedly very well known to the promoters of Frobisher's voyage.*

Among other matters adduced in proof of a north-west passage between the Atlantic and Pacific, Sir Humphrey states, that " there was one Salvaterra, a gentleman of Victoria in Spain, who came to Ireland in 1568, out of the West Indies, and reported that the north-west passage from Europe to Cathaia was constantly believed in America ; and further said, in presence of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in Sir H. Gilbert's hearing, that a ' friar of Mexico, called Andrew Urdaneta, more than eight years before

* A DiscoursebySirHumphrcyGilbert,&c.Hakluyt,vol,iii.p. 19'

}576, MARTIN FROBISHER. 79

his then coming into Ireland (i.e. before 1560), told him there, that he came from Mar del Sur into Germany thro' this N.W. passage, and shewed Salvaterra (at that time being then with him in Mexico) a sea card, made by his own experience and travel in that voyage, wherein was plainly set down and described this N.W. passage, agreeing in all points with Ortelius's map.

' And further, this friar told the King of Por- tugal (as he returned by that country homeward) that there was (of certainty) such a passage N. W. from England, and that he meant to publish the same : which done, the king most earnestly desired him not in any wise to disclose or make the passage known to any nation. For that (said the king) if England had knowledge and experience thereof, it would greatly hinder both the King of Spain and me. This friar (as Salvaterra reported) was the greatest discoverer by sea that hath been in our age; also Salvaterra being persuaded of this passage by the Friar Urdaneta, and by the com- mon opinion of the Spaniards inhabiting America, offered most willingly to accompany me in this discovery, which of like he would not have done if he had stood in doubt thereof"

This Urdaneta was with Magelhanes on his dis- covery of a passage into the South Seas, round America; many years after this he took holy orders, and, residing in New Spain, was applied to by the King of Spain to pilot Legaspi's squadron

80 BISCOV^ERIES OF 157^.

to the Phillipines, which he did; and the chart now or recently in use by the Manilla ships is said to be that which was originally Urdaneta s.

It may safely be asserted, that no mention of the discovery attributed by Salvaterra to Urdaneta is to be met with in any Spanish author. But as the falsehood of the friar or the reporter could not at that early period be known in England, and as nothing in it appeared to be improbable, it served to spur on a spirit of adventure, by holding out the hope of certain success from perseverance. Ano- ther account of the same kind was afterwards received, which, though utterly false, produced the same encouraging effects. One Thomas Cowles, an Eno'lish seaman, of Badminster, in Somerset- shire, made oath that, being some six years before (1573) in Lisbon, he heard one Martin Chacque^ a Portuo'ueze mariner, read out of a book which he, Chacque, had published six years before that ; in which it was stated, that twelve years before (1556) he, the author, had set sail out of India for Portuo-al, in a small vessel of the burden of about eighty tons, accompanied by four large ships, from which he was separated by a westerly gale of wind ; that having sailed among a number of islands he entered a gulph, which conducted him into the Atlantic, in the S^"" of latitude, near New- foundland, from whence he proceeded without see- ing any more land till he fell in with the north- west part of Ireland, and from thence to Lisbon,

1576. MARTIN FROBISHER. 81

where he arrived more than a month before the other four ships with which he set out.

Whether Frobisher had collected similar reports of the passage having actually been performed, or whether alone from his " knowledge of the sphere and all other skilles appertaining to the arte of navigation" his hopes were grounded, it is quite certain he had persuaded himself that the voyage was not only feasible but of easy execution. His friends, however, were not so readily persuaded to enter into his scheme ; but, " as it was the only thing of the world that was left yet undone, whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate," he persevered for fifteen years without being able to acquire the means of setting forth an expedition, on which his mind had been so long and so resolutely bent.

At length, in the year 1576, by the countenance and assistance of Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and a few friends, he was enabled to fit out two small barks, the Gabriel of thirty-five and the Michael of thirty tons, together with a pinnace of ten tons. With this little squadron he prepared to set out on his important expedition, and on the 8th of June passed Greenwich, where the court then was ; and Queen Elizabeth bade them farewell by shaking her hand at them out of the window. On the 11th of July they came in sight of Friesland, " rising like pinnacles of steeples, and all covered with snow." This island, whose position has so

- VOL. I. G

82 DISCOVERIES OF 157^.

greatly puzzled geographers, could not be the Frisland of Zeno, but, bemg m 6l° of latitude, was evidently the southern part of Greenland. The floating ice obliged him to stand to the south-west till he got sight of Labrador, along the coast of which he then stood to the westward, but could neither reach the land nor get soundings on account of the ice. Sailing to the northward he met with a great island of ice, which fell in pieces, making a noise "as if a great cliffe had fallen into the sea." After this he entered a strait in lat. 63" 8'. This strait, to which his name was given from being its first discoverer, is the same which was afterwards named Lumley 's Inlet ; but Frobishers Strait was, for a long time, supposed by geographers to have cut off a portion from Old G reenland, till Mr. Dairy mple and others shewed the fallacy of such a supposition. Among the openings between the numerous islands hereabouts, they descried *' a number of small things floating in the sea afarre off, which the captain supposed to be porposes or scales, or some kind of strange fish" — but on a nearer approach they were discovered to be men in small boats covered with skins. The captain says, " the}^ be like to Tartars, with long black hair, broad faces and flatte noses, and taunie in colour, wearing scale skinnes, and so doe the women, not differing in the fashion, but the women are marked in the face with blewe streekes downe the cheekes and round about the eyes." They approached the ships with some hesitation, and one of the natives

1576. MARTIN FROBISHER, 83

presently went on board in the ship's JDoat ; and Frobisher, having given him a bell and a knife, sent him back in the boat with five of the crew, direct- ing them to land him on a rock and not to trust themselves where numbers of his countrymen were assembled on the shore; but they disobeyed his orders and were seized by the natives, together with the boat, and none of them heard of more. A few days afterwards, on returning to the same place, the people were observed to be extremely shy, but Frobislier, having succeeded in drawing one of them alongside by ringing a bell and hold- ing it out, as he stretched out his hand to receive it, " caught the man fast and plucked him with maine force, boate and all, into his barke out of the sea. Whereupon, when he found himselfe in captivity, for very choler and disdaine he bit his tongue in twaine within his mouth, notwithstand- ing he died not thereof, but lived until 1 he came in England, and then he died of cold which he had taken at sea." With this " strange infidele, whose like was never scene, read nor heard of before, and whose language was neither knowen nor under- stood of any," Frobisher set sail for England, and a;rrived at Harwich on the 2d of October, " highly commended of all men for his greate and notable attempt, but speceally famous for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cathaia."

That hope, however, would probably have died away but for an accidental circumstance which

Cx 2

* »■"■

84 DISCOVERIES OF }57T,

had been disregarded during the voyage. Some of the men had brought home flowers, some grass, and one a piece of stone, " much like to a sea cole in colour," merely for the sake of the place from whence they came. A piece of this black stone beino- o-iven to one of the adventurers' wives, by chance she threw it into the fire; and whether from accident or curiosity, having quenched it while hot with vinegar, " it glistered with a bright mar- quesset of golde." The noise of this incident was soon spread abroad, and the stone was assayed by the " gold finers of London," who reported that it contained a considerable quantity of gold.^ A new voyage was immediately set on foot for the following year, in which we are told by Master George Best, Frobisher's lieutenant, that " the captaine was specially directed by commission for the searching more of this gold ore then for the searching auy further discovery of the passage."!

MARTIN iROBisHER — SccoTid Voyagc. 1577*

Frobisher w^as now openly countenanced by Queen Elizabeth, and on taking leave had the honour of kissing her Majesty's hand, who dis- missed him *^ with gracious countenance and com- fortable words." He was, besides, furnished with " one tall ship of her Majesties, named the Ayde, of nine-score tunnes or thereabouts; and two other

* True Discourse by Master George }^Q%t,—Hakluyt, VoyageSy vol. iii. p. 29. t Ibid.

J 577. MARTIN FROBISHIlR. B5

little barkes likewise, the one called the Gabriel^ whereof Master Fenton was Captaine : and the other the Michael, whereof Master Yorke, a gen- tleman of my Lord Admiralls, was Captaine :" these two vessels were about thirty tons each. On the 27th of May, having received the sacrament and prepared themselves " as good Christians towards God, and resolute men for all fortunes," they left Gravesend, and after a long passage fell in with Friesland, in lat. 60-|^° on the 4th of July, the mountains covered with snow and the coast almost inaccessible from the great quantity of drift ice. It is worthy of remark that Fro- bisher, being in possession of the account of Fries- land, by the two Venetians, declares that *' for so much of this land as we have say led alongst, com- paring their carde with the coast, we find it very agreeable;" but no creature was seen " but little birdes." They observed islands of ice, " some seven tie, some eightie fathome under water," and more than half a mile in circuit ; and the ice being- fresh, Frobisher is led to the conclusion that these mountains " must be bredde in the sounds, or in some land neere the pole;" and that the '' mainc sea freeseth not, therefore there is no tnare glaciaky as the opinion hitherto hath bene." Four- days were here spent in vain endeavouring to land, after which they stood for the strait discovered by them the preceding year. They arrived off the north foreland, otherwise Hairs isla7id, so called after the

G 3

86 .DISCOVERIES OF 1577.

man who had picked up the golden ore, and who was noAv master of the Gabriel. They proceeded some distance up the strait, when, on the 1 8th of July, the general taking the gold-finers with him, landed near the spot where the ore had been picked up, but could not find in the whole island " a peece so bigge as a walnut." But all the neighbouring islands are stated to have good store of the ore. They then landed on Hall's greater island, where they also found a great quantity of the ore. On the top of a high hill, about two miles from the shore, " they made a columne or crosse of stones heaped up of a good heigth togither in good sort, and solemnly sounded a trumpet, and saide certaine prayers kneeling about the ensigne, and honoured the place by the name of Mount Warwicke.''

Returning to their boats, they espied several of the natives on the top of Mount Warwick waving a flag, " with cries like the mowing of buls, seem- ing greatly desirous of conference with us.'* Both sides being suspicious of each other, two men were selected one on the part of each to confer together, and to settle a traffick ; and we are told that " one of the salvages, for lacke of better merchandize, cut off the tayle of his coate and gave it unto the generall for a present." On this, which was not a very civil return, the general and the master sud- denly laid hold of the two savages. " But the ground under-foot being slipperie with the snow pn the side of the hill, their hand-fast fayled, and their prey escaping ranne away and lightly re-

'iSlT' MARTI N^ FROBISHER. %%

covered their bow and arrows, which they had hid not farre from them behind the rockes. And being only two salvages in sight, they so fiercely, desperately, and with such fury assaulted and pur- sued our generall and his master, being altogether unarmed, and not mistrusting their subtiltie, that they chased them to their boates, and hurt the generall in the buttocke with an arrow." The soldiers now began to fire, on which the savages ran away and the English after them ; when one " Nicholas Conger, a good footman, and uncum- bred with any furniture, having only a dagger at his backe, overtooke one of them, and being a Cornish man and a good wrastler, shewed his com- panion such a Cornish tricke that he made his sides ake against the ground for a moneth after; and sa being stayed he was taken alive and brought away, but the other escaped." In the meantime a storm having arisen, they proceeded with their prey to a small island, where keeping good " watch and warde" they lay there all night upon hard cliffs of snow and ice, both wet, cold and comfortless, in a country which yielded no better cheer than rocks and stones, and a people " more readie to eat them* then to give them wherewithall to eate." 1

They now stood over to the southern shore of; Frobisher's Strait, and landed on a small island, with the gold-finers to search for ore; and '' here all the sands and cliffs did so glister and had sq^ bright a marquesite that it seemed all to be gold,.

88 DISCOVERIES OF 1577.

but upon tryall made it pvooved no better than black-lead, and verified the proverbe — all is not gold that glistereth."

On another small island, which they named Smith's Island, they found a mine of silver, and four sorts of ore " to holde gold in good quan- titie;" and on another island a great dead fish, twelve feet long, ^' having a borne of two yardes long growing out of the snoute or nostrels," which was brought home and " reserved as a jewell" in the queen's wardrobe. They continued to proceed up the strait for about thirty leagues, much ham- pered with, and frequently in great danger from, the floating ice. In one of the small islands they found a tomb, in which were the bones of a dead man, and several implements belonging to the natives, the use of which was explained to them by the captive " salvage" — who taking in his hand one of their country bridles, " caught one of our dogges and hampered him handsomely therein, as we doe our horses ; and with a whip in his hand he taught the dog to drawe in a sled, as we doe horses in a coach, setting himselfe thereupon like a guide.'* They afterwards found that these people " feede fatte the lesser sort of dogges" to eat as food, and that the larger sort are used to draw their sledges.

In endeavouring to seize a party of natives in Yorke Sound, a skirmish ensued in which five or six of the savages were unfortunately put to death, and two women seized, " whereof the one being

1577. MARTIN FROBISHER. 8^

old and ugly, our men thought she had been a devil or some witch, and therefore let her goe ; the other being young and incumbered with a sucking child at her backe hiding herself behind the rocks, Avas espied by one of our men, who sup- posing she had bene a man, shot through the haire ■ of her head, and pierced through the child's arme whereupon she cried out, and our surgeon meaning to heale her child's arme, applyed salves thereunto. But she, not acquainted with such kind of surgery, plucked those salves away, and by continuale licking with her owne tongue, not m,uch unlike our dogs, healed up the childe's arme." It is stated that they found here sundry articles of the apparel of the five unfortunate men who had been seized by the natives the preceding year, which is the only apology offered for the cruel attack on these people.

By means of their t¥/o captives they at length brought about an intercourse with the natives; from whom they understood that the five men were still living, and engaged to deliver a letter to them, which letter was couched in the follow- ing words : —

" In the name of God, in Xi>fiom we all believe, who (I trust) hath preserved your bodies and soules, amongst these injidels, I commend me unto you. I will he glad to seeke by al means you can devise for your deliverance, either with Jojxe, or with any commodities within my ships, xvhich I will not spare Jbr your sakes, or any thiiig els

90 DISCOVERIES, &c. 1^77/

/ can doe for you. I have aboord, of theirs, a man a xeoman and a child, which I am contented to deliver for you, but the man which I carried away from hence the last yeere is dead in Eiigland, Moreover you may declare unto them, that if they deliver you not I zvill not leave a man alive in their countrey. And thus, if one of you can come to speake with mee, they shall have either the man, woman or childe in pawneforyou. And thus unto God whom I trust you doe serve, in hast I leave you, and to him wee will daily pray for you. This Tuesday morning the seventh of August, 1577-"

The men however never appeared, and as the season was far advanced and the general's com- mission directed him to search for gold ore, and to defer the further discovery of the passage till another time, they set about the lading of the ships, and in the space of twenty days, with the help of a few gentlemen and soldiers, got on board almost two hundred tons of ore. On the 22d August, after making bonefires on the highest mount on this island, and firing a volley for a farewell " in honour of the Right Honourable Lady Anne, Countess of Warwicke, whose name it beareth," they set sail homewards, and after a stormy passage they all arrived safe in different ports of Great Britain, with the loss only of one- man by sickness, and another who was washed overboard.^

* Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 32,

( 91 ) "'^

MARTIN FiiOBTSHER — Third Voyctge. 1578.

The Queen and her court were so highly de- lighted in " finding that the matter of the gold ore had appearance and made shew of great riches and profit, and the hope of the passage to Cathaia by this last voyage greatly increased," that after a minute examination by the commis- sioners specially appointed, it was determined that the voyage was highly worthy of being followed up. The Queen gave the name of Meta mcog- nita to the newly discovered country, on which it was resolved to establish a colony. For this purpose a fleet of fifteen ships were got ready, and one hundred persons appointed to form the settlement and remain there the whole year, keep- ing with them three of the ships ; the other twelve were to bring back cargoes of gold ore. Frobisher was constituted admiral and general, and, on taking leave, received from the Queen a gold chain, and the rest of the captains had the honour of kissing her Majesty's hand.

The fleet sailed from Harwich on the 31st May, 1578, passed Cape Clear on the 6th June, and on the 20th of that month discovered west Friesland, which they now named IVest England; landed and took possession thereof; but the natives abandoned their tents and fled. The fleet then proceeded to Frobisher's strait, giving to the last cliif in sight

9^ DISCOVERIES OF 1578-

of West England, " for a certaine similitude," the name of Charing Cross. They found the strait choked up with ice, and the bark Dennis, of one hundred tons, received such a blow with a rock of ice, that she sunk instantly in sight of the whole fleet, but the people were all saved. Unfortunately however she had on board part of the house which was intended to be erected for the winter settlers. A violent storm now came on, and the whole fleet was dispersed, some being driven with the ice into the strait, and there shut up, and others swept away among the drift ice into the sea. Their distresses and dangers and suffer^ ings are described in most lamentable terms. And when, at length, they got together again, they were so bewildered by the fog, snow and mist, and so driven about by the tides and currents, the noise of which was equal '' to the waterfall of London bridge," that a doubt arose among the masters and pilots of the fleet where they were^ In this dilemma two of the ships parted company ; the rest followed Frobisher to the north-west coast of Greenland, along which he passed to the northward, thinking, or as the w^riter of the voyage says, pretending and ^^ persuading the fleete always that they were in their right course, and knowen straights." At length, afler many perils from storms, fogs, and floating ice, the general and pait of the fleet assembled in the Countess of iramicHs Sound in Frobisher's strait,

1578. MARTIN FKOBISHER. 03

when a council was held on the 1st August, at which it was determined to send all persons and things on shore upon Countess of Warwick's island; and on the 2d August, orders were proclaimed by sound of trumpet for the guidance of the com- pany during their abode thereon. It was found however, on examining the bills of lading, that the east side and the south side only of the house were saved, and those not perfect, many pieces having been destroyed when used as fenders against the Ice. There was also a want of drink and fuel for a hundred men, the greatest store being in the miss- ing ships. For these and sundry good and sufficient reasons, it was determined in council " that no habitation should be there this yeer."

Captain Best of the Ann Francis, one of the missing ships, discovered " a great black island," where such plenty of black ore was found '^ as might reasonably suffice all the gold gluttons of the world," which island, "for cause of his good luck," the captain called after his own name, Besfs Blessing. He also ascended a high hill called Hattons Headland, where he erected a co- lumn or cross of stone in token of Christian pos- session ; " here also he found plentee of blackc ore, and divers pretie stones."

The 30th August, having arrived and all hands evidently disheartened with the extreme cold and tempestuous weather, a council was again held, at which it was determined, for divers good and substantial reasons, that each captain and gentle-

94 DISCOVElllES OF 1578.

man should look to the lading of his own ship witli ore, and be in readiness to set homeward by a certain day, which it appears was the following one or 31st August. After a stormy passage, in which it is stated that "many of the fleete were dangerously distressed, and were severed almost all asunder," they all arrived at various ports of England, about the 1st of October, with the loss by death of about forty persons.^

The Busse of Bridgewater, in her homeward pas- sage, fell in with a large island to the south-east of Friesland, in latitude 57^°, which had never before been discovered, and sailed three days along the coast, the land appearing to be fertile, full of wood, and a fine champaign country. On this authority the island was laid down on our charts ; but was never afterwards seen, and certainly does not exist ; though a bank has recently been sounded upon, which has revived the idea of the Friesland of Zeno and the Busse of Bridgewater having been swallowed up by an earthquake.

It is somewhat remarkable, that a man of Fro- bisher's sagacity, who in his first voyage soon discovered that the open and deep sea does not freeze, but that the ice originates in rivers, bays, and creeks, and floats about till it clings by the land, or is forced into narrow and shallow straits, should have persevered in struggling among straits and ice, when he knew he had an open sea

* Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iij. p. 39-

1578. MARTIN FROBISHER. 95

between Greenland and the archipelago of islands, among which is the strait bearing his name ; but his first voyage only was in fact a voyage of dis- covery ; the second and third had for their objects golden mines and a new settlement, and both ended in disappointed expectations.

Frobisher's three voyages were evidently con- sidered as a total failure by the court, both of im- mediate gain, and of prospective hope as to the original object of the expedition; and for the next seven years we hear nothing more of the general, till, in 1585, we find him commanding the Aid, in the expedition of Sir Francis Drake to the West Indies. In 1588 he commanded the Triumph, one of the three largest ships engaged with the Spanish Armada, in which he fought with great bravery; and received the honour of knighthood from the lord high admiral on board his own ship at sea. In 1590 he was appointed by the queen to com- mand a squadron on the coast of Spain, with orders to co-operate with Sir John Hawkins. In 1594 he was detached with four ships of war to assist Henry IV. of France against a body of Leaguers and Spaniards, then in possession of a part of Britanny, and strongly entrenched in the neighbourhood of Brest. On the 7th of Novem- ber, when assaulting the fort of Croyzon, he received a wound in the hip from a ball, of which he died shortly after, having brought his little squadron safely back to Plymouth, where he was interred. The wound, according to Stowe, was not

()6 DISCOVERIES OF 1577-

mortal in itself, but became so through the neglect or ignorance of his surgeon, who, having extracted the ball, left the wadding in the wound, which caused it to fester.

Sir Martin Frobisher was bom of humble parents, in the town of Doncaster, and is supposed to have betaken himself early to sea. He is represented as a man of great courage, of much experience, and correct conduct ; but of a hasty temper, harsh and violent. There is a portrait of him in the picture gallery of Oxford.^'

EDWARD FENTON. 1577.

It would be unjust to pass over the name of Mr. Edward Fenton, a gentleman who greatly distinguished himself in many gallant and adven- turous actions. At the recommendation of the Earl of Warwick, he accompanied Sir Martin

Frobisher as Captain of the Gabriel in 1577; and

1.

in the following year commanded the Judith, one of the fifteen vessels of which the squadron des- tined to form the settlement on Meta Incognita was composed ; and in the third expedition he had the title of Rear- Admiral. Notwithstanding the three unsuccessful attempts for the discovery of a north-west passage, Fenton remained firmly persuaded that such a passage was practicable, and might be resumed with the strongest proba-

* Biog. Brit.

1577* EDAVARD FENTON. ^7

bility of success. His repeated solicitations to be employed on this enterprize, joined to the power- ful interest of the Earl of Leicester, one of his patrons, procured him at length an opportunity of trying his fortune.^

A voyage was set forth, under the auspices, and chiefly at the expense, of the Duke of Cum- berland, the object of which, as would appear from Fen ton's instructions, was of a two-fold nature : namely, to proceed to the East Indies by one of the usual routes, and from the Moluccas to endea- vour to return by the north-east; or in other words, to discover the north-west passage on the side of the Pacific, then known by the name of the South Seas ; butlhe real object w^as, in Sir William Mon- son's opinion, to try his fortune in the Indian seas, as Drake had already done with so much success. But the king of Spain, having antici- pated the design, sent a fleet to intercept him in the strait of Magellan. Fen ton on his passage out discovered this and thought it prudent to return to England, but not before he had engaged and sunk the Spanish Vice-Admiral, whom he met with in a Portugueze port. After this he had the command of the Mary Rose^ and behaved most gallantly in the attack on the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died at Deptford in 1603, and was buried in the parish church of that place, in which

* Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 7^4. VOL. I. H

98 DISCOVERIES OF 1580.

is a handsome monument, with a chaste inscrip- tion, erected to his memory by the Earl of Corke, who married his niece. ^

ARTHUR PET AND CHARLES JACKMAN. 1580.

Although the fruitless voyages of Martin Fro- bisher had abated the zeal of the court, they did not in the least damp the ardour of private enter- prize. The Russia merchants, having made so considerable a progress in the east by land, now determined to fit out another expedition by sea, for the purpose of renewing the attempt to discover a north-east passage to China. Two barks, the George and the William, under the command of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman, were fitted out for this service. They left Harwich on the 30th May, reached Wardhuys the 23d June, crossed the bay of St. Nicholas, passed much ice, and on the l6*th July made the body of the island, as they supposed, of Nova Zembla. On the 17th, after passing through much ice and shoal water, they reached the bay of Petchora, and the following day came to Waigatz, where they found great store of wood and water. To the eastward of Waigatz they were so hampered with the ice that they resolved to return, a task which with difficulty they effected, the sea being so thickly covered

* Fullefs Worthies. Sir W. Monson's Naval Tracts. Camden.

1580. PET AND JACKMAN. 99

with ice, that they were enclosed in it for sixteen or eighteen days, and the air was constantly loaded with thick fog. On the 17th August they re- passed the strait of Waigatz, among much ice, snow, and fog, and on the 22d the ships parted company. On the 27th the George was opposite Kegor, on the 31st doubled the North Cape, and on the 26th October they reached Ratcliffc, " and praised God for their safe returne."

The William was less fortunate. She arrived at a port in Norway to the southward of Drontheim, in October, and wintered there. In the February following she departed from thence, in company with a ship belonging to the king of Denmark, towards Iceland, and from that time w^as never more heard of

From the meagre narrative of this voyage it is sufficiently evident, that Pet and Jackman were but indifferent navigators, and that they never trusted themselves from the shore and out of shallow water, whenever the ice w^ould suffer them to approach it ; a situation of all others where they might have made themselves certain of being hampered with ice, though only in the 6Sih and 69th degrees of latitude. From this time the English merchants, trading to Russia, were satis- fied with sending their ships to the bay of St. Nicholas, or Archangel, and of committing their enterprizes of eastern discoveries to journeys by land.

H 2

( 100 ) 1583.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 1583.

The successful efforts of the Russia company by land gave new vigour to a spirit for foreign traffic and discoveries, and turned men's minds once more to the north-westward. The indefatigable exer- tions of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his great talents and powerful interest, had procured for him letters patent, dated in 1578, authorising him to undertake western discoveries, and to possess lands unsettled by Christian princes or their subjects; and the same year he is said to have made a voyage to New- foundland, of which, however, no detailed account appears to have been published. The grant in the patent was made perpetual, but at the same time declared void, in case no possession was actually taken within the space of six years. Sir Humphrey, therefore,' the year before its expiration, prepared for a new expedition and, in the very same year, being 1583, Queen Elizabeth granted another patent to his younger brother, Adrian Gilbert, of Sandridge, in the county of Devon, and his associates, conferring on them the privilege of making discoveries of a passage to China and the Moluccas, by the north-westward, north-east- ward or northward; to be incorporated by the name of " The Colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discoverie of the north-west Passage."

Sir Humphrey in the meantime set out to take

1583. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 101

possession of the northern parts of America and Newfoundland. The fleet consisted of five ships of different burdens, from two hundred to ten tons, in which were embarked about two hundred and sixty men, inchiding shipwrights, masons, smiths and carpenters, besides '' minerall men and refi- ners ;" and, " for the solace of our people," says Mr. Haies, " and allurement of the savages, we were provided of musicke in good varietie; not omitting the least toyes, as morris dancers, hobby horsses, and mavhke conceits, to delio-ht the savage people, whom we intended to wiune by all faire meanes possible."^ This little fleet left Cawsand Bay on the 1 1 th of June. In lat. 60*" N. they found themselves opposed by mountains of ice driving about on the sea, having passed which, they fell in with the land on the 3()th of July. It is noticed that, at this early period, '' the Portugals and French chiefly have a notable trade of fishing on the Newfoundland banke, where there are some- times more than a hundred sail of ships."

On entering the harbour of St. John's, the gene- ral and his people were entertained with great pro- fusion by the English merchants, who carried them to a place called the garden—hnt the writer of the voyage observes, that notiiing appeared but " nature itselfe without art ;" plenty of roses and raspberries were found growing wild in every

* Hayeses Narrative of the Voyage. — Haklu}^t, vol. iii. p. 154.

H 3

102 DISCOVERIES OF 1583.

place. Here, in presence of the English traders and the foreigners assembled, possession was taken, in the queen's name, of the harbour and two hundred leagues every way ; and three laws were immedi- ately made and promulgated on the spot: 1. For the public exercise of religion according to the church of England ; 2. For maintaining her majes- ty's right and possession, against which any party offending, to be adjudged and executed as in case of high treason; and 3. For preventing the utter- ance of words sounding to the dishonour of her majesty, the party offending to lose his ears, and his ship and goods to be confiscated. Several par- cels of land were granted out; but, it seems, " the generall was most curious in the search of metals, commanding the minerall man and refiner espe- cially to be diligent." This man was a Saxon, " honest and religious, named Daniel;" and he brought to Sir Humphrey Vv^hathe called silver ore, but the general would not have it tried or spoken of till they got to sea, " as the Portugals, Biscains and Frenchmen were not farre off."

Sir Humphrey now embarked " in his small frigate, the Squirrel," which, in fact, was a miser- able bark of ten tons, and taking with him two other ships, the Delight, commanded by Captain Brown, and the Golden Hinde, by Captain Hayes, proceeded on discovery to the southward; but the Delight, with all the valuables on board, was; v/recked among the flats and sands neai* Sable

1583. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 103

Island, when only twelvx men escaped in a boat out of more than a hundred souls, who all, except these, perished ; among whom was Stephanus Par- menius, of Buda, a learned Hungarian, who had embarked on this enterprize for the purpose of recording, " in the latine tongue, the gests and things worthy of remembrance ;" and also " the Saxon refiner and discoverer of inestimable riches.** It was said that the loss of tlie miner and the ore preyed on Sir Humphrey Gilbert's mind, as on the strength of his mine he had reckoned on borrowing 10,000/. from the queen for his next voyage.* Mr. Edward Haies, the narrator, observes, that " like the swanne that singeth before her death, they in the admirall (or Delight) continued in sounding of trumpets with drummes and fifes ; also winding the cornets and haughtboyes ; and in the end of their jolitie left with the battell and ringing of doleful knels."

Sir Humphrey, however, escaped in his little bark, and, with the Golden Hinde, determined on proceeding to England. His little frigate, as she is called, is described as being wholly unfit to proceed on such a voyage ; and when he was entreated not to venture in her, but take his pas- sage in the Golden Hinde, this brave man replied, ^' I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many

* Hayes's Account of the Voyage in Hakluyt, vol, iii, p, 155,

H 4

104 DISCOVERIES OF 1585.

stormes and perils." On the 9th September, hav- ing passed the Azores, Sir Humphrey's frigate was observed to be nearly overwhelmed by a great sea ; but she recovered the stroke of the waves, and immediately afterwards the general was observed by those in the Hinde sitting abaft, with a book in his hand, calling out " Courage, my lads ! we are as near to heaven by sea as by land !" The same night this little bark and all within her were swallowed up by the sea, and no more heard of.

Thus perished this brave and adventurous gen- tleman. Mr. Hayes says, that he was chiefly induced to continue in the Squirrel, and adhere to the fatal resolution of not quitting her, in con- sequence of a malicious report that was spread abroad, and had reached his ears, that he was afraid of the sea. But it is not probable that a man of such undaunted courage and vigour of intellect should hav'e been swayed by any such consideration ; though, in this chivalrous age, he might perhaps have been influenced by the motto which he bore on his arms — Mutare vel timere sptrno^

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was descended from an ancient and honourable family in Devonshire, whose mother married a second time to Walter Raleigh, Esq., from which marriage was born the

* Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, makes the motto Mallem mori quam mutare, ^

1583. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 105

celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, who was thus half brother to Sir Humphrey. He was educated at Eton, from \\ hence he w^as sent to Oxford, where he was distinguished for his talents in an age fruit- ful in great men. He served in Ireland w^ith much credit, and was made President of Munster, in which situation he conducted himself wdth firmness and address. He may truly be styled " the father of w estern plantation ;" and Prince bestows on him the following eulogium : — " He was an excellent hydrographer, and no less skil- ful mathematician ; of an high and daring spirit, though not equally favoured of fortune ; yet the laro*e volume of his virtues may be read in his noble enterprizes ; the great design whereof was to discover the remote countries of America, and to bring off those salvages from their diabolical superstitions, to the embracing the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Christ ; for which, his zeal de- serves an eternal remembrance."*

JOHN DAVIS — First Voyage, 1585.

The merchants of London and of the west country being satisfied " of the likelyhood of the disco verie of the north-west passage," and that the former adventurers had been diverted from

* Princess Worthies of Devon ^ p. 417.

106 DISCOVERIES OF 1585-

their main purpose by objects foreign to the original design, resolved on a new expedition, whose sole motive should be that of discovery. The superintendance of the outfit was entrusted to Mr. WilHam Sanderson, Merchant of London ; and Mr. John Davis, of Sandridge, in Devonshire, by the recommendation, no doubt, of his neigh- bour, Mr. Adrian Gilbert, received the appointment of Captain and chief pilot of this new enterprize. Two small barks, one of 50 tons, called the Sun- shine^ and the other of S5 tons, named the Moofi- shine, were put under his orders. In the first were twenty-three persons, of whom four were musi- cians ; and m the latter nineteen. They left Dart- mouth on the 7th June, 1585, and on the 19th July were among the ice on the western side of Greenland, where they heard "a mighty great roaring of the sea," which, on a closer examination in the boats, they found to proceed from the " rowl- ing together of islands of ice." The next day, as they proceeded to the northward, the fog cleared away, and they perceived a rocky and mountainous land, in form of a sugar loaf, appearing as if above the clouds. The top was covered with snow, and the shore beset with ice a full league into the sea ; and the whole surrounding aspect presented so " true a paterne of desolation," that Davis gave to it the name of " the Land of Desolation.'' Find- ing it impossible to reach the shore near this spot on account of the ice, Davis determined to return

1585. JOHN DAVIS. 107

to the southward. In standing along the coast he observed drift-wood floating about daily, and the Moonshine picked up a tree " sixty feet long and fourteene handsfuls about, having the roote upon it." The air was moderate, like April weather in England, and it was cold only when the wind blew from the land or ice, but when it came over the open sea " it was very bote."

From this coast they stood off again to the north-westward for four days, w^ien they saw land in latitude 64"* 15', the weatber still being temperate and the sea free from ice. It was an archipelago of islands, " among which were many faire sounds and good roads for shipping ;" to that in which they anchored Davis gave the name of Gilberts sound, A multitude of natives approached in their canoes, on which the musicians began to play and the sailors to dance and make tokens of friendship. The simple and harmless natives soon understood their meaning, and were so delighted with their treatment and the music that they flocked round them in vast numbers, not less than thirty-seven of their boats being at one time along side their small barks. The sailors shook hands with them and won so far on their good will that they obtained from the " salvages" whatever they wished — canoes, clothing, bows, spears, and in short whatever they asked for. " They are very tractable people," says the narrator, " void of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to any civilitie or good order ;

108 DISCOVERIES OF 1585.

but we judge them to be idolaters, and to worship the sunne."

The drift-wood was brought to these islands in great abundance. The cliffs are described to be of " such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta incognita," and they had " divers shewes of Study or Muscovy glasse, shining not altogether unlike christall." They found a red fruit growing on the rocks, which was " sweet, full of red juice, and the ripe ones Hke corinths."

On the 1st August, our adventurers stood farther to the north-west, and on the 6th, discovered land in 66° 40' ; the sea altogether free from ice. Here they anchored their barks, " in a very faire rode tinder a brave mount," to which they gave the name of Mount Raleigh, " the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." The foreland towards the north they called Diers Cape, that towards the south Cape TValsingham ; and to the great bay between them they gave the name of Exeter sound, and to their anchorage Totness Road. On their first landing they met with '' four white beares of a monstrous bignesse," one of which they killed.

On the 8th August, they returned to the south- ward, and on the 1 1th, came to the next southerly cape of the land they had coasted, which they named the Cape of Gods Mercy, " as being the place of our first entrance for the discovery." Keeping this land to the northward of them, they sailed to the westward, and had a fine open passage,

1586. JOHN DAVIS. 109

from twenty to thirty leagues in width, entirely free from ice, " and the water of the very colour, nature, and quality, of the main ocean, which gave us the greater hope of our passage." Having proceeded sixty leagues, a cluster, of islands was observed in the midst of the passage. Here, the weather becoming thick and foggy, and the wind from the south-east, and no appearance of amend- ment, they remained six days, at the end of which they determined on returning homewards, and accordingly set sail on the 2d August, and arrived safe in Dartmouth on the 30th Sep- tember.

JOHN DAVIS — Second Voyage. 1586.

The important discovery of the free and open passage to the westward, between Frobisher's archipelago and the land now called Cumberland's island, the great number of whales, seals, deer skins, and other articles of peltry in possession of the natives, which were freely offered by them to the crews of the ships, excited such lively hopes at home for the extension both .of traffick and dis- covery, that the m.erchants of Exeter, and other parts of the west of England, contributed a large trading vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, called the Mermaid, to accompany the little squa- dron of Davis on a second voyage, which now

no DISCOVERIES or 1586.

consisted of the Sunshine, the Moonshine, and a pinnace of ten tons, named the North Star.

On the 7th May they left Dartmouth, and on the 15th June made the land about Cape Farewell ; coasted the west side of Greenland, and from hence they had much intercourse with the natives^ who came oif to their ships sometimes in an " hun- dred canoes at a time, sometimes fourtie, fiftie, more and less as occasion served, bringing with them scale skinnes, stagge skinnes, white hares, scale fish, samon peale, smal cod, dry caplin, with, other fish, and birds such as the country did yield."

The civiUty of the people induced the adven- turers to examine the rivers and creeks which ran up into the main land. They found the surface much the same as that of the moory and waste o'lounds of Eno-land. The natives are described as " of good stature, and in body proportioned, with small slender hands and feet, with broad visages and small eyes, wide mouths, the most part un- bearded, great lips, and close toothed." They are represented as being idolaters, having great store of images, which they wear about them and in their boats. They are said to be witches, and to practise many kinds of enchantments ; they are strong and nimble, fond of leaping and wrestling, in which they beat the best of the crew, who were west-country wrestlers. They discovered, how- ever, in a little time that these Greenlanders were

1586. JOHN DAVIS. Ill

both very thievish and very mischievous, cutting their cables and stealing every thing they could lay their hands on. They are said to live mostly on fish, which the}^ eat raw ; drink salt water and eat grass and ice as luxuries.

On the 17th July, our navigators were all alarmed at the appearance of " a most mighty and strange quantity of yce in one intire masse, 80 bigge as that we knew not the limits thereof." Its size and shape and height are stated by the writer of the voyage to be so " incredible to be reported in trueth," that he declines speaking more of it, least he should not be believed. They coasted this ice till the 30th July, which occa- sioned such extreme cold that all their shrouds, ropes and sails were frozen, and the air was loaded with a thick fog. The men grew sick and feeble, and wished to return, and advised their captain, through his over boldness, not to leave their widows and fatherless children to give him bitter curses. He therefore thought of ordering the Mermaid to remain where she was, in readiness to return homewards, while with the Moonshine he should proceed round the ice. He discovered land in 66° 33', long. 70° from the rperidian of London, " voyd of trouble without snow or ice." This land turned out to be a group of islands. The weather was found to be very hot ; and they were much troubled with a fly " which is called muskyto, for they did sting grievously." After

112 DISCOVERIES OF 1586.

leaving the Mermaid they sailed west fifty leagues, and discovered land in lat. 66° 19 . Turning to the south thev fell in with land north-west from them, being a fair promontory in lat. 65°, having no land on the south ; " here," says Davis, " wee had great hope of a thorough passage." From hence they continued to the southward among many islands, and afterwards along the coasi; from the lat. 6? to 57 degrees. On the 28th August, they fell in with a fair harbour in lat. 56° and sailed ten leagues into the same, with fine woods on both sides. On the 4th September being in lat. 54°, Davis says, *' he had a perfect hope of the passage, finding a mightie great sea passing between two lands west." On this part of the coast of Labrador two of their men were slain by the savages. The weather now became most stormy and tempestuous, and on the 1 1th September they weighed anchor and arrived in England in the beginning of Oc- tober. It should be remarked that, in all this track, Davis was entirely alone in his little bark, the Moon- shine ; he having, on his arrival off Cape Farewell, ordered the Sunshine and the North Star to seek a passage northward between Greenland and Ice- land as far as lat. 80°, if not interrupted by land. On the 12th June the two latter vessels put into Iceland and remained there till the l6th, and steering north-west came, on the 3d July, between two firm islands of ice. This made them turn about, and, coasting Greenland within three leagues off

1587. JOHiv' DAVIS. 1 13

the land and along a continued field of ice, they came on the 17th to the land of Desolation, crossed over to Gilbert's Sound, the appointed rendezvous, where thev remained till the 31st, when hearing; nothing of their consort, they departed for Eng- land, and the Sunshine arrived at Radcliffe on the 6th October : she had parted from the North Star in a great storm on the 3d September, the latter of which was never heard of more.

JOHN DAVIS — Third Voyage. 1587.

The second voyage of Davis had not been at- tended with any very encouraging circumstances to the adventurers ; but this intrepid navigator writes to his patron Mr. W. Sanderson, on his arrival, in these terms : " I have now experience of much of the north-west part of the world, and have brought the passage to that likelihood, as that I am assured it must bee in one of foure places, or els not at all." A third vovage was therefore determined on, and the Elizabeth of Dartmouth, the Sujishine of London, and the clincher Helena of London were appointed for this expedition. ^ They sailed from Dartmouth on the 19th May, and on the 14th June descried the land, consisting of very high mountains covered with snow. It was composed of islands lying in lat. 6'4°.

On the 24th they had reached the lat. of 67°

VOL. I. I

114 DISCOVERIES OF 1587,

40' and saw great store of whales. On the 30th tliey had clear weather and found hy observation that thev were in 72° 12\ and that the variation of the compass was 28° W. The land along which they had been running, and which was the west coast of Greenland, they named the London coast. At this high latitude, finding the sea all open to the westward and to the northward, and the wind shifting to the northward, they left that part of the shore, which they called Hope Sanderson and, shaping their course west, ran forty leagues in that direction without meeting with any land. On the 2d July, however, they fell in with a "mightie bank of ice" to the westward, among which they were hampered for eleven or twelve days. They then detenu ined to get near the shore and wait five or six days " for the dissolving of the ice, hoping that the sea continually beating it, and the sunne with the extreme force of heat which it had always shining upon it, would make a quickc dispatch, that we might have a further search upon the westerne shore;" but they found the water too deep to come to an anchor, and either from *' some fault in the barke or the set of some current," they were driven six points out of their course, and on the l^th were abreast of Mount Raleigh : from hence they stood sixty leagues up the strait discovered in the first voyage, (and which is now called Cumberland Strait,) and anchored among the islands at the bottom of the gulph, to

^

1587. JOHN DAVIS. 115

which they gave the name of the Earl of Cum- berland's Isles. The variation of the compass was 30*". The air was extremely hot. Tliey stood out from these islands to the south-east and passed an inlet between 6T and 6^° of latitude, which they named Lumleys Inlet, and which is the strait discovered by Frobisher, and bearing his name. Passing a headland, which they called JVarwick's Foreland^ and crossing a great gulf, they fell in on the 1st August with the southernmost cape of the gulf, to which they gave the name of Cape Chidley, in 61° 10' lat. The strait therefore which bears the name of Hudson on all the charts was in fact discov^ered by Davis, but that in which he sailed to the highest point of northern lati- tude was very properly stamped with his name. On LordDarcie's island they saw five deer, which took immediately to the sea on their landing ; one of them is stated to be " as bigge as a good prety cow, and one very fat, their feet as bigge as oxe feet." From hence they shaped their course for England, where they arrived on the 15th Septem- ber, 1587.

Mr. Davis, on his arrival at Dartmouth, writes thus to Mr. Sanderson : — " I have bene in 73^ finding the see all open, and forty leagues bet weene land and land. The passage is most probable, the execution easie, as at my coming you shall fully knowe."*

* Hakluyl*s Voyages and Navigations. I2

Il6 DISCOVERIES OF 1587-

It would appear, however, that Davis was iinahle to prevail on the merchant adventurers to continue what might hitherto he named fruitless expeditions ; but that his zeal for discovery was unabated appears from a little treatise written and published by him eight years after his return from his third voyage.* In this work, addressed to the " lordes of her ma.iesties most honorable privie consayle," besides many ingenious arguments for the existence of a north-west passage, and the great advantages which England would derive from the discovery thereof, there is the following brief and comprehensive narrative of his own three vo^^ages.

" In my first voyage not experienced of the nature of those clymattes, and having no direction either by Chart, Globe or other certayne relation in what altitude that passage was to bee searched. I shaped a Northerly course and so sought the same towards the South, and in that my Northerly course I fell upon the shore which in ancient time was called Groynland fine hundred leagues distant from the durseys West Nor West Northerly, the land being very high and full of mightie moun- taines all couered with snow no viewe of wood grasse or earth to be scene, and the shore two

*

* The Worlde's Hydrographicall Discription, 1595. A very rare and curious litUe book; of which perhaps not three copies are in existence.

1587. JOHN DAVIS. 117

leages of into the sea so full of yse as that no shipping cold by any nieanes come neere the same. The lothsome vewe of the shore, and irksome noyse of the yse was such as that it bred strange concelpts among us, so that we supposed the place to be wast and voyd of any sencible or vegi table creatures, wherupon I called the same Desolation ; so coasting this shore towardes the South in the latitude of sixtie degrees, I found it to trend towardes the west, I still follow^ed the leadins: thereof in the same height, and after fiftie or sixtie leages, it fayled and lay directly north, which I still followed, and in thirtie leages sayling upon the West side of this coast by me named Desola- tion, we were past all the yse and found many greene and plesant Ills bordering upon the shore, but the mountains of the maine were still covered with great quantities of snowe, I brought my shippe among those ylls and there mored to refreshe our selves in our wearie travell, in the latitude of sixtie foure degrees or there about. The people of the country having espyed our shipps came down unto us in their canoes, holding up their right hand to the Sunne and crying Yliaout, would stricke their brestes, we doing the like the people came aborde our shippes, men of good stature, un- bearded, small eyed and of tractable conditions by whom as signes would permit, we understoode that towardes the North and AVest there was a great sea, and using the people with kindnesse in

I 3

118 DISCOVERIES OF 1587-

geuing them nayles and knifes which of all things they most desired, we departed, and finding the sea free from yse supposing our selves to be past all daunger we shaped our course West Nor West thinking thereby to passe for China, but in the latitude of sixtie sixe degrees, wee fell with an other sliore, and there founde an other passage of 20. leages broade directly West into the same, which we supposed to bee our hoped strayght, we intercd into the same thirty or fortie leages, finding- it neither to wyden nor straighten, then consider- ing that the yeere was spent for this was in the fyne of August, and not knowing the length of this straight and dangers thereof, we tooke it our best course to retourne w ith notice of our good successe for this small time of search. And so retourning in a sharpe fret of Westerly windes the 29. of September we arived at Dartmouth. And acqu?.inting master Secretory with the rest of the honorable and worshipfuU adventurers of all our procedinges. I was appointed againe the seconde yeere to search the bottome of this straight, because by all likelihood it was the place and pas- sage by us laboured for. In this second attempt the merchants of Exeter, and other places of the West became adventurers in the action, so that being sufficiently furnished for sixe monthes, and having direction to search this straighte, untill we found the same to fall into an other sea upon the West side of this part of America, we should

1587. JOHN DAvrs. 1 1<)

agaync retourne for then it was not to be doubted, but shiping with trade might safely bee conueied to China and the parts of Asia. We departed from Dartmouth, and ariving unto the south part of tlic cost of Desolation costed the same upon his west shore to the lat. of 66. degres, and there an cored among the ylls bordering upon the same, where wee refreshed our selues, the people of this place came likewise vnto vs, by whome I vnderstood through their signes that towardes the North the Sea was large. At this place the chiefe shipe wherupon I trusted, called the Mermayd of Dart- mouth, found many occasions of discontentment, and being unwilling to proceede she there forsooke me. Then considering howe I had giuen my fayth and most constant promise to my worshipfull good friend master William Sanderson, wdio of all men was the greatest aduenturer in that action, and tooke such care for the perfourmance thereof that hee hath to my knowledge at one time disbursed as much money as any fiue others whatsoeuer out of his owne purse, when some of the company haue bin slacke in giuing in their aduenture. And also knowing that I should lose the fauour of master Secretory, if I should shrinke from his direction, in one small barke of thirty tonnes, whereof master Sanderson was owner, alone with- out farther comfort or company I proceeded on my voyage, and ariuing unto this straights fol- lowed the same eigbtie leages vntill I came among

j4

120 \ DISCOVERIES OF 158?.'

many ylandes, where the water did eb and flowe- sixe fadome vpright, and where there had beene great trade of people to make trayne. But by such thinges as there we found wee knewe that the}^^ were not Xtians of Europe that vsed that trade, in fine by seaching with our boate, w^ee founde small hope to passe any farther that way/, and therefore retourning againe recouered the sea and so coasted the shore towardes the South, and in so doing (for it was to late to search towardes the North) wee founde an other great inlett neere fortie leaoes broade where the water entred in with violent swiftnes, this wx likewise thought might be a passage, for no doubt but the North partes of America are all ylands, by ought that I could perceiiie therein, but because I was alone in a small barke of thirtie tonnes, and the yeere spent I entered not into the same for it was now the seuenth of September, but coasting the shore towardes the South we saw an incredible number of birdes, hauing diners fishermen aborde our barke they all concluded that there was a great scull of nsh, wee beeing vnprouided of fishing furniture, with a long spike nayle mayde a hoke, and fastening the same to one of our sounding lynes, before the bay te was changed wee tooke more then fortie great cods, the fishe swimming so aboundantly thicke about our barke as is incredible to be reported of, which with a small portion of salte that we had, wee preserued some thirtie

lo87. JOHN DAVIS. 121

cou|)le, or there aboutes, and so returned for Eng- land. And hauing reported to master Secretory the whole successe of this attempt, hee commanded mee to present unto the most honorable Lorde high thresurer of England some parte of that fish, which when his Lordship saw and hearde at large the relation of this seconde attempt, I receined fauor- able countenance from his honour, aduising mee to prosecute the action, of which his Lordship con- ceiued a very good opinion. The next yeere although diuers of the aduenturers fel from the action, as al the western merchantes and most of those in London yet some of the aduenturers both honorable and worshipful! continued their willing fauour and charge, so that by this meanes the next yeere 2. shippes were appointed for the fishing and one pynace for the discouery.

" Departing from Dartmouth through Gods mer- ^ ciful fauour I ariued to the place of fishing and there according to my direction 1 left the 2. shipps to follow that busines, taking their faithful promise not to depart vntill my returne vnto them, which shoulde bee in the fine of August, and so in the barke I proceeded for the discouery but after my departure in sixteene dayes the shippes had finished their voyage, and so presently departed for Eng- land, without regard of their promise, my selfe not distrusting any such hard measure proceeded in the discouerie and foUow^ed my course in the free and open sea betweene North and Nor west to the lati-

e

122 DISCOVERIES OF 1587*

tilde of six tie seuen degrees and there I might see America,'* West from me, and Desolation East, then when I saw the land of both sides, I began to distrust that it would prooue but a gulfe, notwith- standmg desirous to knowe the full certaintye I proceeded, and in sixtie eight degrees the passage enlaro-ed so that I could not see the westerne shore, thus I continued to the latitude of seuentie iiue degrees, in a great sea, free from yse coasting the westerne shore of Desolation, the people came continually rowing out vnto me in their Canoas twenty, forty, and one hundred at a time, and would giue me fishe dried, Samon, Samon peale, cod, Caplin, Lumpe, stone base, and such like, besides diners kindes of birdes, as Partrig, Fesant, Gh.ills, sea birdes, and other kindes of fleshe, I still laboured by signes to knowe from them what they knew of any sea towards the North, they still made signes of a great sea as we vnderstood them, then I departed from that coast thinking to dis- couer the North parts of America, and after I had savled towardes the west neere fortie leages I fell upon a great bancke of yse, the wind being North and blewe much, I was constrained to coast the same towardes the South, not seeing any shore West from me, neither was there any yse towards the North, but a great sea, free, large, very salt

♦ This land must have been the Ja7n€ss Island of some of our charts, the existence of which however has been considered doubtful.

]587. JOHN DAVIS. 1^3

and blue and of an unsearcheable depth. So coast- ing towardes the South I came to the place wher I left the shippes to fishe, but found them not. Then being forsaken and left in this distresse referring my selfe to the mercifull prouidence of God, shaped my course for England and vnhoped for of any God alone releuing me I ariued at Dart- mouth, by this last discouerie it seemed most manifest that the passage was free and without impediment towards the North, but by reason of the Spanish fleete and unfortunate time of master Secretoryes death the voyage was omitted and neuer sithens attempted. The cause why I use this particular relation of all my procedinges for this discouery, is to stay this obiection, why hath not Dauis discouered this passage being thrise that wayes imploied ? how far I proceeded and in what fourme this discouery lyeth, doth appeare upon the Globe which master Sanderson to his verye great charge hath published whose labouring indeuour for the good of his countrie, deserueth great fauour and commendations. Made by master Emery MuUineux a man wel qualited of a good iudgement and verye expert in many excellent practises, in my selfe being the onely meane with master Sanderson to imploy master Mulineux therein, whereby he is nowe growne to a most . exquisite perfection."''^

* A pair of Mollineiix's globes are still in the library of the Middle Temple. Dalrymple says " the date of the celestial globe

124 DISCOVERIES OF 1587.

Of the life and parentage of this intrepid navi- gator very little has been left on record for the benefit of posterity. He has not even found a place in our biographical dictionaries, though an obscure American dissenting clergyman of his name has been thought deserving to be honoured with a niche in this temple of fame.* In the little treatise above-mentioned he calls himself "J. Davis, of Sandrudg, by Dartmouth, Gentleman ;" and in vindication of England's knowledge in " horizon- tall, paradoxall and great circle say ling," he offers himself as a proof from his " briefe treatis of navigation naming it the Seamans Secreats." He also wrote " a rutter, or brief direction for sailing into the East Indies."! Sir W. Monson, who was no friend to the discovery of a north-west passage, admits that both Frobisher and Davis did oifer him some very plausible reasons in proof of the exist- ence of such a passage ; he throws out a hint at the same time that a more probable attempt might be made by sailing due north across the pole, which if successful, he says, would reduce the passage between England and China to fifteen hundred

still continues, 1.592; but the date of the terrestrial has been visibly altered to \603 with a pen." — Me7n. of a Map of the Lands around the North Pole, 17S9- It is to be hoped that no other ** alterations" ])ave been made, as the discoveries of Davis were marked upon the terrestrial globe under his immediate inspec- tion.

* See Gen. Biog. Diet. — Dalies.

■j- Prince's Worthies of Devon, vol. i. p. 286.

1587. JOHN DAVIS. 1^5

leagues* Davis, after his northern discoveries, made several vova^-es to the East Indies, in the service of the Dutch, some of which have been pubHshed,t and prove him to have been a man of nice observation, great sagacity and of sound good sense. He was the first pilot, says Prince, " that conducted the Zealander to the East Indies ; they departed from Middleburgh m March, 1598, and in June, 1599, came to Sumatra; where he and some two or three Eno-lishmen more had bad measure shewed them by the Zealanders.";]: " This great navigator," he adds, " made no less than five voy- ages to the East Indies, and returned home safe again; an mstance of a wonderful providence; and an argument that the very same Lord, who is the God of the earth, is the God of the seas."§ No further account is known of this daring navigator except that he was married to Faith, daughter of Sir John Fulford, of Fulford, in Kent, Knt. by Dorothy his wife, daughter of John Lord Bour- chier, Earl of Bath.|| Of the place of his death and interment, and of his descendants, posterity must remain in ignorance.

MALDONADO. 1588.

The name of Maldonado is well known in the

* Monson's Naval Tracts, t Two of them by Purchas. X Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 286. § Ibid. Ij Ibid.

126 DISCOVERIES OF 1^88.

annals of Spanish literature, and was probably selected on this account to cover the gross impos- ture of ascribing to him a fictitious voyage, in which he is supposed to have effected a passage by the north-west from tbe Atlantic to the Pacific, and back again the following year. Under the article " Laurent Ferrer Maldonado," in the Biblio- theca Hispana of Nicolas Antonio, we are told that he was well skilled in nautical matters and in geography; that he published a book entitled Imagen del Mundo^ &c.* and that he (Antonio) had himself seen in the hands of Mascarenas, bishop of Segovia, the manuscript relation of a voyage purporting to be an account of the discovery of the strait of Anian, made by the author in the year 1588.t Antonio de Leon Pinelo also bears testi- mony to the talents of Maldonado as a navigator, and says, that he presented to the council of the Indies (of which Pinelo was a member) two plans, one of which related to a method of rendering' the magnetic needle not subject to variation, and the other, to the finding of the longitude at sea. J The Spaniards, in fact, not only acknowledge Maldo- nado as a navigator and a man of genius, but would appear not wholly to discredit a forgery, which,

* Imagen del Mundo sohre la Esfera, Cosmographia, SfC. comp. apud Joh. Garsiam, 1626.

t Relacion del Desciibrimiento del Estrecho de Anian hecho por el autor, <^c.— Bibl. Hisp. torn. ii. p. 2.

J Epitome de la Bibl. Orient. SfC, Madrid, 1629,

1588. MALDONADO. 127

though not so easily detected at the time it was written, ought not for the last fifty years to have imposed on any one in the least acquainted with the subject of it; and might, indeed, have been dectected at the time the voyage was supposed to be made, by an attentive examination. The Spa- niards, however, have afforded some countenance to the authority of this pretended voyage, even so recently as the year 1789; for when the corvettes, la Discubierta and VAtravida^ were dispatched under the orders of Malaspina, to examine the passages and inlets which might be observed to break the continuity of the line of coast of north- west America, between the degrees of 53 and 60 of north latitude, one object of this expedition was " to discover the strait by which Laurent Ferrer Maldonado was supposed to have passed in 1588, from the coast of Labrador to the Great Ocean." This voyage of Malaspina has not yet been published, though long ago said to be in the press ; but that this was a main part of the voyage would further appear from a letter of a particular friend of Malaspina's employed on the expedition, who states, that a copy of Maldonado's journal was procured from the Due de ITpfantado.'^ We also find, from the Introduction to the Voyage of Le

* Voyage de la Mer Atlantique d VOcean Pacifiquey SfC, traduit d'm M. S. Espagnolf par Ch. Amoreitij 1812. Plaisance, 1812.

128 DISCOVERIES OF 1588.

Sutil and Mexicana^ that the commander of tliis expedition was also furnished with a copy of the manuscript journal of the supposed voyage of IMaldonado.

The manner in which this spurious voyage found its way to the public is this : — Amoretti, the librarian of the Ambrosian library at Milan, in his examination of the manuscripts, with the view of publishing such of them (agreeably with the inten- tion of its founder, the CardinalBorromeo)as should be found to contain new and instructive matter, was struck with the title of a small volume in the Spanish language, importing to be the " Relation of the Discovery of the Strait of Anian, by Laurent Ferrer Maldonado," &c. At first he was disposed to consider it only as a tale to amuse the curious ; but on reading it attentively, he found it so strongly marked with the character of authen- ticity and veracity, that he determined to translate and publish it, with the addition of some notes and a short dissertation to prove that it supported the character of both ; and that he was more particu- larly urged to this step from M. de Humboldt and others having consigned the manuscript, without knowing what it contained, to the mass of geogra- phical impostures. M. Amoretti, however, had one advocate, and but one for the ^' veracity and

. . * PviMed at Madrid, 1802.

1588. MaldoiVado. 129

authenticity" of the va§('age in question in the person of M. Buache, the French geographer, who read a memoir on the subject, before the French Academy of Sciences, as far back as 1790. The forgery, however, is incontrovertibly proved from all the circumstances therein mentioned beiuQ- wholly at variance with our present knowledge of things as they actually exist. It cannot possibly now mislead any one not grossly ignorant of geo- graphy ; and its numerous anachronisms might have led to its detection even at the time the voyage is stated to have been made ; but the truth seems to be that this manuscript, like many others, was locked up among the musty records of the state, and kept so long concealed, that, when again brought to light, it was as new to the Spaniards as to the rest of the w^orld. It evidently appears to have been fabricated many years subsequent to the date of the supposed voyage, as it notices the discoveries of Quiros, which were not known till the year 1607- Captain Burney has conjectured that it is the fabrication of some Fleming, as the reckoning of distances is in German leagues, fifteen to the degree, and not in the Spanish league of 171 to a degree. As this " Relation" is at any rate a curi- ous document, and has never appeared in the English language, a translation from a Spanish copy of the original manuscript, in the possession of the Due d'Infantado, will be found in the

VOL. I. K

130 DISCOVERIES OF 1592.

Appendix,* which will render any extract of it here, or any further comment, unnecessary.!

JUAN DE FUCA. 1592.

The authenticity of the narrative, given by this person, of a voyage from New Spain for the dis- covery of the Estrecho d'Anian, rests on better grounds than the voyage of Maldonado. The vera- city of the narrator has frequently been called in question, because he happened to be wrong in his- conclusions ; but the facts of his statement have, in our times, been in so many instances verified, as scarcely to leave a doubt of the reality of the voyage. Besides, the little that we have is at second-hand, and the mere record of a conver- sation, misunderstood probably in some points/ and imperfectly stated in most of them. Under such circumstances, the story of Juan de Fug a ought not to be canvassed with the severity of criticism.

The story of this voyage is as follows : Mr. Michael Lok, consul for the Turkey merchants at

* Obtained from Don Filipe Bauza, Superintendant of the Hydrographical Department in Madrid.

t The detection of this German imposture may be seen in Burney's Hist, of Voyages; in the Quarterly Review, No. XXXI.; and in Baron de Zach's Journal, by Baron de Lindenau, 1812.

1592. JUAN DE FUCA. 131

Aleppo, transmits to England a note, of which the following is the substance aiul nearly a copy. He says, "when I was in Venice, in April 159^, happily arrived there an old man, about sixty years of age, called commonly Juan de Fuca, but named properly Apostolos Valerianus, of nation a Greek, born in Cephalonia, of profession a mariner, an ancient pilot of ships." He then goes on to say, that one John Douglas, an Englishman, brought this man before him, who made the fol- lowing declaration, in the Italian and Spanish lano'uao-es : — First, '' that he had been in the West Indies of Spain forty years; that he was in the Spa- nish ship which, in returning from the Philippines towards Nova Spania, was robbed and taken a^ the Cape California by Captain Candish, an Eng- lishman, whereby he lost 60,000 ducats of his own goods ; that he was pilot of three small ships sent from Mexico by the Viceroy, armed with 100 men, to discover the straits of Anian, along the coast of the South Sea, and to fortify that strait to resist the attempts of the English to pass into the South Sea; that, however, a mutiny broke out among the seamen, which prevented -any thing being done in the ^ way of discovery on that voyage.

Secondly, " that the Viceroy of Mexico sent him out again in 1592, with a small caravel and a pinnace, to follow up the said voyage for the dis- covery of the straits of Anian, and the passage

K 2

132 DISCOVERIES OF . 1592.

thereof into the sea usually called the North Sea; that he coasted along Nova Spania and Cali- fornia until he came to ihe latitude of 47°, where the land trending north and north-east, with a hroad inlet of the sea between 47 and 48 deoTces of latitude, he entered therein, sailing more than twenty days, continuing on various courses and passing divers islands within the said strait ; that at the entrance of the north-west coast thereof there is a great headland or island, with an exceed- ing high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar thereupon ; that he saw some people on the land clad in beasts' skins."

He further stated, '* that being entered thus far into the strait, and being come into the North Sea already, and finding it wide enough every where, and 30 or 40 leagues within the mouth of the strait where he entered, he conceived he had now discharged his duty, and returned again towards Nova Spania, where he arrived at Acapulco in the year 1592, hoping for his reward from the Viceroy for this discovery ; that, after waiting two years, the Viceroy of Mexico sent him to Spain; that he was welcomed at the king's court, but that he was unable to obtain any satisfactory reward. He therefore stole out of Spain and came to Italy, to go home again and live among his own kindred."

He also said, " that, hoping the Queen of Eng- land would do him justice for his goods lost by Captain Candish, he would be content to go into

1592. JUAN DE FUGA. 13

«

England, and serve her Majesty in that voyage for the discovery of the north-west passage into the South Sea, if she would furnish him with only one ship of 40 tons harden and a pinnace, and that he would perform it in ninety days time from one end of the strait to the other."

Mr. Lok then states, '^that he wrote accordingly to the Right Honourable the old Lord Treasurer Cecil, and to Sir Walter Raleigh, and to Martin Richard Hakkiyt, that famous cosmographer, cer- tifying them hereof; and that he only prayed for one hundred pounds to bring the old pilot to England, but that the money was not ready, and the matter was dropped at that time ;" that, how- ever, on making preparations for his return to England, Mr. Lok wrote to this old pilot in July 1596, then in Cephalonia, and received an answer from him, dated in September, expressing his w^illingness to go to England, and adding, that twenty others, good men, were ready to accom- pany him ; but he asks for money, and repeats the charge of Captain Candish having robbed him : Mr. Lok, being some time longer detained in Venice, wrote to him again in 1597, and after that sent him another letter, to which he answered in the Greek, language on the 20th October, 1598, that he was still willing to go if money was sent to him to bear his expenses.

" Lastly," says Mr. Lok, " when I was at Zante,

K 3

734' DISCOVERIES OF 1592.

in June 1602, minding to pass from thence for England by sea, for that I had then received a little monev, I wrote another letter to this Greek pilot to Cephalonia, and required him to come to me at Zante to go with me into England ; but I had no answer thereof from him, for that, as 1 heard afterwards at Zante, he was then dead, or very likely to die of great sickness/'*

The Spaniards deny all knowledge of any such voyage as that mentioned by the old Greek pilot ; but this is no ground whatever for calling in question its veracity. Mr. Lok was a public cha- racter, and living in England when Purchas printed his narrative ; he was also known as the translator of the last fixe decades of Peter Martyr, which treat of American discovery. Candish him- self states, that in the rich Spanish ship called the Santa Anna, and taken by him off Cape California, there was a skilful pilot, t But the most power- ful argument in favour of the reality of Juan de Fuca's voyage is the subsequent discovery of a strait, on the north-west coast of America, exactly on the spot where tlie old pilot placed it ; within which are islands and broad channels, leading in all the directions as mentioned by him. This strait, it is true, opens through Queen Charlotte's Sound into the Pacific, which the old man mistook

* " Note made by Michael Lok.'' — Purchas^ vol.iii. p. 849. t Candish's Voyage. — Id. vol. i. p. 56.

J592. JUAN DE FUCA. 135

for the great North Sea ; and such a mistake is not very surprizing at this early period of naviga- tion, when the instruments were imperfect, and theory had made but little progress, and, it may be added, when men confidently believed that such a communication as he was in search of, between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, did actually exist.

When, therefore, the late Doctor Douglas so hastily pronounced the story of De Fuca to be " the fabric of imposture,"^ he committed an act of great injustice to the memory of the old pilot; for the ink was scarcely dry, which transmitted to posterity this unmerited censure, when the very strait, and the sea within it, and the savages clothed in skins, were all recognized by Meares, and since that by Vancouver and many others, just as they were described by the old Greek pilot to Mr. Lok ; and modern geographers, willing to do justice to the memory of the first discoverer of Queen Charlotte's Sound, formed by the archi- pelago on the west coast of America, between the latitudes of 48 and 50 degrees, have assigned to the southern opening into that sound the name of the Entrance or Strait of Juan de Fuca,

* Introduction to Cook's last Voyage.

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136 DISCOVERIES OF CORNELISON, 1594.

CORNELIS CORNELISON, BRANDS YSBRANTS, AND WILLIAM BARENTZ 01' BARENTZON. 1594.

No sooner had the Low Countries been deh- vered from the yoke of Spain, chiefly by the exertions of England, than Dutch capital began to find its way into foreign channels, and a spirit of enterprize to infuse itself into the commercial pursuits of this industrious nation, which, in a very short space of time, raised it to a degree of power and prosperity unequalled at any former period, and scarcely surpassed by that of its deliverers.

Desirous of participating with other maritime powers of Europe in the trade of the East, it was obvious that a passage, which would lead by the north to India and China, w^ould be to them, of all others, the most advantageous. With a view to the discovery of such a passage, the United Pro- vinces set forth, in the year 1594, an expedition, consisting of four ships, whereof two were fur- nished by the city of Amsterdam, one by Zealand, and one by Enkhuysen ; the first, called the Mes- sejiger, was commanded by Barentz ; the name of the Zealand ship was the Swan, under the com- mand of CoRNELisoN, who was also appointed Admiral; and the last was the Mercury, com- manded by YsBRANTS. The ships from Zealand

1594. YSBRANTS, AND BAREXTzl 137

and Enkhuysen sailed together on the 5th June, reached Kilduyn in Lapland on the 23d, left it on the 2d July, passed Kolgoy on the 3d, and soon after fell in with much ice and numerous seals. Proceeding to the eastward, they found the weather, about the middle of July, as warm as in Holland during the dog days, and the musquitoes were exceedingly troublesome.

On approaching the island and strait of Way- gatz or Waigatz, they met with great quantities of drift- wood, and on the shores of the island whole piles of it, heaped up as if by art, some of which were large trees that had been torn up by the roots. The face of the island is described as being covered with verdure, and embellished with a multitude of beautiful flowers. In passing round the south part of the island they observed from three to four hundred wooden idols, of men, wo- men, and children, their faces generally turned towards the east. To this point the Dutch gave the name of Afgoden hoek or Idol Point ; but by the Russians it is called IVaigqti Noss, or Cape of Carved Images ;* and hence the name Waijatz or Waigatz, which by many has been supposed, erroneously as it would seem, of Dutch origin, wai-gat signifying in that language windy or stormy strait or hole ; but the former is undoubt- edly the proper derivation, as the name Avas known

* Forster's Northern Voyages, p. 413.

158 DISCOVERIES OF CORNELISON, 1594.

to Steven Burough in 1565, long before any Dutchman had been so far to the eastward.

On passing the strait they continued their course to the eastward, but met with considerable inter- ruption from ice which, at one time, came floating in such quantities as to oblige them to return. But on observing it to separate and disperse by a change of wind and by the current, they again stood on to the eastward until they came into a deep blue sea nearly free from ice. At this time they were not more than forty leagues from Waigatz strait, and the main land to the southward of them was in sight, trending apparently to the south-east. These circumstances gave them such confident hopes of an open passage to Cathaia, that, instead of following up the actual discovery of it, they agreed to turn back, in order to be the first to convey