Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/401

Baffin all blame but was (7 Dec.) promoted to be rear-admiral of the fleet, a rank equivalent then to what was afterwards known as admiral of the blue squadron. He served for a few mouths in the Vanguard, and was then transferred to the Andrew, in which, as second to Blake, he went to the Mediterranean, and was engaged in the reduction of Tunis and the liberation of English captives along the northern coast of Africa [see Blake, Robert (DNB00)]. The Andrew came home and was paid off in the autumn of 1655. In the summer of 1656 Badiley superseded Lawson as vice-admiral in the command of the fleet in the Downs. This ended his service. In April 1657 he was living at Wapping, in feeble health; he probably died within the next two or three years, for there is no trace of him after the Restoration, whilst William Badiley, presumably his brother, was for many years master attendant at Woolwich.

[Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1649-57; Captain Badiley's Reply to Captain Appleton's Remonstrance, 1653.]  BÆDA. [.]

BAFFIN, WILLIAM (d. 1622), navigator and discoverer, was most probably a native of London, but nothing is known of his early life. The earliest mention of him is in 1612, as pilot of the Patience, fitted out at Hull by James Hall, for a voyage of discovery to Greenland. Hall was a Yorkshireman, as was Andrew Barker, master of the Patience's consort, the Heartsease; but four merchants of London — Sir Thomas Smythe (most commonly misspelt Smith), Sir James Lancaster, Sir William Cockayne, and Mr. Ball — had a large and principal share in the adventure; and it is conjectured that Baffin may have been appointed at their instance. The expedition left the Humber on 22 April, and examined the west coast of Greenland, as far as 67° N.; but, Hall having been killed in an affray with the natives, the ships returned to England under the command of Barker. The account of the voyage was written by Baffin, part of which only, as published by Purchas, has been preserved; another account, written by John Gatonby, one of the quartermasters, is in Churchill's 'Collection of Voyages,' vi. 241. On his return from Greenland, Baffin entered the service of the Muscovy Company, which had for some years past sent their ships to catch whales near Spitzbergen. They had just obtained a charter, pretending to give them the exclusive right of this fishery; and authorised by it had, in 1612, been sufficiently strong to drive away all foreigners. In 1613 they again sent out a fleet of seven ships, under the command of Captain Benjamin Joseph, in the Tiger, with William Baffin as chief pilot. They found seventeen foreign ships, Dutchmen, Dunkirkers, and Biscayans, already on the Spitzbergen coast; these all submitted to the English claim without resistance; most of them were ordered away, a few only being allowed to fish on payment of half their take to the English ships, which returned safely in September with full cargoes. The narrative of this voyage, written by Baffin, has been preserved in Purchas; another account, by Robert Fotherby, one of the party, is printed from the original manuscript in 'Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society' (1860), iv. 285. The following year, 1614, Baffin served again in the Spitzbergen fishery with Captain Joseph, and in company with Fotherby, whose narrative of the voyage is given by Purchas. The two, leaving their ship, provisioned two boats and persistently pushed along the north coast to the eastward, as far as Hinlopen Strait; but the year was very unfavourable, the ice coming close down to the coast during the greater part of the season. Baffin returned to London on 4 Oct., and the next year took service with the company for the discovery of a north-west passage, the directors of which were Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Dudley Digges, and John Wolstenholme; he was appointed pilot of the Discovery, commanded by Captain Robert Bylot. The account of this voyage, written by Baffin, was printed very incorrectly by Purchas; the original manuscript, with map, is in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 12, 206), and was edited for the Hakluyt Society in 1849 (, Narratives of Voyages towards the North-west). As pilot of the Discovery in 1615, Baffin carefully examined Hudson Strait and the eastern coast of Southampton Island, with such accuracy that his latitudes and his notes on the tides are in remarkable agreement with the more rigid observations of the present century. They passed up Fox Channel, beyond Cape Comfort; but finding the land heading them, and, he says, 'very thick pestered with ice, and the further we proceeded the more ice and shoaler water, with small show of any tide, we soon resolved there could be no passage in this place, and presently we bore up the helm and turned the ship's head to the southward (13 July). The land which we saw bear north and north-east was about nine or ten leagues from us; and, surely, without any question, this is the bottom of the bay on the west