Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/212

 throughout his diocese. He took no active part either in religious controversy or in politics. He compiled various educational works, which appeared from time to time anonymously in the ‘Cottagers' Monthly Visitor,’ the ‘National Church Magazine,’ and in other works. He died of bronchitis at the Palace, Peterborough, 18 April 1864, and was buried in the graveyard of the cathedral on 23 April. He married in 1814 Marianne, daughter of the Rev. Edmund Mapletoft, rector of Anstye, Hertfordshire. She died at the Palace, Peterborough, 14 Dec. 1858, aged 69. He was the writer of:
 * 1) ‘Village Conversations on the Liturgy of the Church of England,’ 1820; 8th ed. 1829.
 * 2) ‘Village Conversations on the principal Offices of the Church,’ 1824; another ed. 1849.
 * 3) ‘A Village Conversation on the Catechism of the Church of England,’ printed in Religious Tracts of Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, vol. iii. 1836.
 * 4) ‘Letters between a Father and his Son on the Roman History and other subjects,’ 1848.
 * 5) ‘A Plain and Short History of England in Letters from a Father to his Son,’ 1870, besides several charges and single sermons.



DAVYS, JOHN (1550?–1605), navigator, was born at Sandridge, in the parish of Stoke Gabriel, near Dartmouth, about 1550. He describes himself as ‘of Sandridge, gentleman;’ and through his whole life he was on terms of some intimacy with the Gilberts and Raleghs, who belonged to the same neighbourhood. It appears also from the register of Stoke Gabriel that on 29 Sept. 1582 he married Faith Fulford, who is said (, Worthies of Devon, p. 286) to have been the daughter of Sir John Fulford of Fulford, high sheriff of Devon in 1535, but this is very doubtful. From boyhood Davys followed the sea, and appears to have made several voyages in company with Adrian Gilbert, with whom he contracted a close friendship, which is spoken of by Dr. [q. v.] in 1579, and again in 1580. On 24 Jan. 1582–3 the two friends and Dee met Walsingham by appointment at the house of [q. v.], the acting secretary of state, ‘where,’ says Dee, ‘only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privy of the north-west passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in general.’ Later conferences are mentioned in Dee's diary (published by the Camden Society), till on 17 March ‘Mr. John Davys went to Chelsea, together with Mr. Adrian Gilbert, to Mr. Radforth's, and so the 18th from thence towards Devonshire.’ The outcome of these consultations was a voyage towards the north-west in 1585, under the command of Davys, who was commended to the company by Mr. William Sanderson, one of the principal members of it, as a man ‘very well grounded in the principles of the art of navigation,’ though at that time he had no pretension to any Arctic experience (, p. 205). Sailing to the north-west he sighted the east coast of Greenland, then, as ever since, protected by an impassable barrier of ice. This he searched to the southward, till, doubling what we now know as Cape Farewell, he turned again to the north, and ‘in thirty leagues sailing upon the west side of this coast, by me named Desolation, we were past all the ice and found many green and pleasant isles bordering upon the shore.’ There he rested for a short time, and then ‘finding the sea free from ice, supposing ourselves to be past all danger, we shaped our course west-north-west, thinking thereby to pass for China, but in the latitude of 66° we fell with another shore, and there found another passage of twenty leagues broad directly west (Cumberland Gulf) which we supposed to be our hoped strait. We entered into the same thirty or forty leagues, finding it neither to widen nor straiten. Then considering that the year was spent (for this was in the fine of August), not knowing the length of the strait and dangers thereof, we took it our best course to return with notice of our good success for this small time of search’ (ib. pp. 206–7). This voyage, the first (with the exception of those under [q. v.]) to look for the supposed passage in the far north, was but the precursor of others which Davys undertook in 1586 and in 1587. In the last of these he pushed to the north, through the strait since known by his name, into the long-fabled Baffin's Bay [see ]. He left two ships to follow the codfishery, and adds: ‘In the bark I proceeded for the discovery … and followed my course in the free and open sea between north and north-west to the latitude of 67°, 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 it would prove but a gulf; notwithstanding, desirous to know the full certainty, I proceeded, and in 68° the passage enlarged, so that I could not see the western shore: thus I continued to the latitude of 73° in a great sea free from ice, coasting the western shore of Desolation. Then, understanding by the signs of the people who came rowing out unto me in their canoes, that there was a great sea toward the north, I departed from that coast, think-