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 to discover the north parts of America. And after I had sailed towards the west forty leagues, I fell upon a great bank of ice; the wind being north and blew much, I was constrained to coast the same towards the south … and so I came to the place where I had left the ships to fish, but found them not. Then, being forsaken and left in this distress, referring myself to the merciful providence of God, I shaped my course for England, and unhoped for of any, God alone relieving me, I arrived at Dartmouth’ (ib. p. 209). And so Davys's Arctic explorations came to an end. The Arctic chart, showing such names as Gilbert Sound, Cumberland Sound, Exeter Sound, Mount Raleigh, Totness Road, Cape Dyer, Cape Walsingham, Sanderson his Hope, and others connected in England with Davys's career, still bears testimony to the comparative success of this father of Arctic discovery, who accomplished a very great deal considering the smallness of his means. The ‘bark’ was apparently of not more than twenty tons (ib. p. xxvii). The Spanish invasion of the Channel in 1588, and the death of Walsingham, put an end to his Arctic voyages, but not to his hopes or theories of a north-west passage. His arguments as to this were stated at length seven years later in the ‘World's Hydrographical Description’ (1595), in which he tries to prove that the sea is everywhere navigable and a north-west passage possible. The work is ingenious, and for the most part a fair deduction from such experience as he had at his command. He ‘proves from experience that the sea freezeth not;’ he shows ‘that the air in cold regions is tolerable;’ and in the section ‘Under the Pole is the place of greatest dignity’ he argues that the climate at the Pole must be delightful, and that the people dwelling there ‘have a wonderful excellency and an exceeding prerogative above all nations of the earth … for they are in perpetual light and never know what darkness meaneth, by the benefit of twilight and full moons.’ The argument was never put more sensibly, clearly, or succinctly until it was in the most practical way knocked on the head by Sir George Nares in 1875.

Davys can hardly have been idle in such a critical year as 1588, and it seems not improbable that he may be identified with the John Davis who commanded the Black Dog of twenty tons, apparently a tender to the Lord High Admiral. In August 1589 he joined the Earl of Cumberland off the Azores ‘with ship, pinnace, and boat’ (, p. 65). The expedition ended disastrously, but Davys had parted company on 5 Nov. [see ]. The following year Davys commanded one of the squadron which captured a vessel, whose name is handed down to us as Uggera Salvagnia, probably about the middle of September 1590 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 18 April 1593). In May 1591, or possibly at an earlier date, the question was raised whether the Uggera Salvagnia was a good prize or not (ib. passim). The case was still pending in May 1593. Davys had meantime (26 Aug. 1591) gone to sea in command of the Desire, one of the ships which accompanied [q. v.] in his second voyage; being, he tells us, ‘only induced to go with Mr. Cavendish upon his constant promise unto me that when we came back to the California I should have his pinnace, with my own bark (the Delight)—which for that purpose went with me to my great charges—to search that north-west discovery upon the back parts of America’ (, p. 232). Cavendish's voyage, however, resulted in failure. In the Straits of Magellan and after a succession of foul weather, the Desire was separated from the rest of the squadron, Cavendish giving up the adventure and returning to Brazil, while Davys, according to his own story, after refitting at Port Desire and ‘there staying four months in most lamentable distress, did again conclude with my company to give another attempt to pass the straits, as my best means to gain relief. And three times I was in the South Seas, but still by furious weather forced back again; yet notwithstanding all this my labour to perform the voyage to his profit and to save myself (for I did adventure, and my good friends for my sake, 1,100 pounds in the action), Mr. Cavendish was content to account me to be the author of his overthrow, and to write with his dying hand, that I ran from him; when that his own ship was returned many months before me’ (ib. p. 233). The perfect accuracy of Davys's statement is substantiated by the narrative of the voyage by Jane, the supercargo, first published by Hakluyt (ib. p. 93), and by the abstract journal up to 2 June 1592, signed by the bulk of the ship's company (ib. p. 106). Cavendish was a disappointed and embittered man, and we know that Davys was a thorough seaman and a capable navigator.

When all efforts to get fairly into the South Sea had proved vain, Davys returned to Port Desire on 27 Oct. 1592. Here nine of the ship's company deserted, and were presently slain by the natives; the rest provisioned the ship with dried penguins, to the number of fourteen thousand, and put to sea 22 Dec. Besides the penguins they had a scant allowance of meal or pease and but little water. On the coast of Brazil thirteen of their men