Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/198

Rh North- west passage. Frobisher. Davis Bafﬁn. 184 GEOG turers of those days was to discover a route to Cathay by I William Baﬁin was pilot. ) L A P H Y [PROGRESS OF 1lISCO'l~II‘.Y. They sailed from Gravcsend, the north—west, a second was to settle 'irgiui-.1, and a third . with 17 souls on board, on the 26th of March, and were oil" was to beat up the Spanish settlements in the Indies. N or was the trade to Museovy and Turkey neglected ; while latterly a resolute and successful attempt was made to establish commercial relations with East India. Martin Frobisher led the way in the direction of the north-west, sailing from the Thames in 1576, and sighting the southern part of Greenland on the 11th of July. In this voyage he discovered a part of the coast of Labrador, and the strait (now known to be a deep bay) which bears his name. He brought home some stones which were believed to be gold, and the consequence was that there arose an eager desire to obtain more. Many speculators subscribed, and Frobisher was sent out on a second voyage, “more for the searching of this gold ore than for the searching any further discovery of the passage." He left Gravesend on May 27, 1577, wasted his time in picking up stones on the shores of Frobisher’s Strait, and returned on the '22-.1 of August. The excitement about the gold ore still continued. The queen gave the name of .l[cta I nco_r/- vzita to the newly discovered country; and on May 2], 1578, Frobisher set out on a third voyage with a fleet of ﬁfteen ships. After touching at Greenland, they made for the opposite shore through an ice-encumbered sea, and the ﬂeet was separated during a heavy gale. They reached various ports in England during October, and by that time the bubble about the gold ore had burst, and the enterprise was considered a failure. The first of the three voyages alone was a voyage of discovery. In 1585 John Davis, an admirable Seaman and most re- solute explorer, was employed by some merchants, chief among whom was Mr William Sanderson of London, to take up the glorious work where Frobisher had left off. He sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June 1585, and, reaching the south—west coast of Greenland, he called it the “ Land of Desolation.” He then stood over to the opposite coast, which he examined in the neighbourhoocl of Cape Walsingham, returning to Dartmouth on September 30. In 1588 he sailed on the 7th of June and coasted along Greenland, having friendly intercourse with the Eskimo. He also examined part of the Labrador coast. In his third voyage he sailed from Dartmouth on the 17th of May, and sighted Greenland on the 14th of June. On this occasion he went as far north as 72° 12', naming the great island bluﬂ'~which is now so well known to voyagers up Baﬂ‘in’s Bay—“ Sanderson his Hope of a 1'orth-West Passage." Crossing over Davis Strait, the bold explorer discovered the strait which now bears the name of Hudson. Davis was followed in his northern voyages by Vaymouth, Hall, and Knight; and in 1607 Henry Hudson was despatched on a voyage of discovery in a small vessel of 80 tons. He sighted the east coast of Greenland in 73° N., examined the north-west end of Spitzbergen, as far as a point which he named Hakluyt Headland, and reached 80° 23' N. In 1608 he made a second voyage, during which he examined the edge of the ice between Spitzbergen and Greenland. In his third voyage, in 1609, he was employed by the Dutch, and discovered the Hudson River. In 1610 he was again employed by English merchants, and entered IIudson’s Bay, but was infamously abandoned in an open boat by his crew. In 1612 Sir Thomas Button continued the exploration of Hudson’s Bay, which was completed by Thomas James and Luke Fox in 1631. In 1616 the little bark “Discovery,” of 35 tons, was fitted out by those persevering adventurers Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Dudley Digges, John 'olstenholn1e, and Alderman Jones, for another attempt in the icy seas. This was the most successful Arctic voyage of the 17th century. llope Sanderson, the extreme point of Davis, on the 30th of May. The “Discovery” reached what is now called “the north water” of Batlin’s Day on the 1st of July, and, after discovering the head of the great bay which bears his name, the pilot Iﬁaﬂin returned by sailing down the west side of it. On August 30 the “Discovery” was again safely anchored in Dover roads. It was exactly 200 years before any other vessel followed in her track, and reached “ the north water.” Both Davis and B-aﬂin afterwards served and were killed in the East Indies. The Dutch emulated the English in the Arctic seas Dutd, during this period. Their merchants opened a trade with <-xp1ou- Kola and Archangel as early as 1578, but the ditiiculty of 5""- penetrating into the Sea of Kara led them to try the possi- bility of ﬁnding a passage round the northern end of l'ovaya Zemlya. The credit of the conception of this voyage is due to the great cosmographer Peter Plancius, and the mer- chants of Amsterdam adopted the idea, and despatched a vessel of 100 to11s called the “ Mercnrius,” under the com- mand of William Barents. June 4, 1594, and sighted Novaya Zemlya on the 4th of July. Sailing northwards along the coast he rounded Cape Nassau and reached the edge of the ice. For many days he perseveringly sought for a passage through it. In his second voyage he merely went to the entrance of the Sea of Kara. But his third voyage was the most important. Heemskerk was the commander, Barents was pilot, and the mate, Gerrit de Veer, was the historian of the voyage. They sailed from Amsterdam on May 13, 1596. On J nne 19, Spitzbergen was discovered, and the whole western coast and part of the northern examined. The record of the subsequent proceedings of Barents and his crew, of their famous voyage round the north—western end of l'ovaya. Zemlya, and of their terrible sufferings in the first Arctic winter ever faced by Europeans, is deeply interesting as it is told in the simple narrative of Gerrit dc Veer. Barents had long been ill, and when they set sail from their dismal winter harbour on June 14, 1597, in open boats, he was too weak to stand, and was carried from the house. He died on the 19th, and found a grave in the midst of his discoveries. The maritime enterprise of England, in the days of English Elizabeth, was mainly directed towards the discovery of a 0iI‘<‘_11m' north-west passage ; but many voyages were also made to "“_"_‘-5”“ Guinea and the 'est Indies, and twice English vessels M’ followed in the track of Magellan, and circmnnavigatcd the globe. In 1577 I"rancis Drake, who had previously served with Drake. Hawkins in the West Indies, undertook his celebrated voyage round the world. His ﬂeet consisted of three ships and two pinuaces, which were broken up during the voyage. The ships were the “Pelican” of 100 tons, on board of which Drake himself embarked, the “ Elizabeth ” of 80, and the “ Marigold” of 30 tons. After some stay at Port San Julian on the coast of Patagonia, the ﬂeet entered the Straits of Magellan on the 20th of August 1578, when Drake changed the name of his ship to the “ Golden Hind.” They reached the western entrance on the (3th of September, and soon afterwards the “ Marigold” parted company in a gale of wind, and was never heard of again, while the “Eliza- beth” basely deserted her consort and returned to England. Drake, in the “ Golden Hind,” continued the voyage alone. At ﬁrst he was driven to the southernmost point of Tierra del Fuego, and thus discovered that there was a passage, though he did not round Cape Horn. Ile then proceeded northward along the west coast of America, touching at the island of Mocha off the Chilian coast, at Valparaiso, Robert Bylot was appointed master of the “ Discovery,” and I Coquimbo, Tarapaca, Arica, Callao, and Payta. Off Cape He sailed from the Texel on Barents.