Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/252

 198 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO EEACH INDIA on the north Eussian route, and soon began to explore eastwards toward Cathay. Uncertain attempts, Dutch or Swedish, followed. In 1593 commenced the series of determined efforts of Holland to reach Asia by the northeast passage, which have placed William Barents in the foremost rank of Arctic explorers. His first voyage occupied the summer of 1594, and brought him through storms and ice-floes to the Islands of Orange. On the second voyage in 1595 he found the strait south of Waigatz Isle blocked with ice, was im- prisoned by the frozen masses at Idol Cape, but eventu- ally reached Staten Island off Tierra del Fuego. De- spite this achievement, the States-General decided not to expend public money on further attempts to discover a northeastern passage, with so little prospect of a pecuniary return. But to encourage private adven- turers they offered a large reward in case of success. A third expedition accordingly started in May, 1596, with Barents as pilot-in-chief, and keeping more to the north reached Spitzbergen. They were forced " in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief to stay all that winter " at the Haven of Nova Zembla, and the much- enduring Barents died on the return voyage to Hol- land in the following spring. By this time the Dutch, like the English, were resolved to reach India by the south, in defiance of Spanish treaties and Papal Bulls. From freedom in religion sprang the freedom of the sea. Not only had the diplomatic settlement of the un- discovered world, based on the Papal partition, broken