THE LOSS OF THE “SQUIRREL.”
But neither Frobisher’s mishap nor Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s melancholy fate could check that current of English enterprise which had set in for the North. There was an irresistible attraction in these remote northern seas and distant mist-shrouded lands, with all their possibilities of wealth and glory; and Arctic Discovery had already begun to exercise on the mind of the English people that singular fascination which the course of centuries has not weakened, which endures even to the present day. So, in 1585, Sir Adrian Gilbert and some other gentlemen of Devonshire raised funds sufficient to fit out a couple of vessels—the Sunshine of fifty, and the Moonshine of thirty-five tons—for the great work of discovery; and they gave the command to a veteran mariner and capable navigator, Captain John Davis, a countryman, or county-man, of their own. Towards the end of July he reached the west coast of Greenland, and its cheerless aspect induced him to christen it the “Land of Desolation.” His intercourse with the Eskimos, however, was of the friendliest character. Standing away to the north-west, he discovered and crossed the strait which still bears his name; and to the headland on its western coast he gave the name of Cape Walsingham. Having thus opened up, though unwittingly, the great highway to the Polar Sea, he sailed for England, where he arrived on the 20th of September.
In his second voyage, in 1586, when, in addition to the Sunshine and the Moonshine, he had with him the Mermaid of one hundred and twenty tons, and the North Star pinnace of ten, he retraced his route of the previous year. The Sunshine and the North Star, however, he employed in cruising along the east coast of Greenland; and they ascended, it is said, as high as lat. 80° N.
Davis in his third voyage pushed further to the north, reaching as far as the bold promontory which he named Cape Sanderson. He also crossed the great channel afterwards known as Hudson Bay.
The next Englishman who ventured into the frozen seas was one Captain Waymouth, in 1602; but he added nothing to the scanty information already acquired. An Englishman, James Hall, was the chief pilot of an expedition fitted out in 1605 by the King of Denmark, which explored some portion of the Greenland coast. He made three successive voyages; but while exhibiting his own courage and resolution, he contributed nothing to the stores of geographical knowledge.
We now arrive at a name which deservedly ranks among the foremost of Arctic explorers—that of Henry Hudson. He contributed more to our acquaintance with the Polar seas than any one who had preceded him, and few of his successors have surpassed him in the extent and thoroughness of his researches.
He first appears, says Mr. Markham, fitting out a little cock-boat for the Muscovy Company, called the Hopewell (of eighty tons), to discover a passage by the North Pole. On the 1st of May 1607 he sailed from Greenwich. “When we consider the means with which he was provided for the achievement of this great discovery, we are astonished at the fearless audacity of the attempt. Here was a crew of twelve men and a boy, in a wretched little craft of eighty tons, coolly talking of sailing right across the Pole to Japan, and actually making as careful and judicious a trial of the possibility of doing so as has ever been effected by the best equipped modern expeditions.... Imagine this bold seaman sailing from Gravesend, bound for the North Pole, in a craft about the size of one of the smallest of modern collier brigs. We can form a good idea of her general appearance, because three such vessels are delineated on the chart drawn by Hudson himself. The Hopewell was more like an old Surat buggalow than anything else that now sails the seas, with high stern, and low pointed bow; she had no head-sails on her bowsprit, but, to make up for this, the foremast was stepped chock forward. There was a cabin under the high and narrow poop, where Hudson and his little son were accommodated; and the crew were crowded forward.”
