SEBASTIAN CABOT AT ABOUT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE.
Reproduced from the engraving of Seyer’s “History of Bristol,” published in 1823. The original painting was attributed to Holbein and destroyed by fire in 1845.
The record of Borough’s voyage is his own account, which Hakluyt gives under the title, “The navigation and discoverie toward the river of Ob [Obi] made by Master Steven Burrough, master of the Pinnesse called the Searchthrift with divers things worth the noting, passed in the yere 1556.” The outcome of it was the discovery of the strait between Nova Zembla and the island of Waigats leading to the Kara Sea, which entrance was given the discoverer’s name as Burrough’s Strait. While Borough did not get to the Obi, adverse winds and the lateness of the season preventing (off Waigats snow was being shovelled from the “Searchthrift” in August), he was the first Western European to reach the southern extremity of Nova Zembla, and the first to put “Vaigats” on the map. Turning at the new-found strait he worked his way back to the White Sea and wintered at Kholmogro. In the following May he set sail again to seek the three missing ships which had left St. Nicholas with Chancellor and the Russian ambassador the year before. After a search of the coast of Lapland, and a call at “Wardhouse” without result, he was returning to Kholmogro, when calling at Fisher Island, or Ribachi, off Point Kegor, in Russian Finland, he learned their fate from Dutch traders there.
Of this supplementary voyage Borough also wrote a detailed account, with mention of other “divers things” worth noting. Hakluyt reproduces this account as “The voyage of the foresaid M. Stephen Burrough, An. 1557, from Colmogro to Wardhouse, which was sent to seeke the Bona Esperanza, the Bona Confidentia, and the Philip and Mary, which were not heard of the yeere before.” Constantly observant, Borough made various practical business notes along the way. At Fisher Island he found Dutchmen with Norwegian ships trading prosperously with the Lapps, giving “mighty strong” beer in exchange for stock-fish. Upon which he shrewdly comments: “I am certaine that our English double beere would not be liked by the Kerils and Lappians as long as that would last.” He arrived back in England in the summer of 1557.
The next year Borough visited Spain, where he received much attention for his part in the discovery of “Moscovie,” as Hakluyt related in the “Epistle Dedicatorie” of his Divers Voyages: “Master Steven Borrows, now one of the foure masters of the Queens nauie, tolde me that, newely after his returne from the discouerie of Moscovie by the North in Queene Maries [Mary’s] daies, the Spaniards having intelligence that he was master in that discouerie tooke him into their contractation house [in Seville] at their making and admitting of masters and pilots giving him great honour, and presented him with a payre [pair] of perfumed gloves woorth five or six Ducates.”
His third voyage, of 1560, on the return of which he brought Anthony Jenkinson home, was the seventh despatched by the Muscovy Company, and was purely commercial. It was made with a fleet of three “good ships”—the “Swallow,” the “Philip and Mary,” and the “Jesus”—freighted with English goods, bound for St. Nicholas. Of the “Swallow’s” cargo were pipes of “secker” (sherry), one of which, marked with “2 round compasses upon the bung,” was intended as a present for the emperor, “for it” was “special good.” This voyage was successful throughout, and it was remarked as the first of the seven for the Muscovy Company which got safely back to the home port “without loss, or shipwreck, or dead freight.” Such was the hazard of seafaring with the rude ships of that day in the cruel Northern seas.
In May of the next year, 1561, Borough again sailed with the “Swallow” and two other ships for St. Nicholas, this time taking out Jenkinson as ambassador to Persia, under the patronage of the queen—now Elizabeth—and also still representing the Muscovy Company, to make another expedition into the Transcaspian region, and to establish commercial relations with Persia. This is supposed to have been Borough’s last voyage to Russia. At the opening of 1563 he was appointed chief pilot and one of the four masters of the queen’s navy, which post he was holding, as we have seen, when Hakluyt published the Divers Voyages. He died in his sixtieth year, in 1584.
Anthony Jenkinson’s second Transcaspian expedition was in some respects more wonderful than his previous travels, and his account of it, given in “A compendious and briefe declaration” to the Muscovy Company fills several of the large pages of the Principal Navigations. A summary, however, appears in a subsequent paper, rehearsing all of his travels from his first voyage out of England in 1546. The salient points are to be gathered from the two. Starting from Moscow in March, 1562, some months after his arrival out, having been detained there by one cause and another, he passed over his former route to the Caspian Sea; sailed the Caspian to Derbent, or Derbend, then an Armenian city belonging to Persia, on the western shore; thence travelled overland through Media, Pathia, Hercania, into Persia, finally bringing up at the court of the “Great Sophy called Shaw Tamossa,” where he remained for eight months. Along the way he generously scattered presents with which he had been provided for distribution among the “kings, princes, and governors” whom he might meet; and at the great shah’s court he delivered a letter he bore from the queen to the shah, a flattering missive explaining his mission as solely commercial. At length, after much manœuvering, he obtained from “Obdolowcan, king of Hircania”—Abdullah Khan, king of Shirvan—the sought-for trade privileges, which led to the opening of the rich trade centering in Persia to the English merchants. After encountering varied perils and congratulating himself upon getting away alive, in the disturbed relations then existing between Persia and Turkey, he arrived safely back at Moscow in August, 1563. There he remained through the following winter, preparing for a second expedition to Persia for trading purposes, meanwhile sending one of his companions, Edward Clarke, overland to England with letters reporting the result of his mission. In May, 1564, the second expedition was started off under three of his associates, employees of the Muscovy Company, while he himself returned to England, reaching London in September.
In the spring of 1565 Jenkinson is found in association with Humphrey Gilbert presenting to Queen Elizabeth a memorial on the subject of the Northeast Passage, and offering to take charge of an expedition to attempt its discovery. Nothing, however, came of this petition, the queen finding other service for both petitioners. Jenkinson was appointed to the command of her ship “Aid” the following September, with instructions to cruise on the coast of Scotland to prevent a landing of the Earl of Bothwell, and to clear the sea of pirates.
In 1566 the Muscovy Company, in consequence of encroachments by various traders upon their monopoly, were reincorporated by the queen’s act and under a new name—the “Fellowship of English Merchants”—with authority to continue the “discovery of new trades.” Then Jenkinson made another voyage to Russia and secured the monopoly of the White Sea trade for the reorganized company. Trade voyages also followed annually to Persia by various navigators for the company. In the summer of 1571 Jenkinson, again as the queen’s ambassador, was in Russia, having been sent to appease the emperor, who, incensed at the failure of overtures made by him for an alliance with England by which each would assist the other in its wars, had annulled the Fellowship’s privileges and confiscated their property. Although upon his arrival at St. Nicholas being told that Ivan had threatened to take his head if he should venture into the country, he boldly sought the irate czar, and finally succeeded in bringing him round to a renewal of the privileges.
This was Jenkinson’s last voyage. He had accomplished much in enlarging the geographical knowledge of his time. He next appears as an associate in new ventures for discovery to the Westward, attention now being again directed to the Northwest Passage and to the North American continent.