This is all that Hessel Gerritsz has copied out of the log of Barendsz himself, as he earnestly assures us. [[xxii]]
Dr. Beke, speaking in his introduction of this extract, says:—
“Want of time and space prevents us from giving the subject any lengthened consideration. But from what we have been able to make out, our impression decidedly is, that it was never written by Barendsz, but was attributed to him solely for the purpose of giving to it an authority which it might otherwise not have possessed.”
Dr. Beke then gives his arguments in support of this opinion, and in order to refute them Mr. Muller makes the following remarks:—
I do not see (he says) why, after the death of Barendsz, the important ship’s log should have fallen into the hands of an inferior officer, even had he been a friend of the deceased. It would seem more probable, that after Barendsz’s death the skipper and supercargo, Jakob Heemskerck, would have taken all possible care of that interesting document, and, on his return to his native country, would have delivered it to Plancius, or others entitled to it. Admitting that the log came into the hands of Plancius, we are not at all surprised that he should allow the perusal of its contents by his friend Hessel Gerritsz, to assist him in his work of proving that the Dutch were the real discoverers of Spitsbergen.
Dr. Beke’s chief argument against the authenticity of the extract above given, is that in it, instead of Greenland, the newly discovered land is spoken of as being Spitsbergen, a name, according to him, only given to that island years afterwards. But Barendsz’s [[xxiii]]opinion that they sailed along Greenland is no reason why they should not have given the name of Spitsbergen to a part of that coast.
Mr. De Jonge, assistant-keeper of the Royal Archives at the Hague, and author of the “History of the Dutch East Indies Company”, sets at least this question at rest by making mention of evidence which he found in the Archives at the Hague, given by Barendsz’s companion, Captain Rijp, before the magistrates of Delft, in which it is said:—“And we gave to that land the name of Spitsbergen, for the great and high points that were on it.”
De Veer,[7] it is true, does not make any mention of this name in his account, but the extract from the ship’s log of William Barendsz, as Hessel Gerritsz gives it, contains other peculiarities, which are not found in “De Veer”.
Dr. Beke, moreover, brings a charge against Hessel Gerritsz of having intentionally invented wrong courses, but there is no reason why he should have done so. For, in order to prove the discovery of Spitsbergen by the Dutch, he had only to refer to the work of “De Veer”, and the invention of new courses would in no respect have [[xxiv]]strengthened his arguments. The difference in the statements of the courses, and here and there in the account of the circumstances, proves sufficiently that we have here to do with two quite distinct documents.
And then, as Mr. Muller remarks, the journal of Barendsz, which gives fewer anecdotes but more courses, merits even more confidence than the indistinct statements of De Veer. The very accurate account kept of the courses, as well as of the observations, the total neglect of all that could give the journal an agreeable form, everything, in fact, concerning it, marks the extract as being a log, that is to say, a work not destined to be used as a pleasant history of the voyage. Moreover, Barendsz’s statements are much more correct. Barendsz gives continually, and with great accuracy, the courses which are often changed several times on the same day, whilst De Veer says repeatedly: “The courses were about northerly”, without giving any further indication. Barendsz gives what happened every day, whilst De Veer sometimes omits a few days. But the journal of De Veer especially loses in value when we come to compare his account with that of Barendsz. At once we perceive that he did not keep a strict daily account, but rather that he had written it at different intervals during the voyage; for whilst in the main points both accounts quite coincide, the chronology of De Veer is entirely incorrect. Combining all these arguments, we may come to the final conclusion:—that the extract given [[xxv]]by Hessel Gerritsz is truly taken from Barendsz’s log, and as such merits more credit than the account of De Veer.