“That Holland is very small, both in length and breadth, almost with three sides exposed to the sea, and full of downs, swamps, turf-moors, lakes, and other unfruitful places, where one can neither sow corn nor graze cattle; wherefore the inhabitants, to find food for their wives and children, are obliged to go and trade and traffic in foreign ports, and to export certain tissues, for which reasons the principal profession of the country is the art of navigation and the sea trade.”
Thus from the earliest times they had looked upon navigation and commerce as the great source of their wealth, and from this source they expected to get the means to carry on the war. It may be true that they worshipped the “almighty dollar”, but not for itself, not only from a hope of gain, but also from the purest patriotism, because they could not continue their struggle for independence without money, and this could only be gained by giving more expansion to commerce, and not despising small advantages. Hence their natural resolution to search in every [[v]]direction for new trade routes, and to risk so many lives and ships on their desperate exploring expeditions in frozen latitudes, hoping to reach Cathay and the Spice Islands by going north-about. In that direction they expected to avoid the superior Spanish naval forces, which in the infancy of the great struggle they could not expect to conquer, as very soon afterwards, in 1609, was done by Heemskerck. He burned the Spanish fleet on their own shores, and thirty years later the gallant Admiral Marten Harpertszoon Tromp carried his broom at the mast-head. The cosmographers of the Netherlands were among the very best in the world, and were well acquainted with all the fruitless endeavours to find a shorter route to the Indies by the north-west.
Several voyages had been made by Englishmen, mentioned in Dr. Beke’s introduction, towards the north-east, concerning which every particular was known in the Netherlands. This has since been proved by an irrefutable fact; for the so-called journals of Barendsz, which were in 1875 brought back to Norway, turned out to be a Dutch translation of the journals of the English navigators, Pet and Jackman, who, in 1580, endeavoured to find the north-east passage. This translation was found in the old wintering house of Barendsz in Novaya Zemlya, and consequently he must have taken it with him on his last voyage. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the Netherlanders had watched eagerly, and with intense interest, the attempts made by the English to find the north-east passage to [[vi]]the Indies. This may be the reason why a few Netherlanders tried at first to penetrate over-land in that direction, for a certain Olivier Brunel succeeded in reaching as far as the Obi river, travelling all the way on terra firma. Thanks to the industrious and intelligent researches of the historian of “De Noordsche Compagnie”, Mr. S. Muller, Fz., we now know a great deal more of this Olivier Brunel than Dr. Beke did in 1853.
The history of Brunel has especially roused Mr. Muller’s interest, and the facts discovered during his researches are so surprising that we think we cannot do better than give them nearly verbatim.
At the time that the English settled themselves at the mouth of the Dwina river, in the neighbourhood of the monastery of St. Nicholas, they had spared no trouble to maintain themselves continually in the exclusive possession of the trade in these regions. In this they succeeded but for a short period.
Twelve years after their arrival on the shores of the White Sea, the Dutch had found, at least partially, the track of their predecessors.
In the year 1565, a certain Philip Winterköning, an exile from Wardöhuis, entered upon a negotiation with the Netherlanders. By his intervention a ship was sent out from Enkhuizen, and arrived at a spot, where a settlement was soon formed, to which they gave the name of Kola.
In the following year, 1566, two merchants of Antwerp, Simon van Salingen and Cornelis de Meyer, steering from Kola along the coast, ventured [[vii]]to follow in the track of the English to the White Sea. They landed at the mouth of the Onega, and travelled, disguised as Russians, overland to Moscow. This courageous voyage was undertaken for no other object than to settle private affairs; and they did not avail themselves of the opportunity that thus occurred of establishing commercial relations with the White Sea.
However, the settlement at Kola now existed, and from thence efforts were made to carry on a direct trade with the Dwina. A trustworthy person was sent for that purpose on board of a Russian ship to Kholmogory, a town situated in the neighbourhood of the English settlement of Rose Island. He was instructed to learn the Russian language, and to try to obtain all possible information respecting the best manner of establishing commercial relations. That man was no other than Olivier Brunel, a character well known at that time, but in these days almost forgotten.
His name ought to be remembered and honoured as it deserves, for Brunel was not only the founder of the White Sea trade of the Dutch, but he was also their first Arctic navigator. For this reason a better account of him than has been given in the former edition, will not be found out of place here. Dr. Beke saw in Olivier Brunel and Alferius two distinct persons, and did not agree with Hamel that they were the same individual. It is, therefore, necessary in the first place to give Mr. S. Muller’s arguments as to why he considers Hamel’s opinion the most trustworthy. [[viii]]