The first purely British expedition was that of Robert Thorne, of Bristol, at whose instigation, say Hall and Grafton, “King Henry VIII. sent out two fair ships, well manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of the Thames, on the 20th day of May, in the nineteenth yere of his raigne, which was the yere of our Lord 1527.” The “fair ships” had as their objective no less a place than the North Pole, but the men do not seem to have been sufficiently “cunning” to make much headway against the difficulties that beset their path, and the chronicles of the time are singularly reticent concerning their doings.
The voyage of the Trinitie and Minion, which sailed in 1536, is one of the most disastrous on record. The expedition was sent out with a view to exploring North-West America, and it reached the coast of Newfoundland in safety. It seems, however, to have been hopelessly under-provisioned, and the men, having little to eat on board and finding themselves unable to supplement their scanty store on land, took to cannibalism, and would all have perished but for the timely arrival of a French ship, which they promptly set upon and misappropriated. We are not told what happened to the unfortunate Frenchmen, but Henry VIII. is reported to have compensated such as survived.
Hitherto the energies of our sailors had been principally devoted to discovering a north-west passage to India, Cathay, and the Indies. When, however, Cabot returned from Spain and was made “Governour of the mysterie and companie of the marchants adventurers for the discovery of regions, dominions, islands and places unknown,” he promptly showed how well fitted he was for that honourable post by suggesting that, as the voyages towards the north-west had not been attended by much success, it would not be amiss to try a change of tactics and to attempt to find a way to Cathay by the north-east. The idea was taken up enthusiastically, and, as this was the first extended maritime venture made by us in distant seas, the utmost care was exercised over the preparations. Three ships were specially built for the enterprise, and were fitted out in the most substantial manner possible. The admiral of the fleet, the Bona Esperanza, 120 tons, was placed under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, and carried thirty-five persons, who included six merchants. The Edward Bonaventure, 160 tons, was commanded by Captain Richard Chancellor, her company consisting of fifty, including two merchants; and the Bona Confidentia, 90 tons, was commanded by Cornelius Durfourth, and carried twenty-eight souls, also including two merchants. These three ships sailed from Ratcliffe on May 20, and, after tracing the coast of Norway, rounded the North Cape in company. Here a storm separated the Bonaventure from her sister ships, and, fortunately for her and her company, drove her to Vardö, in Norway. Willoughby and his two ships succeeded in making the coast of Lapland, and spent the winter on the desolate coast of the Kola Peninsula. In those days, unfortunately, but little was known of the art and science of wintering in the Arctic regions, and every member of the company perished miserably of scurvy.
Chancellor, after waiting awhile at Vardö in the hope that the rest of the fleet would join him there, determined to push on on his own account, and he eventually succeeded in reaching the north coast of Russia. The intelligence of his arrival was conveyed to the Czar, Ivan Vasilovich, who was so much interested in what he heard that he invited him to Moscow. There Chancellor spent the winter, and with such ardour did he forward the interests of his country, that he laid the foundations of that great trade between England and Russia which has flourished ever since. It is worthy of note that his first landing place is now marked by the great seaport of Archangel.
Chancellor’s second expedition was less fortunate, for the gallant sailor lost his life in his attempt to continue his work. He reached Russia in safety, and once more repaired to Moscow, where he continued the negotiations which he had previously begun. While returning home, however, his ship was wrecked in Pitsligo Bay on the east coast of Scotland and he was drowned.
The expedition of Chancellor and Willoughby had, of course, been primarily sent out with a view to finding a north-east passage to China, and these negotiations with Russia were a side issue not originally contemplated by its promoters. Consequently, while Chancellor was away on his second voyage, the Company of Merchants Adventurers equipped a second expedition for the discovery of the North-East Passage, which they placed under the command of Stephen Burrough. The Searchthrift, as the ship was named, set sail on April 23, 1556, but it was stopped by fog and ice, and Burrough was obliged to return to England without accomplishing his mission, though he succeeded in discovering Nova Zembla.
The next English mariner to win fame for himself by his adventures in the Arctic seas was Martin Frobisher, who, under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Warwick, a well-known merchant named Lok and others, fitted out a fleet of three cockle-shells, the united burden of which was only 73 tons, and set sail in 1576, with intent to discover the North-West Passage. The chief result of Frobisher’s voyage was a vast mass of very misleading information. On reaching Davis Strait he came to the conclusion that it bisected Greenland, an error which retained its place in the maps for some three centuries. In the middle of the strait he discovered an island which did not exist, while he brought home with him the interesting information that large deposits of gold existed on the shores which he had visited. On the strength of this all sorts of plans for working these deposits were taken up, which only ended in the financial loss and bitter disappointment of their promoters. Frobisher undertook the command of two subsequent expeditions, but neither of them resulted in any discoveries of much value. His name, however, will always be kept alive by the discovery of Frobisher and Hudson Straits, both of which he entered on his first journey.
We now come to by far the most important of these early voyages, namely that made by John Davis, of Sandridge, in 1585. Davis was a splendid old sea-dog of the finest type—shrewd, patient, and of absolutely indomitable courage. So high was his reputation, that when a number of merchants, headed by William Saunderson, determined to fit out a new expedition for the discovery of the North-West Passage, they offered him the command, and their offer was promptly accepted. The expedition, which consisted of two ships, the Sunshine, of 50 tons, and carrying twenty-three men, and the Moonshine, 35 tons, and carrying nineteen men, started on June 7, and by July 19 it was off the south-east coast of Greenland, where Davis heard for the first time the grinding together of the great icepacks. The shore looked so barren and forbidding—“lothsome” is the epithet which Davis applied to it—that he named it “Desolation.” Rounding the southern point of Greenland and bearing northward, he soon reached lat. 64°, where he moored his ships among some “green and pleasant isles,” inhabited by natives who were very friendly disposed and quite ready to trade with him. From these he learnt that there was a great sea towards the north and west, so he set sail and shaped his course W.N.W., expecting to get to China. Crossing the strait which now bears his name, he sighted land in 66° 40′ and anchored in Exeter Sound. The hill above them they named Mount Raleigh; the foreland to the north, Cape Dyer; and that to the south, Cape Walsingham—names which they still bear. The season was too far advanced for him to attempt to explore the sound, but he discovered the wealth of those regions in whales, seals, and deerskins—a discovery which, it need hardly be said, was very highly valued by the merchants who had equipped the expedition.
As was only natural, both Davis and his patrons were anxious to continue the discoveries thus auspiciously begun, and May 7, 1586, saw him starting on his second expedition, his fleet strengthened by the addition of the Merimade, a ship of 120 tons. She did not prove of very much service, however, for she deserted in lat. 66°, and Davis went on his way without her. He did not succeed in adding anything of value to his discoveries of the previous year, merely coasting southward along Labrador, without observing the entrance to Hudson Strait.
Davis’s third expedition left on May 19, 1587, and consisted of three ships, the Elizabeth, the Sunshine, and the Ellen. On reaching lat. 67° 40′ he left two of his ships to prosecute fishing, and sailed on by himself on a voyage of discovery. He came, as he tells us himself, “to the lat. of 75°, in a great sea, free from ice, coasting the western shore of Desolation.... Then I departed from that coast, thinking to discover the north parts of America. And after I had sailed toward the west near forty leagues, I fell upon a great bank of ice. The wind being north, and blew much, I was constrained to coast towards the south, not seeing any shore west from me. Neither was there any ice towards the north, but a great sea, free, large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth. So coasting towards the south, I came to the place where I left the ships to fish, but found them not. Thus being forsaken and left in this distress, referring myself to the merciful providence of God, I shaped my course for England, and unhoped for of any, God alone relieving me, I arrived at Dartmouth. By this last discovery it seemed most manifest that the passage was free and without impediment toward the north; but by reason of the Spanish fleet, and unfortunate time of Master Secretary’s death, the voyage was omitted, and never since attempted.” So ended the Arctic voyages of John Davis. “The discoveries which he made ...,” says Sir John Ross, “proved of great commercial importance; since to him, more than to any preceding or subsequent navigator, has the whale fishery been indebted.”