Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery

by Justin Winsor

The English leaders in maritime discovery.

Richard Hakluyt.

When the seventeenth century opened, the English had come well to the front in maritime explorations. A large-minded and patriotic man, Sir Thomas Smith, did much in his capacity as governor of the "merchants trading into the East Indies" to direct contemporary knowledge into better channels. Dr. Thomas Hood gave public lectures in London on the improvements in methods of navigation. Richard Hakluyt, the historiographer of the new company, had already shown that he had inherited the spirit of helpful patronage which had characterized the labors of Eden.

1600.

The search for a western passage at the north.

1601. George Waymouth.

We find the peninsula made by the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic insularized from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the transverse channel being now on the line of the Hudson, then of the Penobscot, then of the St. Croix, and when the seventeenth century came in, it was not wholly determined that the longed-for western passage might not yet be found somewhere in this region. On July 24, 1601, George Waymouth, a navigator, as he was called, applied to the London East India Company to be assisted in making an attempt to discover a northwest passage to India, and the company agreed to his proposition. The Muscovy Company protested in vain against such an infringement of its own rights; but it found a way to smother its grief and join with its rival in the enterprise. Through such joint action Waymouth was sent by the northwest "towards Cataya or China, or the back side of America," bearing with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the Emperor of "China or Kathia." The attempt failed, and Waymouth returned almost ignominiously.

Hudson at the north.

In 1602, under instructions from the East India Company, he again sailed, and now pushed a little farther into Hudson's Strait than any one had been before. In 1609 Hudson had made some explorations, defining a little more clearly the northern coasts of the present United States; and in 1610 he sailed again from England to attempt the discovery of the northwest passage, in a small craft of fifty-five tons, with twenty-three souls on board. Following the tracks of Davis and Waymouth, he went farther than they, and revealed to the world the great inland sea which is known by his name, and in which he probably perished.