We have already mentioned the earliest attempts to find out the Straits of Anian; the idea that they existed on the northwest coast of America seems to have been abandoned for some time, unless we suppose, that a voyage undertaken by the French in 1535 had for its object the discovery of these straits: it is undoubted, that one of the objects of this voyage was to find a passage to India. In this voyage, the river St. Lawrence was examined as far as Montreal. In 1536, the English in vain endeavoured to find a north-west passage to India. The result of this voyage was, however, important in one respect; as it gave vise to the very beneficial fishery of the English on the banks of Newfoundland. The French had already engaged in this fishery.
In 1576, the idea of a north-west passage having been revived in England, Frobisher was sent in search of it, with two barks of twenty-five tons each, and one pinnace of ten tons. He entered the strait, leading into what was afterwards called Hudson's Bay: this strait he named after himself. He discovered the southern coast of Greenland; and picking up there some stone or ore which resembled gold, he returned to England. The London goldsmiths having examined this, they reported that it contained a large proportion of gold. This induced the Russian Company to send him out a second time, in 1577; but during this voyage, and a third in 1578, no discoveries of consequence were made. In the years 1585, 86, and 87, Captain Davis, who was in the service of an English company of adventurers, made three voyages in search of a north-west passage. In the first he proceded as far north as sixty-six degrees forty minutes, visited the southwest coast of Greenland, and gave his own name to the straits that separate it from America. At this time the use of a kind of harpoon was known, by which they were enabled to kill porpoises; but though they saw many whales, they knew not the right manner of killing them. In his second voyage an unsuccessful attempt was made to penetrate between Iceland and Greenland, but the ships were unable to penetrate beyond sixty-seven degrees north latitude. The west coast of Greenland was examined; but not being able to sail along its north coast, he stretched across to America, which he examined to latitude fifty-four. In his last voyage, Davis reached the west coast of Greenland, as far as latitude seventy-two. All his endeavours, however, to find a north-west passage were ineffectual.
In 1607, Hudson, an experienced seaman of great knowledge and intrepidity, sailed in search of this passage. He directed his course straight north, and reached the eighty-second degree of latitude, and the seventy-third degree of west longitude. During this voyage more of the eastern coast of Greenland was discovered than had been previously known. In his second voyage, which was undertaken in 1608, he endeavoured to sail between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, but unsuccessfully: of this and his first voyage we have very imperfect accounts. His third voyage was undertaken for the Dutch: in this he discovered the river in America which bears his name. His fourth and last voyage, in which he perished, and to which he owes his principal fame as a navigator, was in the service of the Russia Company of England. In this voyage he reached the strait which bears his name: his crew mutinied at this place, and setting him on shore, returned to England. As soon as the Russia Company learned the fate of Hudson, they sent one Captain Button in search of him, and also to explore the straits which he had discovered: in this voyage Hudson's Bay was discovered. Button's journal was never published: it is said, however, to have contained some important observations on the tides, and other objects of natural philosophy.
The existence of such a bay as Hudson's was described to be, induced the merchants of England to believe that they had at length found out the entrance to a passage which would lead them to the East Indies: many voyages were therefore undertaken, in a very short time after this bay had been discovered. The most important was that of Bylot and Baffin: they advanced through Davis's Straits into an extensive sea, which they called Baffin's Bay: they proceeded, according to their account, as far north as the latitude 78°. The nature and extent of this discovery was very much doubted at the time, and subsequently, till the discoveries of Captains Ross and Parry, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, proved that Baffin was substantially accurate and faithful.
Baffin's voyage took place in the year 1616: after this there was no voyage undertaken with the same object, till the year 1631, when Captain Fox sailed from Deptford. He had been used to the sea from his youth, and had employed his leisure time in collecting all the information he could possibly obtain, respecting voyages, to the north. He was besides well acquainted with some celebrated mathematicians and cosmographers, particularly Thomas Herne, who had carefully collected all the journals and charts of the former voyages, with a view to his business, which was that of a maker of globes. When Fox was presented to Charles I, his majesty gave him a map, containing all the discoveries which had been made in the north seas. He discovered several islands during the voyage, but not the passage he sought for; though he is of opinion, that if a passage is to be found, it must be in Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome,--a bay he discovered near an island of that name, in north latitude 64° 10', not far from the main land, on the west side of Hudson's Bay. He published a small treatise on the voyage, called The North-west Fox, which contains many important facts and judicious observations on the ice, the tides, compass, northern lights, &c. Captain James sailed on the same enterprise nearly at the same time that Fox did. His account was printed by King Charles's command, in 1633: it contains some remarkable physical observations respecting the intenseness of the cold, and the accumulation of ice, in northern latitudes; but no discovery of moment. He was of opinion, that no north-west passage existed.
The last voyage in the seventeenth century, in search of this passage, was undertaken in consequence of the representations of a Frenchman to Charles II. From the same cause proceeded the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company by that monarch.
Canada was at this time colonized by the French; and a French settler there, De Gronsseliers, an enterprising and speculative man, after travelling in various directions, reached a country, where he received information respecting Hudson's Bay: he therefore resolved to attempt to reach this bay by sea. In the course of this undertaking he met with a few English, who had settled themselves near Port Nelson River: these he attacked, and by their defeat became master of the country. He afterwards explored the whole district, and returned to Quebec with a large quantity of valuable furs and English merchandize; but meeting with ill-treatment in Quebec, and afterwards at the court of France, he came to England, where he was introduced to the Count Palatine Rupert. The prince patronized all laudable and useful enterprises; and persuaded the king to send out Captain Gillam, and the Frenchman with him. The ship was loaded with goods to traffic for furs. They passed through Hudson's Straits to Baffin's Bay, as far as 75 degrees north latitude: they afterwards sailed as far to the south as 51 degrees, where, near the banks of a river, called after Prince Rupert, they built Charles Fort. This was the first attempt to carry on commerce in this part of America.
We must now return to the period of the first attempt to find out a north-east passage to India. A society of merchants had been formed in London for this purpose. Sebastian Cabot, either the son or the grandson of John Cabot, and who held the situation of grand pilot of England under Edward VI., was chosen governor of this society. Three vessels were fitted out: one of them is particularly noticed in the contemporary accounts, as having been sheathed with thin plates of lead. Sir Hew Willoughby had the chief command: Captain Richard Chanceller and Captain Durfovill commanded the other two vessels under him. Willoughby, having reached 72 degrees of north latitude, was obliged by the severity of the season to run his ship into a small harbour, where he and his crew were frozen to death. Captain Durfovill returned to England. Chanceller was more fortunate; for he reached the White Sea, and wintered in the Dwina, near the site of Archangel. While his ship lay up frozen, Chanceller proceeded to Moscow, where he obtained from the Czar privileges for the English merchants, and letters to King Edward: as the Czar was at this period engaged in the Livonian war, which greatly interrupted and embarrassed the trade of the Baltic, he was the more disposed to encourage the English to trade to the White Sea. We have already remarked, in giving an account of the voyage of Ohter, in King Alfred's time, that he had penetrated as far as the White Sea. This part of Europe, however, seems afterwards to have been entirely lost sight of, till the voyage of Chanceller; for in a map of the most northern parts of Europe, given in Munster's Geographia, which was printed in 1540, Greenland is laid down as joined to the north part of Lapland; and, consequently, the northern ocean appears merely as a great bay, enclosed by these countries. Three years afterwards, the English reached the coasts of Nova Zembla, and heard of, if they did not arrive at, the Straits of Waygats. The next attempts were made by the Dutch, who were desirous of reaching India by a route, in the course of which they would not be liable to meet with the Spaniards or Portuguese. They accordingly made four attempts between 1594 and 1596, but unsuccessfully. In the last voyage they reached Spitzbergen; but after striving in vain to penetrate to the north-east, they were obliged to winter on the north coast of Nova Zembla, in 76° latitude. Here they built a smaller vessel out of the remains of the one they had brought from Holland, and arrived the following summer at Kola, in Lapland.
In 1653, Frederic III, king of Denmark, sent three vessels to discover a north-east passage: it is said that they actually passed through Waygats' Straits; but that in the bay beyond these straits they found insurmountable obstacles from the ice and cold, and consequently were obliged to return.
The last attempt made in the seventeenth century, was by the English: it was proposed and undertaken by John Wood, an experienced seaman, who had paid particular attention to the voyages that had been made to the north. His arguments in favour of a north-east passage were, that whales had been found near Japan, with English and Dutch harpoons in them; and that the Dutch had found temperate weather near the Pole, and had sailed 300 leagues to the east of Nova Zembla. The first argument only proved, that there was sea between Nova Zembla and Japan; but not that it was navigable, though passable for whales: the other two positions were unfounded. Wood, however, persuaded the Duke of York to send him out in 1676. He doubled the North Cape, and reached 76 degrees of north latitude. One of the ships was wrecked off the coast of Nova Zembla, and Wood returned in the other, with an opinion that a north-east passage is impracticable, and that Nova Zembla is a part of the continent of Greenland.