The expedition sailed from Copenhagen on the 2nd May, 1605, and sighted Greenland on the 30th. The Trost and pinnace sailed on until they came to in the neighbourhood of a cliff which was named Mount Cunningham[60] between headlands which were named Anne and Sophia[61] after the Queen and Queen Dowager of Denmark. This was in the neighbourhood of the modern settlement of Holsteinborg. Hall went on in the pinnace with Knight as far as 69° N. The Trost had anchored in King Christian’s Fjord[62] on the 12th June. The Danes kidnapped five natives, and the Trost and Katten returned safely to Elsinore on the 10th August. Hall was appointed a mate in the Danish Navy, but the thoughts of the Danes had been diverted from the lost colony to the hope of material gain, mistaking the glittering lumps of mica for silver ore. A new expedition was fitted out in 1606 under Goolske Lindenow, with Hall again as pilot and mate. It consisted of the same three vessels and two others, the Ornen and Gilliflower. This was a mere search for imaginary silver ore, but in 1607 the Trost went again to try to find Eriksfjord, but did nothing without Hall. Again several Eskimos were kidnapped with their kayaks and brought back to Denmark. In a race at Elsinore these men easily beat the Danish boats, but they did not long survive captivity.
Christian IV then gave up his attempts to find the lost colony, and James Hall returned to England, eager to embark once more on discoveries in the direction of Greenland, and full of projects respecting silver ore and other mineral wealth[63]. He had with him a faithful young follower, a Scarborough lad named William Huntriss, who had accompanied him in all his voyages, and was so proficient a navigator that King Christian had granted him a special allowance.
Hall succeeded in persuading four great merchant adventurers to aid him in a voyage of discovery to Greenland in 1612. His partners were Sir Thomas Smith, Sir James Lancaster, Sir William Cockayne, and Master Richard Bell. Two small vessels were fitted out at Hull, the Patience (140 tons) and Heartsease (60 tons).
That great seaman and scientific observer William Baffin first appears in history as pilot on board Hall’s ship, the Patience, an experienced seaman in the prime of life. I have been baffled in all my attempts to discover even a single fact respecting his birth-place and early history. Every parish register in London and the suburbs was searched, and only six persons of the name of Baffin were found[64]. We find that a daughter of a William Baffin was baptised in the church of St Thomas the Apostle, in Vintry Ward within the City of London, in 1609, three years before Baffin joined Hall’s expedition. This Ward includes Queenhithe, a landing-place frequented by sailors, and a likely locality for a seaman to take up his abode while on shore. We know that Baffin had a wife, for she gave a good deal of trouble to the East India Company after his death. Susan may have been his daughter. But Baffin himself, though probably a Londoner, must have been constantly at sea, and probably raised himself, by his good conduct and talent, from a very humble position. There is no indication of the name at Hull.
If Baffin was not a Hull man, he probably was not known to Captain Hall. It may, therefore, be conjectured that one of the merchant adventurers associated with Hall in the voyage, perhaps Sir Thomas Smith, knowing Baffin’s worth and ability, recommended him as chief pilot of the Patience. Andrew Barker was Master of the Heartsease, William Huntriss mate, and John Gatonby, quartermaster[65]. All were Yorkshiremen. The expedition finally left the Humber and made sail for Greenland on the 22nd April, 1612.
The real interest attaching to the expedition is the record of Baffin’s observations and the fact that it was his first Arctic voyage.
Cape Farewell was sighted on the 14th May. Gatonby, on board the Heartsease, named a green and inviting-looking promontory Cape Comfort, and on the 26th the two vessels anchored in 64° 15′ N. at the mouth of a fjord which was named the Harbour of Hope. It was the Gilbert Sound of Davis, the modern Godthaab. Hall proceeded to explore the fjord in a boat, and named two of its arms Bell and Lancaster rivers after two of the merchant adventurers. A cliff or hill received the name of Huntcliff from its resemblance to Huntcliff Foot near Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. Leaving the Patience in Gilbert Sound, Hall went on northwards to explore in the Heartsease with Baffin, going as far as Christian Fjord in 66° 25′ N. and Cunningham Fjord in 67° 25′. They then went south again to Rommel’s Fjord in 66° 54′ N., the modern Holsteinborg. On the 27th June the two vessels were together in Cockayne Sound[66], the modern Sukkertoppen, in 65° 25′ N.
The Eskimos were in a very dangerous mood. Five had been kidnapped with their kayaks by the Danes when Hall was with them, and one had been killed. The relations, who recognised Hall, were sullen and revengeful. The poor captives had tried to return in their kayaks, had even put to sea in them to cross the ocean, but were followed and brought back. They were overwhelmed with grief. One wept whenever he saw a mother with her child, reminding him of his own wife and child. They all soon died of home sickness. As they never returned, their friends sought for opportunities for vengeance. They had already killed one sailor, when on the 22nd July Hall came to land in his boat where there was a party of Eskimos. One of them came within four yards and shot a dart at Hall, hitting him in the right side. The wound was mortal and he died the next day. On his death Andrew Barker succeeded him as Commander of the expedition, and Huntriss was appointed Captain of the Heartsease.
Baffin had been most diligent with his observations. Like Davis he paid special attention to terrestrial magnetism, taking frequent observations for variation, and his latitudes were fairly accurate. He was also constantly thinking out the means of finding the longitude. One attempt by moon’s culmination was ingenious, and shows his mastery of the subject and inventive faculty. Mr Coles[67] says, “It is most surprising that Baffin should have obtained even such an approximation as he did, and his method of observing with two plumb lines is both original and ingenious.”
Baffin, in the portion of his narrative that has been preserved, gives a description of the country and of the animals he saw. He describes the Eskimo kayak and umiak, and in his walks on shore and climbs up the mountain sides he notices several plants. He mentions the dwarf birch and willow four feet high, the crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), the angelica, sorrel, scurvy grass, orpine, and a yellow-flowered stone-crop.