Part of Foxe’s Map, 1635.
Foxe had found his master and mate to be nuisances and hindrances throughout the voyage, and the former was very pusillanimous. Now his difficulties were much increased by the spread of sickness among the crew. His decision to return without risking a winter was no doubt right. He took all possible means at his disposal for the good of the sick, and established a dietary of four beef days in the week. Passing Cape Chidley on the 15th, the Charles arrived off the Downs on the 31st October, 1631, “not having lost one man nor boy, nor any manner of tackling.”
The account of his voyage published by Luke Foxe is a remarkable book in several respects. It is the first attempt to give a history of all the Arctic voyages which preceded his own, from the account of Othere’s voyage given by King Alfred down to his own time. It contains the only narrative that has been preserved of the voyage of Button. His own story is that of a well-conducted and, on the whole, successful expedition. Above all, “North-West Foxe,” as he calls himself, has given us the quaintest and most amusing narrative in the whole range of Polar literature, which is fairly voluminous. His too obvious self-conceit and very high estimation of the merits of North-West Foxe himself may well be forgiven for the sake of his quaint remarks and the amusing style of his writing. Foxe’s book is an acquisition to Arctic literature.
One more rather unimportant expedition closes the first period of Arctic endeavour. John Wood was a Master’s mate in the Sweepstakes under Sir John Narborough when a voyage was undertaken through Magellan’s Strait to Chile in 1669. He gave want of employment and aversion to an idle life as reasons for submitting a plan to Government for discovering the north-east passage. The plan met with the approval of Samuel Pepys, the Secretary to the Admiralty, and Wood received the command of the Speedwell, with the Prosperous pink as a tender. The Speedwell also had the eminent hydrographer Grenville Collins on board. The expedition sailed on the 28th May, 1676; the polar pack between the North Cape and Novaya Zemlya was reached on the 22nd June, and Novaya Zemlya was sighted on the 26th. But there was no one on board with any experience of ice navigation; the Speedwell grounded on the 29th and became a wreck. Fortune, however, favoured the crew. There was no loss of life, and all the members of the expedition returned home in the pink, arriving in the Thames on the 24th August.
The civil war and the unsettled state of the country gave pause to Arctic work until the 18th century, but this “Elizabethan era” of polar discovery as it may comprehensively be termed, forms a truly magnificent record. Novaya Zemlya and the two straits on either side of the Waigat discovered, the greater part of the Spitsbergen shores delineated, portions of the eastern side of Greenland sighted, the whole west coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell to Smith Sound discovered or re-discovered, the whole western side of Baffin’s Bay and Davis Strait traced, Hudson Strait, Hudson’s Bay, and Fox Channel discovered, and this mostly in frail little vessels of from 10 to 100 tons, with few appliances, no comforts, instruments most difficult to work with any accuracy, and very limited means. But the Elizabethan heroes had fortitude, indomitable energy, and the strongest sense of duty, and were influenced by that loyalty and patriotism without which no country can remain great. Virtute non armis fido was their motto. The splendour and magnitude of their achievements remains unsurpassed.
CHAPTER XVIII
HANS EGEDE AND DANISH GREENLAND
In the beginning of the 18th century there was living at Vogen, in the diocese of Trondhjem in Norway, a priest named Hans Egede, who for some years had been engaged solely in his parochial duties. In about 1708, when his age was 26, he became deeply impressed with the story of the abandonment of the Greenland colony. The fact that Christians had formerly lived in Greenland, that they had been abandoned to their fate, and that the world had heard of them no more, preyed upon his mind. He felt that it was the duty of every Norwegian to help in the search for them. If no one else had that feeling he, a poor parish priest, would do so single-handed. He was torn by conflicting duties to his parish, and to his wife and children, but his Greenland duty seemed the most urgent. This inward impulse was the strongest, and in 1710 he addressed a petition on the subject to his Bishop. The reply commended the project, but dwelt on the almost insuperable difficulties.
Hans Egede was looked upon as a fanatic, as a knight errant. At first no one would listen to him. He went to Bergen to try and get support, but none could be obtained, though some were touched by his zeal. One great comfort was that after a time his wife embraced the idea and became as enthusiastic as her husband. At last, in 1718, he determined to go to Copenhagen and appeal to his King. Frederick IV admired the good priest’s devotion to a noble cause, encouraged him in his efforts, and used the royal influence for raising funds. At last a sum of £2000 was got together, while the King gave £40 towards the equipment of a vessel and granted a salary of £60 a year to Egede.
A vessel called the Hope was bought, and the adventurous priest embarked with the crew and his wife and four little children, a party altogether of forty souls. The 2nd May, 1721, was the memorable day when the Hope sailed from Bergen, and the history of modern Danish Greenland was commenced.
Though ice was found blocking up the approaches to the Greenland coast, a lane of water was seen apparently leading to the land, and the little vessel was steered into it. But the ice closed, and she was beset, a dense fog being followed by a strong gale, and for some time the adventurers were in danger. The gale had the effect of clearing away the ice, so that at last the Hope was brought safely into Gilbert Sound of Davis. Hans Egede called it Bell’s River. He appears to have been ignorant of the details of Davis’s voyages, but he must have known the expedition of Hall, who named one of the branches of the fjord Bell’s river, after Mr Richard Bell, and the other after Sir James Lancaster. Hans Egede set up the house he had brought out in pieces on an island in Gilbert Sound, the native name of which was Kenget, renamed by him Haabetsö or Hope Island. At first the Eskimos were very friendly and Egede at once began to learn the language. But neither he nor his people were at all efficient in hunting and fishing, and they could only occasionally get food from the natives. The consequence was that scurvy broke out, and most of his people returned in the Hope when the navigable season arrived. But in 1723 two ships arrived with provisions and the good news that the King had imposed a Greenland assessment for the support of the colony.