CHAPTER III.
EXPLORATIONS TO THE NORTH-WEST.
BY CHARLES C. SMITH,
Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
THE fresh spirit of maritime adventure which marked the last decade of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth century, owed its origin to mistaken theories as to the distance between the west of Europe and the east of Asia. Columbus believed that the land which he first discovered was an island on the coast of Japan; and he seems never to have relinquished this idea. The contemporary geographers all cherished the same mistake; and the early maps give a much better representation of the coast-line of Asia than they do of the shores of North America.[185] It is a curious fact that the true position and form of South America were familiar to cartographers long before there was any exact knowledge of the northern half of the continent. North America was regarded as an island or a collection of islands, through which it would not be difficult to find a short passage to Zipangu and Cathay,—the modern Japan and China.[186] Gradually these mistakes yielded to more correct views; but it was still believed that a feasible passage existed around the northern shore of the new continent. This belief was the inspiring motive of all the early northwestern explorations, and it lingered almost to our own time, long after every one knew that such a passage would be of no practical use. At length the problem has been solved; but the introduction of new methods of ocean and land trade and travel has deprived it of all but a purely scientific and geographical interest. Meanwhile the search for a northwest passage has developed an heroic endurance and a perseverance in surmounting obstacles scarcely paralleled anywhere else, and has added largely to the stores of human knowledge.
At the head of the long list of explorers for a northwest passage stand the names of the Cabots; but the intricate questions as to the measure of just fame to be assigned to father and son have been fully treated in another chapter of this work,[187] and neither John nor Sebastian penetrated the more northern waters with which our inquiry is mainly concerned. It is enough now to recall their names as the leaders in an enterprise in which for nearly three centuries England took a foremost part, and that so early as 1497 John Cabot set sail in the hope of this great discovery. Within the next half century he was followed by his son Sebastian, the Cortereals, Cartier, and Hore, not one of whom sought to reach a high northern latitude. It was not until Frobisher sailed on his first voyage that the real northwest explorations can be said fairly to have begun. Since that time more than one hundred voyages and land journeys have been undertaken in this vain quest.
In two of the northwestern voyages of Martin Frobisher the discovery of a short way to the South Sea was only a secondary object. The adventurers at whose cost they were undertaken looked mainly to the profit from a successful search for gold, though they were not unmindful of the advantages to be gained by shortening the distance to the Spice Islands of the East. In the bitter quarrel between Frobisher and Michael Lok, after the third voyage, it was charged that Frobisher had neglected this part of the undertaking. But it was natural that Lok, who had no doubt lost heavily by the voyages, should be angry with Frobisher, and endeavor to make the most of any failure on his part to carry out the whole plan; and there is no reason to believe that Frobisher wilfully neglected the interests or the wishes of his employers, however much they may have been disappointed. The whole amount subscribed for the three voyages was upward of twenty thousand pounds, and of this sum Lok subscribed, for himself and his children, nearly one fourth. Among the subscribers were Queen Elizabeth, who invested four thousand pounds, Lord Burleigh, the Earl and Countess of Warwick, the Earl of Leicester, the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Francis Walsingham, and others scarcely less conspicuous in that generation.
Frobisher’s first expedition consisted of two small vessels, the “Gabriel” and the “Michael,” one of twenty-five tons and the other of twenty tons, and a pinnace of ten tons. They set sail from Blackwall on the 15th of June, 1576, but it was not until the 1st of July that they were clear of the coast of England. Not long after coming in sight of Friesland, Frobisher parted company with the pinnace, in which were four men, who were never seen again; and about the same time the “Michael” slipped away without any warning, and returned to England. Nevertheless, Frobisher pressed on, and on the 21st he entered the opening now known as Frobisher’s Strait or Bay, “having upon eyther hande a great mayne or continent; and that land uppon hys right hande as hee sayled westward, he judged to be the continente of Asia, and there to bee devided from the firme of America, which lyeth uppon the lefte hande over against the same.”[188] Into this bay, as it is now known to be, he sailed about sixty leagues, capturing one of the natives, whom he carried to England. The land, Meta Incognita, he took possession of in the name of the Queen of England, commanding his company, “if by anye possible meanes they could get ashore, to bring him whatsoever thing they could first find, whether it were living or dead, stocke or stone, in token of Christian possession.”[189] Some of the men returned to him with flowers, some with green grass, “and one brought a peece of black stone, much lyke to a seacole in coloure, which by the waight seemed to be some kinde of mettall or mynerall.” Frobisher reached England on his return in the following October, and on his arrival presented the stone to one of his friends, an adventurer in the voyage. The wife of this gentleman accidentally threw it into the fire, where it remained for some time, when it was taken out and quenched in vinegar. It then appeared of a bright gold color, and on being submitted to a goldfinder in London, was said to be rich in gold; and large profits were promised if the ore was sufficiently abundant.
