CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
A COMPLETE bibliography of the northwest explorations is apart from our present purpose.[202] The principal works used in the preparation of the preceding narrative were almost all of them written by the men who were the chief actors in the scenes and incidents described, or are based on the original journals of those men. Their general accuracy and trustworthiness have never been challenged, and with some unimportant exceptions the statements of the early navigators have been confirmed by their successors. The men who first encountered the perils of those unknown seas were men of plain, straightforward character, who told in simple and unpretentious words what they saw and did. Some rectifications of their opinions and descriptions have, it is true, become necessary; in part through the imperfections of the early astronomical instruments, and in part through the difficulty, often very great, of deciding what was land and what water, even from the most careful observation. As a general rule, the early latitudes are given too high from the first of these causes; but the longitudes are substantially correct.
Of the works which are mainly compilations, the undisputed pre-eminence belongs to Hakluyt’s Voyages and Purchas’s Pilgrimes. Hakluyt was an enthusiast with regard to western discoveries, and he spared neither time nor labor to obtain trustworthy information with regard to the voyages in which he took so deep an interest. His narratives of the early voyages, so far as we have the means of verifying them, follow with almost entire accuracy the original documents, though in a few instances he has abbreviated his originals, apparently from motives of economy and the want of space. In these instances, however, the republication of the narratives by the Hakluyt Society, with the learned annotations of their thoroughly competent editors, places before the reader an exact copy of the originals. Purchas is an authority of less importance than Hakluyt, but a similar remark will apply to his accounts of the early voyages, though they are more abridged than Hakluyt’s. Luke Fox prefixed to his quaint and fascinating narrative of his own voyage an account of what had been done by his predecessors, and this must be classed among the best authorities. Of the later compilations the Chronological History[203] of Sir John Barrow, so far as it covers the earlier period, should not be overlooked by any one who wishes for a full summary of what was accomplished. He was scarcely less of an enthusiast than was Hakluyt; and his statements of fact are apparently indisputable. But he was a man of strong and often of unreasonable prejudices, and his opinions, particularly regarding events near his own time, cannot always be accepted without a careful investigation of their grounds. The Narratives,[204] edited by Mr. Rundall for the Hakluyt Society, must also be classed with the compilations useful in this study.
As an attempt to find a practicable passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, either through or around North America, every voyage early and late was a failure. The theories in accordance with which northwestern explorations were first undertaken were unsound, and the objects by which they were inspired found realization long ago in quite other ways. But not the less did those theories and those objects animate men with a zeal and self-sacrifice worthy of the Crusades, and produce results of great importance. No easier route to China and Japan was discovered to enrich the fortunate adventurers; no valuable territories were added to the realm of England; and it was an utterly barren sovereignty which Frobisher and his successors claimed. But for the disappointment of these expectations there was an ample compensation in the whaling grounds to which they pointed the way, and which have proved the fruitful source of large accessions to the wealth of nations;[205] and it was something to learn, almost from the first, that the gold mines from which so much was expected were only a delusion and a snare.
We subjoin a specific mention of some of the more important separate sources. For Frobisher the student may refer to Admiral Collinson’s excellent gathering for the Hakluyt Society, as embodying the earliest monographic literature upon the Northwest search.[206] Of John Davis of Sandridge, whose exploits we are concerned with, there has sometimes been confusion with a namesake and contemporary, John Davis of Limehouse, and Mr. Froude has confounded them in his Forgotten Worthies; but a note in the Hakluyt Society’s edition of Davis’s Voyages, p. lxxviii, makes clear the distinction, and is not the least of the excellences of that book, which contains the best grouping of all that is to be learned of Davis.[207]
Referring to the general collections, for the intervening voyages we come to Hudson’s explorations, and must still trust chiefly to the work of the Hakluyt Society,[208] to which must also be credited the best summary of the voyages conducted by Baffin.[209]
For Fox’s quaint and somewhat capriciously rambling narrative, the present reader may possibly chance upon an original copy,[210] but he can follow it at all events in modern collections. The author accompanied it with a circumpolar map, which is only to be found, according to Markham, in one or two copies; and a fac-simile of Markham’s excerpt of the parts interesting in our inquiry is herewith given.
