Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 Bjarni sighted what we now call America, and in 1000 came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on his way down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the names to Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short, the Viking discovery of the New World.

Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, was duly colonised, its two chief settlements being one just round Cape Farewell, the other further north on the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would appear to have had a milder climate than it has now. The colonies throve, their population becoming numerous enough to require a series of seventeen bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend their spiritual welfare. But the Eskimos, in their migration from Asia across the Arctic islands, arrived in the country before the middle of the fourteenth century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards, the northern colony coming to an end in 1342 owing to the enemy attacking during a visitation of the Black Death.

Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle in its northernmost point, and extends but half as far south of it as Greenland, increased in prosperity as a sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more vernacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, as might be expected, the story of Greenland and the American colonies was kept so well to the fore that it became as familiar among the people as a nursery tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went Columbus; and thence it was he returned to seek a patron for his western voyage across the Atlantic.

The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great stimulus to maritime discovery, and many were the projects for searching the seas for a new route to the east. Of these the most important was that submitted to Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. Much has been written, on slender and confusing evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and to his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief, we cannot do better than follow Anderson, who, in his Origin of Commerce, ingeniously evades the difficulty by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot and Sons." The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship Matthew to the westward and discovered and took possession of Labrador and the islands and peninsulas in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the district being at first known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards restricted to the largest island. And they had their reward, as shown in the Privy Purse accounts of Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th August, 1497, appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10." Surely not an excessive honorarium for the finding of a continent.

In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of Iceland, in which some attempt seems to have been made to colonise the newly discovered territories, resulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, the white bears, and the Eskimos who are not known to have ever crossed into the island of Newfoundland. This was not the only English vessel to appear in these parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy Purse accounts record a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the New Isle, adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as preste" for his ship going there.

COLUMBUS

It is evident that the fisheries were found to be worth working, for no less than fifty Spanish, French, and Portuguese ships were engaged in them in 1517, the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to Hudson Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of Bristol, wrote to the King, mentioning this voyage and suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the north-west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over the Pole, and by the north-east—and, in 1547, when Sebastian returned to England for good, after his long service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this Cathay question, which had frequently been raised, and fitted out, as a commencement, an expedition to the north-east.

The ships were built at Bristol specially for the purpose, and they were sheathed with lead, the first so treated in this country. This sheathing of ships was not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the voyage many excellent new things are enjoined, including the keeping of a log and journal, which date from this expedition. There were three vessels, the Bona Esperanza, of one hundred and twenty tons, Captain Sir Hugh Willoughby; the Edward Bonaventure, one hundred and sixty tons, Captain Richard Chancellor; and the Bona Confidentia, ninety tons, Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, was the best navigator of the fleet, whose monumental brass in Chatham Church is noteworthy for its epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in ye yere of our Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam in Devonshire ye xxv^th of Septemb. 1525. He in his life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his setting foorth of England he was accompanied with two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie being Admirell of the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same winter. After his discouerie of Roosia, and ye Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia, Nova Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented ye trade to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot for ye voyage, until he was chosen of one of ye foure principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's Mat^ties royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of sundrie sea services till time of his death."

The ships left in May, but did not remain long together. On the 2nd of August Willoughby and Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might have led anywhere, were frozen in on the coast of Lapland, where they wintered and died, as did all the men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the rendezvous in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded the North Cape—so named by Borough—and found his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made a sledge journey to the Czar at Moscow, which led to the formation of the Muscovy Company and the beginning of England's Russian trade; and through his meeting there with the Persian Ambassador came about the mission of Anthony Jenkinson to the Shah, which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never was a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign commerce of this country, and from it dates the rise of our mercantile marine.