degree of latitude beyond that which at this period had ever been attained; and though no name is given, yet it is evident, from the exact date and other circumstances, that this Englishman could have been no other than William Adams.

Diogo de Couto,* in detailing the disastrous circumstances of the expedition sent by the Dutch round Cape Horn, in the year 1598, under the Vice-admiral Simon de Cordes, observes, that one of the ships was driven by a storm on the coast of Japan, having lost by a contagious disease her Captain, whom he calls Corda, and one hundred and fifty men; only twenty-five remaining alive, who had more the appearance of corpses than of living beings, and utterly unable to manage the ship. "The pilot of this ship," says Couto, “was an Englishman, a good cosmographer, and with some knowledge of astrology. He averred to the jesuits at Meaco, that the Prince of Orange had on several occasions employed him on services of much importance; and particularly in the years 1593, 1594, and 1595, he sent him to discover the route above Biarmia and Finmarchia for his ships

* Diogo de Couto, Decad. xii. Chap. 2.-The Author is indebted for this passage in Couto, and for the account of the Cortereals, to his highly esteemed friend Thomas Murdoch, Esq. of Portland Place, whose extensive acquaintance with Spanish and Portugueze literature would, and it is to be hoped will, enable him to favour the public with many hidden treasures in those languages.

VOL. I.

to proceed to Japan, China, and the Moluccas, to procure the riches of those islands; considering this route not only much shorter, but also much safer from our corsairs: and that the last attempt was made in 1595, (probably 1596,) when he reached eighty-two degrees north; and although it was in the middle of summer, and the day almost continual, as there was no night, except for about two hours,* yet was the cold so excessive, with so much sleet and snow driving down those straits, that he was compelled to return. And he asserted, that if he had kept close to the coast of Tartary, on the right hand, and had run along it to the eastward, to the opening of Anian, between the land of Asia and America, he might have succeeded in his undertaking."

"And this pilot further said, that the Dutch would not abandon the attempt until they should accomplish their object, on account of the great importance they attached to this route."

"And the English have already attempted to discover this route towards the west, between the islands of Grotland (Greenland) and the land of Labrador; but on account of the same difficulties

* Couto must have mistaken the jesuits, or the jesuits Adams, in relating this part of the story, as the latter well knew there could be no night for upwards of four months in such a latitude. From a want of making due allowance for the extraordinary refraction in high latitudes, most of the old navigators have carried Spitzbergen a full degree higher than it is.

they have returned, as did that great navigator Gavot (Cabot) more than forty years ago."

"And on a globe which this English pilot had, (of which a copy was made in China,) these two routes, by which they attempted to pass, are distinctly seen;* and also, in their proper latitudes, the islands of Japan, with all their kingdoms, even to the land of Chincungu, where the rich silver mines are said to be."

"This pilot added, that when the Prince of Orange found that he could not effect the passage by those northern regions, he equipped the fifteen ships, along with which he had sailed."†

It may be observed, that Couto resided in India upwards of forty years, and there wrote his Decadas; he could therefore know nothing more of the attempts to discover a northern passage to India than what he heard from report.

* We have seen that the track of Davis was laid down on the globes made by Emery Mullineux, many years before Adams left England.

+ Diogo de Couto, Decad. xii. Chap. 2.

CHAPTER III.

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTHERN REGIONS DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

George Weymouth -James Hall, 1st, 2d, and 3d Voyages -John Knight-Henry Hudson, 1st, 2d, Sd, and 4th Voyages-Sir Thomas Button-James Hall, 4th Voyage -Captain Gibbons - Robert Bylot-Bylot and Baffin -Voyages of a mixt character between 1603 and 1615 -Jens Munk-Luke Fox-Thomas James-Zachary Gillam-Wood and Flawes.

GEORGE WEYMOUTH. 1602.

SEVERAL years had passed away without any new attempt being made, on the part of the maritime nations of Europe, to discover a nearer passage by the north to India and China. The English, however, could not see with indifference a lucrative commerce carried on with the eastern world by the Spaniards and Portugueze without endeavouring to enjoy a participation thereof. The successful expeditions of Sir Francis Drake in 1578, and of Candish in 1586, had sufficiently proved to the nation the great value of oriental commerce. The several attempts to establish a share of that commerce by a shorter route than those of the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn having failed, the mer

chants of London determined to try their fortune by the former of these known passages; not, however, so much with the view of forming a legitimate trade with the natives of the East, as of obtaining wealth by the more cheap and expeditious mode of plundering the Portugueze. With this design, Captain George Raymond, having fitted out a ship of his own called the Penelope, and accompanied by two others, the Merchant-Royal and Edward Bonaventure, set sail in 1591 for the East Indies. The voyage, however, was most disastrous. The Royal-Merchant returned from the Cape full of sick men.

The Penelope had scarcely doubled the Cape when she was lost; and the Edward Bonaventure, commanded by Captain James Lancaster, after an unsuccessful voyage, was lost on her return, in the West Indies. But Lancaster sent home, or is supposed to have sent home, a piece of information, which gave a new stimulus to northern discovery. In a postscript to one of his letters, he says, "The passage to the Indies is in the north-west of America, in 62° 30′ north.” But this postscript, then believed to be genuine, has since been supposed to be an interpolation.*

It served, however, to revive the hopes of the mercantile part of the nation; and, in 1602, thẹ worshipful merchants of the Muscovy and Turkey Companies fitted out, at their joint expense,

* Burney's Voyages and Discoveries..