is a handsome monument, with a chaste inscription, erected to his memory by the Earl of Corke, who married his niece.*

ARTHUR PET AND CHARLES JACKMAN. 1580.

Although the fruitless voyages of Martin Frobisher had abated the zeal of the court, they did not in the least damp the ardour of private enterprize. The Russia merchants, having made so considerable a progress in the east by land, now determined to fit out another expedition by sea, for the purpose of renewing the attempt to discover a north-east passage to China. Two barks, the George and the William, under the command of ARTHUR PET and CHARLES JACKMAN, were fitted out for this service. They left Harwich on the 30th May, reached Wardhuys the 23d June, crossed the bay of St. Nicholas, passed much ice, and on the 16th July made the body of the island, as they supposed, of Nova Zembla. On the 17th, after passing through much ice and shoal water, they reached the bay of Petchora, and the following day came to Waigatz, where they found great store of wood and water. To the eastward of Waigatz they were so hampered with the ice that they resolved to return, a task which with difficulty they effected, the sea being so thickly covered

Fuller's Worthies. Sir W. Monson's Naval Tracts. Camden.

with ice, that they were enclosed in it for sixteen or eighteen days, and the air was constantly loaded with thick fog. On the 17th August they repassed the strait of Waigatz, among much ice, snow, and fog, and on the 22d the ships parted company. On the 27th the George was opposite Kegor, on the 31st doubled the North Cape, and on the 26th October they reached Ratcliffe, " and praised God for their safe returne.”

The William was less fortunate. She arrived at a port in Norway to the southward of Drontheim, in October, and wintered there. In the February following she departed from thence, in company with a ship belonging to the king of Denmark, towards Iceland, and from that time was never more heard of.

From the meagre narrative of this voyage it is sufficiently evident, that Pet and Jackman were but indifferent navigators, and that they never trusted themselves from the shore and out of shallow water, whenever the ice would suffer them to approach it; a situation of all others where they might have made themselves certain of being hampered with ice, though only in the 68th and 69th degrees of latitude. From this time the English merchants, trading to Russia, were satisfied with sending their ships to the bay of St. Nicholas, or Archangel, and of committing their enterprizes of eastern discoveries to journeys by land.

The successful efforts of the Russia company by land gave new vigour to a spirit for foreign traffic and discoveries, and turned men's minds once more to the north-westward. The indefatigable exertions of Sir HUMPHREY GILBERT, his great talents and powerful interest, had procured for him letters patent, dated in 1578, authorising him to undertake western discoveries, and to possess lands unsettled by Christian princes or their subjects; and the same year he is said to have made a voyage to Newfoundland, of which, however, no detailed account appears to have been published. The grant in the patent was made perpetual, but at the same time declared void, in case no possession was actually taken within the space of six years. Sir Humphrey, therefore, the year before its expiration, prepared for a new expedition and, in the very same year, being 1583, Queen Elizabeth granted another patent to his younger brother, Adrian Gilbert, of Sandridge, in the county of Devon, and his associates, conferring on them the privilege of making discoveries of a passage to China and the Moluccas, by the north-westward, north-eastward or northward; to be incorporated by the name of "The Colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discoverie of the north-west Passage."

Sir Humphrey in the meantime set out to take

possession of the northern parts of America and Newfoundland. The fleet consisted of five ships of different burdens, from two hundred to ten tons, in which were embarked about two hundred and sixty men, including shipwrights, masons, smiths and carpenters, besides "minerall men and refiners;" and, "for the solace of our people," says Mr. Haies," and allurement of the savages, we were provided of musicke in good varietie; not omitting the least toyes, as morris dancers, hobby horsses, and maylike conceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible." This little fleet left Cawsand Bay on the 11th of June. In lat. 60° N. they found themselves opposed by mountains of ice driving about on the sea, having passed which, they fell in with the land on the 30th of July. It is noticed that, at this early period, "the Portugals and French chiefly have a notable trade of fishing on the Newfoundland banke, where there are sometimes more than a hundred sail of ships."

On entering the harbour of St. John's, the general and his people were entertained with great profusion by the English merchants, who carried them to a place called the garden-but the writer of the voyage observes, that nothing appeared but "nature itselfe without art;" plenty of roses and raspberries were found growing wild in every

*Hayes's Narrative of the Voyage.-Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 154.

place. Here, in presence of the English traders and the foreigners assembled, possession was taken, in the queen's name, of the harbour and two hundred leagues every way; and three laws were immediately made and promulgated on the spot: 1. For the public exercise of religion according to the church of England; 2. For maintaining her majesty's right and possession, against which any party offending, to be adjudged and executed as in case of high treason; and 3. For preventing the utterance of words sounding to the dishonour of her majesty, the party offending to lose his ears, and his ship and goods to be confiscated. Several parcels of land were granted out; but, it seems, "the generall was most curious in the search of metals, commanding the minerall man and refiner especially to be diligent." This man was a Saxon, "honest and religious, named Daniel;" and he brought to Sir Humphrey what he called silver ore, but the general would not have it tried or spoken of till they got to sea, " as the Portugals, Biscains and Frenchmen were not farre off."

Sir Humphrey now embarked "in his small frigate, the Squirrel,” which, in fact, was a miserable bark of ten tons, and taking with him two other ships, the Delight, commanded by Captain Brown, and the Golden Hinde, by Captain Hayes, proceeded on discovery to the southward; but the Delight, with all the valuables on board, was wrecked among the flats and sands near Sable