ward VI., and the prospects of vast profits which a trade with this extensive empire held forth, were deemed to have amply compensated the melancholy fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby, the supposed loss of the two ships, and the failure of the expedition in its main object; and Philip and Mary, who were now on the throne, were readily prevailed on to grant a new charter" to the community of merchants adventurers," and to appoint Sebastian Cabota governor thereof for the term of his natural life. A commission was also issued, constituting Richard Chancelor, George Killingworth, and Richard Gray commissioners from Philip and Mary, to carry a letter to, and to treat with, the Czar of Moscovie concerning the commercial priveleges and immunities which he might be pleased to grant to this newly chartered company. The Edward Bonaventure and the Philip and Mary were the ships appointed to carry out the commissioners, who, on their arrival at Archangel, were escorted to Mosco, where they were well received, and, we are told, made a profitable voyage. But though commerce was the immediate, it was not the only, object of this second expedition. By an article of their instructions the adventurers were particularly directed “to use all wayes and meanes possible to learne howe men may passe from Russia, either by land or by sea, to Cathaia." And so anxious was the company to follow up the attempt at a northeast passage to the Indian seas, that, without

waiting the result of Chancelor's second voyage, it was determined to fit out a small vessel the next year, 1556, to make discoveries by sea to the eastward; and STEVEN BURROWE Or BUROUGH was appointed to command the Serchthrift pinnace fitted out for this purpose. On the 27th April, being then at Gravesend and ready for sea, the governor, accompanied with several gentlemen and ladies, paid a visit to the ship, " and the good olde gentleman Master Cabota gave to the poore most liberall almes; and then, at the signe of the Christopher, hee and his friends banketted, and made mee and them that were in the company great cheere; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery, he entered into the dance himselfe, amongst the rest of the young and lusty company." They left Gravesend on the 29th; on the 23d May passed the North Cape, so named on the first voyage, and on the 9th June entered the river Cola, and determined its latitude to be 65° 48' N.

One of the numerous Russian vessels called lodias, under the orders of one Gabriel, being bound for Petchora, led the way for the Serchthrift with great attention and civility until they came to that river, which they reached on the 15th July. In proceeding to the eastward they fell in with much ice, in which they were enclosed before they were aware of it, and "which was a feareful sight to see." In latitude 70° 15′ they again encountered

heaps of ice. But on the 25th they fell in with an object which seems to have inspired greater terror even than the ice. It was the first whale that our navigators had met with, and the impression it made on the crew is rather amusing. "On St. James his day, bolting to the windewardes, we had the latitude at noon in seventy degrees, twentie minutes. The same day, at a south-west sunne, there was a monstrous whale aboord of us, so neere to our side that we might have thrust a sworde or any other weapon in him, which we durst not doe for feare hee should have overthrowen our shippe; and then I called my company together, and all of us shouted, and with the crie that we made he departed from us; there was as much above water of his backe as the bredth of our pinnesse, and at his falling downe he made such a terrible noise in the water, that a man would greatly have marvelled, except he had known the cause of it; but, God be thanked, we were quietly delivered of him.”*

The same day they came to an island which they named James's Island. Here they met with a Russian who had seen them at Cola, and who told them that the land a head of them was called Nova Zembla, or the New Land. On the 31st they reached the island of Weigats. Here they had intercourse with several Russians, and learned

Hakluyt's English Voyages, vol. i. p. 280.

from them that the people who inhabited the great islands were called Samoeds, who have no houses but tents made of deer's skins. On landing they observed a heap of Samoeds' idols, at least three hundred in number, in the shape of men, women, and children, “very grossly wrought, and the eyes and mouth of sundrie of them were bloodie." Some of them are described as being “an olde sticke with two or three notches."

They remained near this place till the 23d August, without being able to get farther to the eastward on account of the constant north-east and northerly winds, thick weather, and abundance of ice; and on the 10th September they arrived at Colmagro, where they remained for the winter. In 1557 Burough returned to England, and was afterwards made Comptroller of the Royal Navy.

In the mean time, Juan Vasilovich sent, as his ambassador and orator to the court of London, Osep Napea, who embarked on the 20th July, 1556, on board the Edward Bonaventure, in the bay of St. Nicholas or Archangel, under the direction of Richard Chancelor, Grand Pilot, and accompanied by three other ships, the Bona Speranza, the Philip and Mary, and the Confidentia. This homeward voyage was most disastrous. The Confidentia was lost on the coast of Norway, and all hands perished. The Bona Speranza wintered at Drontheim, and was lost on her passage to England; and the Edward Bonaventure, after

being four months at sea, came into Pitsligo Bay, on the east coast of Scotland, on the 10th November, 1556, and was there wrecked, when, with great difficulty, the ambassador with a few of his attendants were saved; but Richard Chancelor, the Grand Pilot, and most of the crew were drowned. We are told by the writer of this unfortunate voyage, that "the whole masse and bodie of the goods laden in her, was by the rude and ravenous people of the country thereunto adjoining, rifled, spoyled, and carried away, to the manifest losse and utter destruction of all the lading of the said ship."* The ambassador was conducted to London in great pomp, and the connection between the two nations was from that time drawn closer every year. The English merchants trading with Russia extended their commerce far beyond the confines of that extensive empire; but as their discoveries were made by land, they form no part of the present plan, and could not with propriety be introduced.

MARTIN FROBISHER-First Voyage. 1576.

While this rapid progress was making in the north-east both by sea and land, under the auspices of the company of merchants trading to Russia, the question of a north-west passage round the northern coast of America to Cathaia and the East

* Voyages and Navigations, Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 286.