CHAP. IX. EXPEDITION FROM ENGLAND IN 1527. ERRONEOUS STATEMENT THAT ONE OF THE VESSELS WAS NAMED 66 DOM- GUILFORD VISITS BRAZIL, PORTO RICO, &c.-ARRIVES IN ENGLAND, THE Second Expedition under the auspices of Henry VIII. in 1527, to discover a North-West Passage, has not been more fortunate than the First, in 1517, in escaping perversion. The statement of Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 129) is this:— "Master Robert Thorne of Bristoll, a notable member and ornament of his Country, as wel for his learning as great charity to the poore, in a letter of his to King Henry the 8th and a large discourse to Doctor Leigh, his Ambassador to Charles the Emperor (which both are to be seene almost at the beginning of the first volume of this my Work) exhorted the aforesaid King, with very weighty and substantial reasons, to set forth a discovery even to the North Pole. And that it may be known that this his motion took present effect, I thought it good herewithall to put down the testimonies of two of our Chroniclers, M. Hall and M. Grafton, who both write in this sort. This same moneth' (say they) 'King Henry the 8th sent two faire Ships wel manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of the Thames the 20th day of May in the 19th yeere of his raigne, which was the yeere our Lord 1527.' "And whereas Master Hall, and Master Grafton say, that in those Ships there were divers cunning men, I have made great inquiry of such as, by their yeeres and delight in Navigation, might give me any light to know who those cunning men should be, which were the directors in the aforesaid Voyage. And it hath been tolde me by Sir Martine Frobisher, and M. Richard Allen, a Knight of the Sepulchre, that a Canon of Saint Paul in London, which was a great Mathematician, and a Man indued with wealth, did much advance the action, and went therein himselfe in person, but what his name was I cannot learne of any. And furthur they tolde that one of the ships was called the Dominus Vobiscum, which is a name likely to be given by a religious man of those dayes: and that sayling very farre Northwestward, one of the Ships was cast away as it entered into a dangerous Gulph, about the great opening, betweene the North parts of Newfoundland, and the Country lately called by her Majestie, Meta Incognita. Whereupon the other ship shaping her course towards Cape Briton, and the Coastes of Arambec, and oftentimes putting their men on land to search the state of those unknown regions, returned home about the beginning of October, of the yere aforesayd. And thus much (by reason of the great negligence of the writers of those times, who should have used more care in preserving of the memories of the worthy actes of our Nation) is all that hitherto I can learne or find out of this voyage." This is copied into every History of Discovery since that period down to Mr Barrow, Dr Lardner, and the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, with the same expression of regret and indignation that no record should have been preserved of the persons and vessels employed in the enterprise. Incredible as it may appear, after what has been said, there is found in Purchas (vol. iii. p. 809), the very Letter written by John Rut, the commander of one of the vessels engaged in this expedition, to Henry VIII. from Newfoundland, and an account of another Letter written from the same place by Albert de Prato, an Ecclesiastic, to Cardinal Wolsey. The Letter to the King thus appears in Purchas, with some obvious imperfections: "Pleasing your Honorable Grace to heare of your Servant John Rut, with all his company here, in good health, thanks be to God and your Graces ship, The Mary of Guilford, with all her [a blank in Purchas] thanks be to God; and if it please your honorable Grace, we ranne in our course to the Northward, till we came into 53 degrees, and there we found many great Ilands of Ice and deepe water, we found no sounding, and then we durst not goe no further to the North. ward for feare of more Ice, and then we cast about to the Southward, and within foure dayes after we had one hundred and sixtie fathom, and then we came into 52 degrees and fell with the mayne Land, and within ten leagues of the mayne Land we met with a great Iland of Ice, and came hard by her, for it was standing in deepe water, and so went in with Cape de Bas, a good Harbor, and many small Ilands, and a great fresh River going up farre into the mayne Land, and the Mayne Land all wildernesse and mountaines and Woods, and no naturall ground, but all mosse, and no inhabitation nor no people in these parts: and in the woods we found footing of divers great beasts, but we saw none not in ten leagues. And please your Grace, The Samson and wee kept company all the way till within two dayes before we met with all the Ilands of Ice, that was the first day of July at night, and there rose a great and a marvailous great storme, and much foule weather; I trust in Almightie Jesu to heare good newes of her. And please your Grace, we were considering and a writing of all our order, how we would wash us and what course we would draw and when God do and foule weather that with the Cape de Sper shee should goe, and he that came first should tarry the space of sixe weeks one for another, and watered at Cape de Bas ten dayes, ordering of your Graces ship and fishing, and so departed towards the Southward to seeke our fellow: the third day of August we entered into a good Haven, called St John, and there we found eleven saile of Normans, and one Brittaine, and two Portugall Barkes, and all a fishing, and so we are readie to depart toward Cape de Bas, and that is twentie five leagues, as shortly we have fished, and so along the Coast till we may meete with our fellow, and so with all diligence that lyes in me toward parts to that Пands that we are commanded by the Grace of God as we were commanded at our departing: and thus Jesu save and keepe your Honorable Grace, and all your honorable Rever. in the Haven of Saint John, the 3 day of August, written in haste, 1527. "By your Servant John Rut to his uttermost of his power." The Letter to Cardinal Wolsey from Albert de Prato was thus addressed: "Reverend. in Christo Patri Domino Cardinali et Domino Legato Angliæ." It began "Reverendissime in Christo Pater Salutem. Reverendissime Pater, placeat Reverendissimæ paternitati vestræ scire, Deo favente postquam exivimus a Plemut quæ fuit X. Junii," &c. Purchas says, "the substance is the same with the former, and therefore omitted." The date is " apud le Baya Saint Johan in Terris Novis die X. Augusti 1527, Revr. Patr. vest. humilis servus, Albertus de Prato." We have here the name of the master of the vessel, and also that, it is to be presumed, of the Canon of St Paul's, and learn, further, that neither of the vessels was called the "Dominus Vobiscum," but that one was " The Mary of Guilford," and the other "The Samson." We may infer that the latter perished in the "marvellous great Storm," by which the two vessels were separated. The direct Correspondence with the King and the Cardinal sufficiently assure us of the interest taken by these personages in the enterprise, and the commands of which Rut speaks at our departing" as to the ultimate destination of the vessels were doubtless from the Monarch to whom the letter is addressed. We have to state, in reference to this enterprise, a conviction that there went in it the celebrated Italian Navigator, Juan Verrazani, over whose fate a singular mystery has existed. The circumstances which seem to establish the fact are the following: In the year 1524, Verrazani, employed by Francis the First, coasted North America from the latitude of 34° to 50°. The account of his voyage, found in Ramusio, is dated at Dieppe, 8th July, 1524. From this period we have no distinct intelligence of him. It is said that he made a subsequent voyage, but whence or whither is unknown, for the French and Italian writers do not offer even a conjecture as to the circumstances under which it took place. That he made it in the service of France will appear improbable when we look at the history of that period. On the 24th February 1525 the disastrous battle of Pavia was fought, and Francis was conducted a prisoner to Madrid. The deplorable condition of the country is thus described: "Meanwhile France was filled with consternation. The King himself had early transmitted an account of the rout at Pavia in a letter to his Mother delivered by Pennalosa which contained only these words, Madam, all is lost except our Honour.' The officers who made their escape when they arrived from Italy brought such a melancholy detail of particulars as made all ranks of men sensibly feel the greatness and extent of the calamity, France without its Sovereign, without money in her Treasury, without an Army, without Generals to command it, and encompassed on all sides by a victorious and active enemy, seemed to be on the very brink of destruction." On the 5th June, 1525, the mother of Francis appointed commissioners to seek relief from Henry VIII. (Rymer's Fœdera, vol. xiv. p. 37), and ultimately a loan was obtained of two millions of crowns (ib. p. 130). Every document of that period serves to show the utter prostration of France, and the anxiety to exhibit a sense of gratitude to England for having suddenly become from an enemy a preserver. Thus, there appears (Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 232) a document from the King of France, dated 25 September 1527, having reference to the inconvenience to which the commerce of England might be subject in Flanders in consequence of her new position, and appointing Commissioners to secure to English merchants equivalent privileges in his dominions. It closes thus: Robertson's Charles V. Book iv, "Cæteraque denique omnia et singula agere, promittere et concludere in hoc negotio suisque circumstantiis et dependentiis quibuscunque quæ nosmetipsi si præsentes agere et concludere possemus, etiam si talia forent quæ mandatum requirerunt magis speciale, promittentes bona fide et verbo nostro regio. Nos omnia et singula per dictos oratores et Procuratores nostros pacta promissa et conclusa impleturos et præstituros, nec ullo unquam tempore quovis quæsito colore, infracturos aut contraventuros sed perpetuó observaturos." Under such circumstances it would be no matter of surprise to find the impatient Navigator turning to the same country to which his late employers had become supplicants, and tendering his services to a Monarch whose means were as abundant as his spirit was sanguine and enterprising. An expedition, then, is fitted out at this precise period under the auspices of the King and Cardinal Wolsey. If the slightest evidence could be discovered of communication with Verrazani, we would feel quite assured that the one party would be as anxious to secure his aid as the other to proffer it. This link is supplied by Hakluyt. In that early work, of 1582, the "Divers Voyages," we find the following state ment: "Master John Verarzanus, which had been thrice on that coast, in an old excellent Map which he gave to Henry VIII., and is yet in the custodie of Master Locke, doth so lay it out as is to be seene in the Map annexed to the end of this boke being made according to Verarzanus' plot." It is impossible to withstand a conviction that Henry while intent on this enterprise would eagerly enlist the services of such a navigator as Verrazani fortunately thrown out of employment, and so well acquainted with the American Coast, that Hakluyt, more than half a century afterwards, found his Map to exhibit the most accurate representation of it. The rumours which remain as to the fate of this navigator must now be examined. Ramusio (tom. iii. fol. 417) does not state in whose service the last voyage was made, though from its connexion with that of 1524 the reader might be hastily led to suppose that both were from the same country. It is needless to repeat what has been said as to the improbability that France, during |