(where the Court then lay), presently, upon the newes thereof, the Courtiers came running out, and the common people flockt together, standing very thicke upon the shoare, the Privie Counsel they lookt out at the windowes of the Court, and the rest ranne up to the toppes of the towers; the shippes hereupon discharge their ordinance, and shoot off their pieces after the manner of warre and of the sea, insomuch that the tops of the hilles sounded therewith, the valleys and the waters gave an echo, and the mariners they shouted in such sort, that the skie rang againe with the noyse thereof. One stood in the poope of the ship, and, by his gestures, bids farewell to his friendes in the best manner hee could. Another walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrouds, another stands upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe. To be short, it was a very triumph (after a sort) in all respects to the beholders. But (alas!) the good King Edward (in respect of whom principally all this was prepared) hee, only by reason of his sicknesse, was absent from this shewe, and not long after the departure of these ships the lamentable and most sorrowful accident of his death followed."11

66

They were detained at Harwich till the 23rd, when they finally "hoysted up sale," and bade adieu to their native country: many of them looked oftentimes backe and could not refraine from teares, considering into what hazards they were to fall, and what uncertainties of the sea they were to make triall of." Chancelor himself was moved; "His natural and fatherly affection also somewhat troubled him, for he left behinde him two little sonnes, which were in the case of orphanes if he spedde not well." 12

On the 14th July they were among the nume

11 "Hakluyt," p. 245.

12 Ibid.

rous islands which stud the coast of Norway, in the 66° of latitude, and proceeded onward to Seynam (or Senjen, as it is called on the Admiralty chart), where they touched, but without success, for a pilot. They then continued their course. Willoughby had appointed Wardhuys (a sea-port of Finmark, in north latitude 70°, and 30° east longitude,) as a place of rendezvous in case of the fleet being separated; the very same day that this arrangement was made, a terrible gale arose, and, off the North Cape, the vessels of Willoughby and Chancelor separated, never again to meet. When the morning dawned, only the smaller vessel, the Confidentia, was in sight. The Admiral continued his course, and on the 14th of August, one hundred and sixty leagues E. by N. of Senjen, he came in sight of land,13 which was evidently Nova Zembla, somewhere, it may be assumed, between the promontories named in the Admiralty Polar Chart, North and South, Gousinoi Nos. From this they endeavoured to push to the northward, but being repeatedly repulsed, they turned their sails towards Wardhuys, and began to grope their way along the naked and barren coast of Russian Lapland, until they at length took shelter in the mouth of the river Arzina, near Kegor, from whence parties were sent out three and four days journey, but they returned "without finding any people or any similitude of habitation.”

13 Willoughby's important and fatal voyage has been very ably treated in a recent volume of the Hakluyt Society's invaluable reprints, the "Narratives of North-Western Voyages, 1496 to 1631," by Thomas Rundall, Esq. The author has had the advantage of the rich store-house of early records in the possession of the Honourable East India Company. It is indeed to be hoped that the Hakluyt Society, whose labours tend to disseminate geographical works which have been hitherto confined to the shelves of the wealthy, or buried in the archives of national collections, will receive the support that is justly due from a nation so eminently maritime as England.

These are the closing words of Sir Hugh Willoughby's journal, found two years later by some Russian fishermen, while wandering along the coast, lying before the stiff and frozen corpse of the noble commander; every soul in both ships, to the number of seventy, had perished, either through famine or the intense cold. The ships were recovered, and with the dead bodies in them, were sent to England, but on the passage they "sunk with their dead, and them also that brought them." The well known lines of Thomson record in beautiful language this frightful catastrophe. "Miserable they!

Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate,

As with first prow, (what have not Britons dared!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since

So much in vain, and seeming to be shut

By jealous Nature with eternal bars.

In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,

Froze into statues; to the cordage glued

The sailor, and the pilot to the helm."- Winter.

But we willingly turn from this fearful scene, which has something inexpressibly melancholy in it, to sketch the successful issue of Chancelor's voyage. It will be remembered that on the day of the dispersion of the fleet, Wardhuys had been appointed as the place of rendezvous in case of any accident occurring.

Thither Chancellor steered, and after waiting seven days for his commander, notwithstanding the prayers of "certaine Scottishmen," that he would not proceed farther on his dangerous course, he remained "stedfast and immutable in his first reso

lution, determined either to bring that to passe which was intended, or els to die the death;" and happily his crew, "though troubled with cogitations and perturbations of minde" with regard to their lost companions, were yet willing to follow their commander, which constancie of minde in all the companie, did exceedingly increase their captain's carefulnesse."14 He therefore put to sea, and held on his course "towards that unknowen part of the world, and sailed so farre, that he came at last to the place where he found no night at all, but a continuall light and brightnesse of the sunne shining clearly upon the huge and mightie sea. And having the benefite of this perpetuall light for certaine dayes, at the length it pleased God to bring them into a certaine great bay, which was one hundreth miles or thereabout over. Whereinto they entered somewhat farre, and cast anchor."

This " great bay" was no other than the White Sea, a discovery of no little importance; soon after they landed at Archangel, in those days nothing but a castle, and, "looking every way about them, it happened that they espied a farre off a certain fisher boate, which Master Chancelor, accompanied with a fewe of his men, went towards to commune with the fishermen that were in it, and to knowe of them what countrey it was, and of what people, and of what manner of living they were; but they being amazed with the strange greatnesse of his shippe (for in these parts before that time they had never seen the like), beganne presently to avoyde and to flee; but hee still following them at last overtooke them, and being come to them, they (being in greate feare as men halfe dead) prostrated themselves before him, offering to kisse his feet; but hee (according to his great and 14 Hakluyt, v. i. p, 246.

singular courtesie) looked pleasantly upon them, comforting them by signs and gestures, refusing those dueties and reverences of theirs, and taking them up in all loving sort from the ground. And it is strange to consider how much favour afterwards in that place, this humanitie of his did purchase to himself. For they, being dismissed, spread by and by a report abroad of the arrival of a strange nation, of a singular gentlenesse and courtesie; whereupon the common people came together, offering to these newecome ghests victuals freely."15

In answer to his enquiries, he was told that he had discovered part of a vast territory, which was under the absolute control of a sovereign, named Ivan Vasilovitch; Chancelor, neither daunted by the immense distance to the court of this monarch, which was held at Moscow, nor by the perilous journey of six hundred miles, which he would have to perform over the snow in sledges, began iminediately to negociate for permission to visit this great prince, which, after the delay of sending to Moscow, he obtained. It does not come within our province to follow him step by step in his perilous journey, suffice it to say, that his reception by the monarch was most cordial, and he returned to England, after having laid the foundation of an important cominerce between the two nations.

" I

The following description of Moscow given by Chancelor, shows it to have been at that time a place of great business, and that its intercourse extended then to the northern sea-coasts: take Moscow to be greater than London, with the suburbs; but it is very rude, and standeth without all order. Their houses are all of timber, very dangerous for fire. The ground (country round) is well stored with corn, which they carry to the

15 Hakluyt, v. i. p. 246.