1558, well furnished with letters from the emperor, directed to all
kings and princes through whose dominions he might pass, soliciting safe
conduct for him. He was accompanied by two others of the Muscovy
Company’s men—Richard and Robert Johnson—and a Tartar guide. His
ultimate aim was a passage to “Cathay” from Russia by way of the Caspian
Sea, and “Boghar” (Bokhara) overland. He sailed from Moscow on the
Moskva River in a small but staunch vessel and carried along with him
“divers parcels of wares” for barter and trade as he travelled. At
Nijni-Novgorod, at the junction of the Oka and the great Volga rivers,
he joined the train of a captain, or governor, who had been sent out by
the emperor to rule at Astrakhan, and who had under his command “500
great boates,” some laden with soldiers and army supplies, others with
merchandise. Astrakhan was reached in the middle of July. Thence, in
early August, Jenkinson and his comrades proceeded alone, and entered
the Caspian Sea, the first of Englishmen to plow its waters. Here as
they sailed they displayed in their flags the “redde crosse of S.
George” for “honour of the Christians.” After weeks of coasting along
the shores, and much difficult navigation, they landed, early in
September, “overthwart Manguslave”—Mangishlak, in long after times known
as Fort Novo-Alexandrovsk. Here they joined a caravan of a “thousand
camels” and entered upon a long overland journey, full of adventure and
not without peril, by way of Khiva to Bokhara. For twenty days they
travelled in a “wilderness from the seaside without seeing town or
habitation.” At one time they were driven by necessity to eat one of
their camels and a horse. During the twenty days they found no water but
such as they drew out of “old deep wells which was very brackish and
salt.” Far along on their way they encountered bands of “rovers”
(highwaymen), one of forty men under a banished prince, and had some
sharp fighting.
Bokhara was at length reached two days before Christmas. Presenting the
emperor’s letters to the ruler here, Jenkinson was favourably received.
Soldiers were sent out after the banished prince’s rovers, and four
being captured they were hanged at the palace gate “because they were
gentlemen.” Jenkinson remained in the city for more than two months,
keenly observant of men and things. He saw merchants and caravans from
various countries, Persia, India, and others, and heard much about
routes to “Cathay.” He would have pressed on to Persia, but was
prevented by wars.
He finally left to return to Russia near mid-March, and in the nick of
time, for ten days after his departure Bokhara was besieged. He took
back with him, committed to his charge, two ambassadors sent by two
kings to the Russian emperor. Along the way four more Tartar ambassadors
were added to his train; and later he took on twenty-five “Russes” who
had been for a long time slaves in Tartary. He was back at Astrakhan by
the last of May. Several small boats were here prepared, constituting
quite a little fleet, to go up against the stream of the Volga, and in
June the last stage of the journey was begun under the protection of one
hundred gunners provided by the emperor. Moscow was reached in early
September and Jenkinson’s charges safely delivered, for which he was
accorded the honours of a hero. He now tarried in Moscow till February,
1560, in the interest of the Muscovy Company. Then he left for Vologhda,
and thence went to Kholmogro to take passage for home and report upon
his journeyings, by which the entering wedge for English trade with
Central Asia had been made. As soon as navigation opened he sailed with
Stephen Borough, the master of the “Edward Bonaventure” on the first
voyage, then returning from his third voyage to the White Sea.
Stephen Borough was the navigator sailing next after Chancellor for the
Muscovy Company. In May, 1556, a year after Chancellor’s departure on
his second and last voyage, Borough was sent out at the head of an
expedition to discover the harbours in the North coast from Norway to
“Wardhouse,” and to renew the search for the Northeast Passage. His
ships comprised a pinnace called the “Searchthrift” and a smaller
vessel. The little company consisted of himself, his brother William
Borough, and eight others. In this adventure, discovery being the
paramount object, Sebastian Cabot was especially interested, and “the
good old gentleman” was the central figure in the farewell scenes at the
sailing. When the “Searchthrift” was lying off Gravesend prepared to
depart, he came aboard with “divers gentlemen and gentlewomen” to wish
her Godspeed. After his party had inspected the ship and “tasted of such
cheere” as her company could provide, they went ashore distributing as
they left “right liberal rewards” among the sailors. On shore Cabot with
a generous hand bestowed alms on the poor, asking them to pray for good
fortune to the expedition. The day finished with a merry dinner and
dance at “the signe of the Christopher,” in which Cabot’s party and the
ship’s company joined. At these parting festivities Borough pleasantly
pictures the fine veteran seaman, “for very joy that he had to see the
towardness of our intended discovery,” entering into the dance himself
“amongst the rest of the young and lusty company.” But when they were
over, “hee and his friends departed most gently, commending us to the
governance of almighty God.”
This was the last public appearance of Cabot, or the last of which
mention is made in the chronicles, although he lived for a year longer.
His death occurred probably in London in 1557, sixty-one years after the
first commission issued to the Cabots, John and his sons, from Henry the
seventh. As in the case of his father, neither the exact date of his
death nor the place of his burial is known, and Englishmen and Americans
alike much regret that no monument marks the graves of these discoverers
of our continent of North America.
[Illustration:
SEBASTIAN CABOT AT ABOUT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE.
Reproduced from the engraving of Seyer’s “History of Bristol,”
published in 1823. The original painting was attributed to Holbein
and destroyed by fire in 1845.
]
The record of Borough’s voyage is his own account, which Hakluyt gives
under the title, “The navigation and discoverie toward the river of Ob
[Obi] made by Master Steven Burrough, master of the Pinnesse called the
Searchthrift with divers things worth the noting, passed in the yere
1556.” The outcome of it was the discovery of the strait between Nova
Zembla and the island of Waigats leading to the Kara Sea, which entrance
was given the discoverer’s name as Burrough’s Strait. While Borough did
not get to the Obi, adverse winds and the lateness of the season
preventing (off Waigats snow was being shovelled from the “Searchthrift”
in August), he was the first Western European to reach the southern
extremity of Nova Zembla, and the first to put “Vaigats” on the map.
Turning at the new-found strait he worked his way back to the White Sea
and wintered at Kholmogro. In the following May he set sail again to
seek the three missing ships which had left St. Nicholas with Chancellor
and the Russian ambassador the year before. After a search of the coast
of Lapland, and a call at “Wardhouse” without result, he was returning
to Kholmogro, when calling at Fisher Island, or Ribachi, off Point
Kegor, in Russian Finland, he learned their fate from Dutch traders
there.
Of this supplementary voyage Borough also wrote a detailed account, with
mention of other “divers things” worth noting. Hakluyt reproduces this
account as “The voyage of the foresaid M. Stephen Burrough, An. 1557,
from Colmogro to Wardhouse, which was sent to seeke the Bona Esperanza,
the Bona Confidentia, and the Philip and Mary, which were not heard of
the yeere before.” Constantly observant, Borough made various practical
business notes along the way. At Fisher Island he found Dutchmen with
Norwegian ships trading prosperously with the Lapps, giving “mighty
strong” beer in exchange for stock-fish. Upon which he shrewdly
comments: “I am certaine that our English double beere would not be
liked by the Kerils and Lappians as long as that would last.” He arrived
back in England in the summer of 1557.
The next year Borough visited Spain, where he received much attention
for his part in the discovery of “Moscovie,” as Hakluyt related in the
“Epistle Dedicatorie” of his _Divers Voyages_: “Master Steven Borrows,
now one of the foure masters of the Queens nauie, tolde me that, newely
after his returne from the discouerie of Moscovie by the North in Queene
Maries [Mary’s] daies, the Spaniards having intelligence that he was
master in that discouerie tooke him into their contractation house [in
Seville] at their making and admitting of masters and pilots giving him
great honour, and presented him with a payre [pair] of perfumed gloves
woorth five or six Ducates.”
His third voyage, of 1560, on the return of which he brought Anthony
Jenkinson home, was the seventh despatched by the Muscovy Company, and
was purely commercial. It was made with a fleet of three “good
ships”—the “Swallow,” the “Philip and Mary,” and the “Jesus”—freighted
with English goods, bound for St. Nicholas. Of the “Swallow’s” cargo
were pipes of “secker” (sherry), one of which, marked with “2 round
compasses upon the bung,” was intended as a present for the emperor,
“for it” was “special good.” This voyage was successful throughout, and
it was remarked as the first of the seven for the Muscovy Company which
got safely back to the home port “without loss, or shipwreck, or dead
freight.” Such was the hazard of seafaring with the rude ships of that
day in the cruel Northern seas.
In May of the next year, 1561, Borough again sailed with the “Swallow”
and two other ships for St. Nicholas, this time taking out Jenkinson as
ambassador to Persia, under the patronage of the queen—now Elizabeth—and
also still representing the Muscovy Company, to make another expedition
into the Transcaspian region, and to establish commercial relations with
Persia. This is supposed to have been Borough’s last voyage to Russia.
At the opening of 1563 he was appointed chief pilot and one of the four
masters of the queen’s navy, which post he was holding, as we have seen,
when Hakluyt published the _Divers Voyages_. He died in his sixtieth
year, in 1584.
Anthony Jenkinson’s second Transcaspian expedition was in some respects
more wonderful than his previous travels, and his account of it, given
in “A compendious and briefe declaration” to the Muscovy Company fills
several of the large pages of the _Principal Navigations_. A summary,
however, appears in a subsequent paper, rehearsing all of his travels
from his first voyage out of England in 1546. The salient points are to
be gathered from the two. Starting from Moscow in March, 1562, some
months after his arrival out, having been detained there by one cause
and another, he passed over his former route to the Caspian Sea; sailed
the Caspian to Derbent, or Derbend, then an Armenian city belonging to
Persia, on the western shore; thence travelled overland through Media,
Pathia, Hercania, into Persia, finally bringing up at the court of the
“Great Sophy called Shaw Tamossa,” where he remained for eight months.
Along the way he generously scattered presents with which he had been
provided for distribution among the “kings, princes, and governors” whom
he might meet; and at the great shah’s court he delivered a letter he
bore from the queen to the shah, a flattering missive explaining his
mission as solely commercial. At length, after much manœuvering, he
obtained from “Obdolowcan, king of Hircania”—Abdullah Khan, king of
Shirvan—the sought-for trade privileges, which led to the opening of the
rich trade centering in Persia to the English merchants. After
encountering varied perils and congratulating himself upon getting away
alive, in the disturbed relations then existing between Persia and
Turkey, he arrived safely back at Moscow in August, 1563. There he
remained through the following winter, preparing for a second expedition
to Persia for trading purposes, meanwhile sending one of his companions,
Edward Clarke, overland to England with letters reporting the result of
his mission. In May, 1564, the second expedition was started off under
three of his associates, employees of the Muscovy Company, while he
himself returned to England, reaching London in September.
In the spring of 1565 Jenkinson is found in association with Humphrey
Gilbert presenting to Queen Elizabeth a memorial on the subject of the
Northeast Passage, and offering to take charge of an expedition to
attempt its discovery. Nothing, however, came of this petition, the
queen finding other service for both petitioners. Jenkinson was
appointed to the command of her ship “Aid” the following September, with
instructions to cruise on the coast of Scotland to prevent a landing of
the Earl of Bothwell, and to clear the sea of pirates.
In 1566 the Muscovy Company, in consequence of encroachments by various
traders upon their monopoly, were reincorporated by the queen’s act and
under a new name—the “Fellowship of English Merchants”—with authority to
continue the “discovery of new trades.” Then Jenkinson made another
voyage to Russia and secured the monopoly of the White Sea trade for the
reorganized company. Trade voyages also followed annually to Persia by
various navigators for the company. In the summer of 1571 Jenkinson,
again as the queen’s ambassador, was in Russia, having been sent to
appease the emperor, who, incensed at the failure of overtures made by
him for an alliance with England by which each would assist the other in
its wars, had annulled the Fellowship’s privileges and confiscated their
property. Although upon his arrival at St. Nicholas being told that Ivan
had threatened to take his head if he should venture into the country,
he boldly sought the irate czar, and finally succeeded in bringing him
round to a renewal of the privileges.
This was Jenkinson’s last voyage. He had accomplished much in enlarging
the geographical knowledge of his time. He next appears as an associate
in new ventures for discovery to the Westward, attention now being again
directed to the Northwest Passage and to the North American continent.
XII
REVIVAL OF THE NORTHWEST THEORY
To Humphrey Gilbert belongs the credit for so reviving the Northwest
Passage theory as to turn the thoughts of English merchants and
statesmen to adventure and to colonization in America; while Martin
Frobisher was the first English navigator fairly to begin the Northwest
explorations.
Gilbert, born in 1539, in the county of Devon, was the son of a country
gentleman, half-brother of Walter Raleigh, on the mother’s side, an Eton
schoolboy and an Oxford man, bred to the law, but taking instead to
adventure. When a soldier in Ireland, in 1566–1567, a captain under Sir
Henry Sidney against the Irish rebellion, his mind was busied with
speculation on cosmography; and in the latter year, being sent home with
despatches by Sidney, he took occasion to present to Queen Elizabeth,
whose favour he enjoyed, a petition for privileges “concerning the
discoverings of a passage by the North to go to Cathaie.” This, it is
said, was an alternative to the earlier memorial of Anthony Jenkinson
and himself for royal patronage to a new expedition of discovery by the
Northeast. Both petitions lay unanswered, and he returned to soldiering.
In 1570 he was knighted for his services in Ireland, the previous year
having been given the government of Münster. In 1571, back in England,
he was a member of Parliament for Plymouth. The next year he was
fighting in the Netherlands, the first colonel in command of English
forces there. Returned again to England, he temporarily retired to
country-life at Limehouse, employing his leisure in further geographical
investigations and in writing a learned _Discourse of a Discovery for a
New Passage to Cathaia_, partly, it is assumed, in support of his
petition still before the queen. One day in the winter of 1574 he showed
the manuscript of the _Discourse_ to his friend George Gascoigne, one of
the pioneer Elizabethan poets, who afterward edited and published it.
Meanwhile it led to the granting of a license by the Fellowship of
English Merchants, in 1575, to Martin Frobisher with “divers gentlemen,”
out of which grew Frobisher’s Northwest voyage.
[Illustration: MARTIN FROBISHER.]
Martin Frobisher was of Welsh origin, but of English birth, born in
Yorkshire in about 1535. He was now a thoroughly seasoned mariner,
having followed the sea from his nineteenth year, going out for a decade
in yearly voyages of merchant ships sent to Africa or the Levant by Sir
John and Thomas Lock; and afterward employed in the queen’s service, in
1571 off Ireland. He had before this time become “thoroughly furnished
of the knowledge of the sphere and all other skilles appertaining to the
arte of navigation,” as the historian of his voyages, George Best,
assures us, and as early as 1560 he had conceived a project for
discovery of the short route by the Northwest to “Cathay” and the
Indies, and had begun looking about for support for it. During the next
fifteen years he schemed to this end, conferring with his “private
friends of these secrets,” importuning members of the Fellowship of
English Merchants to back him, soliciting men of estate and title, and
even the court. But he met little encouragement till his public service
in Ireland had brought him under the favourable notice of the queen and
the attention of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. At length toward the close of
1574 the queen, moved apparently by Sir Humphrey’s _Discourse_, still in
manuscript, addressed a letter to the Fellowship of English Merchants
calling upon them either to despatch an expedition to the Northwest or
transfer their privileges in that direction to other adventurers: and
sent this pregnant message by the hand of Frobisher. The result was the
issue, February, 1575, of their license for his first voyage.
Gilbert’s _Discourse_ is given by Hakluyt presumably as published by
Gascoigne, in 1576, but with his own caption: “A Discourse written by
Sir Humfrey Gilbert Knight, to prove a passage by the Northwest to
Cathaia and the East Indies.” It is an essay in ten chapters displaying
not a little erudition and mastery of his subject. The chapter-heads
show its trend: “1. To prove by authoritie a passage to be on the North
side of America to go to Cathaia, China, and to the East India. 2. To
prove by reason a passage to be on the North side of America to go to
Cathaia, Molucæ &c. 3. To prove by experience of sundry mens travailes
[travels] the opening of this Northwest passage, whereby good hope
remaineth of the rest. 4. To prove by circumstance that the Northwest
passage has been sailed throughout. 5. To proove that such Indians as
have bene driven upon the coastes of Germanie came not thither by the
Southeast, and Southwest, nor from any part of Afrike or America. 6. To
proove that the Indians aforenamed came not from the Northeast; and that
there is no thorow [through] passage navigable that way. 7. To prove
that these Indians came by the Northwest which induceth a certaintie of
this passage by experience. 8. What several reasons were alleaged before
the Queens Majestie, and certaine Lords of her Highnesse privie Council
by M. Anth. Jenkinson a Gentleman of great travaile and experience, to
prove this passage by the Northeast, with my severall answeres then
alleaged to the same. 9. How that this passage by the Northwest is more
commodious for our traffike then [than] the other by the Northeast, if
there were any such. 10. What commodities would ensue, this passage
being once discovered.”
The quaint opening paragraph expresses succinctly his theory and the
steps by which he had reached it: “When I gave my selfe to the studie of
Geographie, after I had perused and diligently scanned the descriptions
of Europe, Asia, and Afrike, and conferred them with the Mappes and
Globe, both Antique and Moderne: I came in fine to the fourth part of
the world, commonly called America, which by all descriptions I found to
bee an Island environed round about with Sea, having on the Southeside
of it the frete or straight of Magellan, on the West side Mar del Sur,
which sea runneth towards the North, separating it from the East parts
of Asia, where the Dominions of the Cathaians are: on the East part an
West Ocean, and on the North side the sea that severeth it from
Groneland [Greenland] thorow which Northren Sea the Passage lyeth, which
I take now in hand to discover.”
In the concluding paragraph we have an exhibition of Sir Humphrey’s
highmindedness and his chivalrous devotion of himself to his country:
"Desiring you hereafter never to mislike with me for the taking in hande
of any laudable and honest enterprise: for if through pleasure or
idleness we purchase shame the pleasure vanisheth, but the shame
remaineth forever. And therefore to give me leave without offence,
always to live and die in this mind, That he is not worthy to live at
all that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his countries service
and his owne honour: seeing death is inevitable, and the fame of vertue
immortall. Wherefore in this behalfe, Mutare vel timere sperno."
Frobisher’s initial voyage was financed, in the language of to-day,
principally by Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. The total amount
subscribed for the venture was but eight hundred and seventy-five
pounds. Two small barks, the “Gabriel,” of twenty-five tons, and the
“Michael” of twenty tons, with a pinnace of ten tons, were furnished,
and provisioned for ten months. The company were small but well
selected. Christopher Hall, the master of the “Gabriel,” and Frobisher’s
right hand, was an experienced mariner in the Northern seas, and had
presumably sailed with Frobisher in one or another of his eastern
voyages. Among his charts Frobisher is supposed to have included the
Zeno map, delineating the fourteenth century discoveries of the Venetian
brothers Zeno, then comparatively new, having been brought to light in
Italy in 1558.
The tiny fleet set sail from Ratcliffe on the seventh of June (1576),
but at Detford came to anchor, the pinnace having “burst” her
“boultsprit” and foremast, in coming against a ship that was riding
there. The next day making a fresh start they bore down on Greenwich,
where the court yet was. Here, as a quarter of a century before the
Willoughby-Chancellor fleet had done when passing out by the boy king’s
court, they made the “best shew” they could by shooting off their
ordnance, while Queen Elizabeth waved her hand from a window in
affectionate farewell. Afterward the queen sent one of her courtiers
aboard the “Gabriel” with a message declaring her “good liking for our
doings,” and summoning Frobisher to the court to take personal leave of
her. The same day—the narrator is Christopher Hall—"towards night, M.
Secretarie Woolly came aboord of us and declared to the company that her
Majesty had appointed him to give them charge to be obedient and
diligent to their Captaine and governors in all things, and wished us
happie successe."
Accounts of this voyage were written in terse sailor fashion by
Christopher Hall, and with more detail and colour by George Best, the
historian of all of Frobisher’s Northwest expeditions. Hakluyt gives the
text of both. Hall’s appears under this title: “The first Voyage of M.
Martine Frobisher to the Northwest for the search of the straight or
passage to China, written by Christopher Hall, Master in the Gabriel,
and made in the yeere of our Lord 1576.” Best’s is an extended monograph
thus entitled: “A true Discourse of the three Voyages of Discoverie, for
the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, under the conduct
of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which, as a necessary preface, is
prefixed a two-folde discourse, conteining certaine reasons to prove all
partes of the World habitable. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman
employed in the same voyages.”