124 DISCOVERIES OF 1587. 



Of the life and parentage of this intrepid navi- 

 gator very little has been left on record for the 

 benefit of posterity. He has not even found a 

 place in our biographical dictionaries, though an 

 obscure American dissenting clergyman of his 

 name has been thought deserving to be honoured 

 with a niche in this temple of fame.* In the little 

 treatise above-mentioned he calls himself "J. Davis, 

 of Sandrudg, by Dartmouth, Gentleman ;" and in 

 vindication of England's knowledge in " horizon- 

 tall, paradoxall and great circle say ling," he offers 

 himself as a proof from his " briefe treatis of 

 navigation naming it the Seamans Secreats." He 

 also wrote " a rutter, or brief direction for sailing 

 into the East Indies."! Sir W. Monson, who was 

 no friend to the discovery of a north-west passage, 

 admits that both Frobisher and Davis did oifer him 

 some very plausible reasons in proof of the exist- 

 ence of such a passage ; he throws out a hint at 

 the same time that a more probable attempt might 

 be made by sailing due north across the pole, which 

 if successful, he says, would reduce the passage 

 between England and China to fifteen hundred 



still continues, 1.592; but the date of the terrestrial has been 

 visibly altered to \603 with a pen." — Me7n. of a Map of the Lands 

 around the North Pole, 17S9- It is to be hoped that no other 

 ** alterations" ])ave been made, as the discoveries of Davis were 

 marked upon the terrestrial globe under his immediate inspec- 

 tion. 



* See Gen. Biog. Diet. — Dalies. 



■j- Prince's Worthies of Devon, vol. i. p. 286. 



