1596, WILLIAM ADAMS. 159 



engaged Englishmen as their pilots. We have 

 seen in the preceding voyages of Barentz, that in 

 facing the ferocious bear, a Scotchman was one 

 of the most stout-hearted of the party ; and the 

 Dutch themselves a(hnit, that an Englishman of 

 the name of Brunell or Brownell, "moved with 

 the hope of gain, went from Enkhuysen to Pe- 

 chora," where he lost all by shipwreck, after he 

 had been on the coast of Nova Zembla, and o'iven 

 the name of Costin-sarca (qu. Coasting-search ?^) 

 to a bay situated in about TH"; but it does not 

 any where appear, and the brief journal of Sir 

 Hugh Willoughby by no means sanctions such a 

 supposition, that this ill-fated commander was ever 

 within many degrees of Spitzbergen : the dis- 

 covery of this land is certainly due to the Dutch. 

 It might not have been suspected, however, fi om 

 De Veer's account of Barentz's three voyages, 

 that the extraordinary man, whose name stands at 

 the head of this section, w^as one of the English- 

 men employed on one or more of those voyages. 

 It is very probable, however, that the fact is so, 

 and that, in the year 159^, he accompanied 

 Cornelis Ryp to Spitzbergen. There can be no 

 doubt of his having lived some time in Holland 

 and been in the practice of piloting Dutch ships; 

 though, in the short account he gives of himself, 

 in his two letters addressed to his wife from Japan, 



* Forster tbinks, Constant-search. 



