v.] BURROUGH'S VOYAGE, 1556. 173 



which accompanied Chancelor, and which had been lost durino- 

 the return voyage from Archangel.^ 



From this narrative we see that a highly developed Russian 

 or Russian-Finnish navigation was carried on as early as the 

 middle of the fifteenth century between the White Sea, the 

 Petchora, Vaygats, and Novaya Zemlya, and that at that time the 

 Russians or Finns even sailed to the Obi. The sketch, which 

 Burrough gives of the Russian or Russian-Finnish hunters, 

 shows, besides, that they were brave and skilful seamen, with 

 vessels which for the time were very good, and even superior to 

 the English in sailing before the wind. With very few alter- 

 ations this sketch might also be applied to the'present state of 

 things in these regions, which shows that they continue to stand 

 at a point which was then high, but is now low. Taking a 

 general view of matters, it appears as if these lands had rather 

 fallen behind than advanced in well-being during the last 

 three hundred years. 



To judge by a letter from the Russian Merchant Company, 

 which was formed in London, it was at his own instance that 

 Stephen Burrough in 1557 sailed from Colmogro, not to Obi, 



1 All the three vessels that were employed in the first English expedition 

 to the North-east had an unfortunate fate, viz. : 



The Edward Bonaventure, commanded by Chancelor and Burrough, 

 sailed in 1553 from England to the White Sea, returned to England in 

 1554 and was on the way plundered by the Dutch {Purchos, iii. p. 250) ; 

 started again with Cliancelor for the Dwina in 1555, and returned the same 

 year to England under Captain John Buckland ; accompanied Burrough in 

 1556 to the Kola peninsula; went thence to the Dwina to convey to England 

 Chancelor and a Russian embassy, consisting of the ambassador Ossip 

 Gregorjevitsch Nepeja and a suite of sixteen men ; the vessel besides being- 

 laden with goods to the value of 20,000/. It was wrecked in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Aberdeen (Aberdour Bay) on the 20th (10th) November. 

 Cliancelor himself, his wife, and seven Russians were drowned, and most 

 of the cargo lost. 



The Bona Esperanza, admiral of the fleet during the expedition of 1553. 

 Its conmiander and whole crew perished, as has been already stated, of 

 disease at Arzina on the coast of Kola in the beginning of 1554. The 

 vessel was saved and was to have been used in 1556 to carry to England 

 the Russian embassy already mentioned. After having been driven by a 

 storm into the North Sea, it reached a harbour in the neighbourhood of 

 Trondhjem, but after leaving that harbour-disappeared completely, nothing 

 being known of its fate. 



The Bnna Confidentia was saved like the Bona Eaj^eranza after the dis- 

 astrous wintering at Arzina ; was also used in conveying the Russian 

 embassy from Archangel in 1556, but stranded on the Norwegian coast, 

 every man on board perishing and the whole cargo being lost. 



Of the four vessels that left the Dwina on the 2nd August, 1556, only 

 the Philip and j\rari/ succeeded, after wintering at Trondhjem, in reaching 

 the Thames on the' 2«th (18th) April, 1557. (A letter of Master Henrie 

 Lane to the worshipfull Master William Sanderson, containing a brief 

 discourse of that wliich passed in the north-east discoverie, for the space 

 of three and thirtie yeercs, Purehas, iii. p. 249.) 



