176 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



ran aground, but were soon got off again without loss. The 

 latitude of the sandbanks was correctly fixed at 68° 48'. 



On the 4^,^7'- the William was again lost sight of.^ On the 



22nd Aug. o ~ 



2 WhAui the George anchored in Tana Fiord, on which there was 

 a town named Hungon.^ Two days afterwards the George 

 doubled the North Cape, and on the ^^^ again anchored 



1 ■^ 2fath Uct. D 



at Ratcliffe. 



Pet and Jackman were the first north-east explorers who 

 ventured themselves in earnest amongst the drift-ice. In 

 navigating among ice they showed good judgment and readiness 

 of resource, and in the history of navigation the honour falls 

 to them of having commanded the first vessels from Western 

 Europe that forced their way into the Kara Sea. It is there- 

 fore without justification that Baerow says of them that they 

 were but indifferent navigators.^ 



With Pet and Jackman's voyage the English North -East 

 Passage expeditions were broken off for a long time. But the 

 problem was, instead, taken up with great zeal in Holland. 

 Through the fortunate issue of the war of freedom with Spain, 

 and the incitement to enterprise which civil freedom always 

 brings along with it, Holland, already a great industrial and 

 commercial state, had begun, towards the close of the sixteenth 

 century, to develop into a maritime power of the first rank. 

 But navigation to India and China was then rendered impossible 

 for the Dutch, as for the English, by the supremacy of Spain 

 and Portuo^al at sea, and through the endeavours of these 

 countries to retain the sole right to the commercial routes they 

 had discovered. In order to become sharers in the great profits 

 which commerce with the land of silks and perfumes brought 

 with it, it therefore appeared to be indispensable to discover 



1 Of Jackman Hakluyt says (2nd Edition, i. p. 453) : " William with 

 Charles Jackman came to a haven in Norway between Tronden and 

 Rostock in October, 1580, and wintered there. Thence the following 

 February he went with a vessel, belonging to the king of Denmark, to 

 Iceland, and since then nothing has been heard of him." About that time 

 an English ship stranded at the Ob, and the crew were killed by the 

 Samoyeds. It has been conjectured that it possibly was Jackman (compare 

 Purchas, iii. p. 546 ; Hamel, p. 238). It is more probable that the 

 vessel which sufEered this fate was that which, two years before Pet and 

 Jackman's voyage, appears to have been sent out by the Muscovy Com- 

 pany to j^enetrate eastwards from the Petchora. The members of this 

 expedition were James Bassendine, James Woodcocke, and Richard 

 Brown, but we know nothing concerning it except the very sensible 

 and judicious rules that were drawn up for the expedition {Hallui/t, 1st 

 Edition, p. 406). 



^ I have not been able to find any name resembling this on modern 

 mfips. 



^ A Chronological History of Voyarjes into the Arctic Regions. London, 

 1818, p. 99. 



