122 THE SEA. 



in the year 1553, for the discovery of a north-eat! passage to Cathaia; and three vessels 

 the Bona fisperanza, the Edward Bonad venture, and the Bona Conji-dentia under Sir Hugh 

 Willougbby, as captain-general of the fleet, were made ready for their eventful voyage. So 

 certain were the promoters of the expedition that the vessels would reach the Indian Seas, that 

 they caused them to be sheathed with lead as a protection against the worms in those 

 waters, which they understood were destructive of wooden bottoms, and this is believed to be 

 the first instance of metal sheathing being used. On May 20th the ships were towed to 

 Gravesend, "the mariners being all apparalled in watchet or skie-coloured cloth," and the 

 shores being thick with spectators. The expedition started with an amount of eclat which 

 contrasts sadly with the events which followed. Sir Hugh Willoughby, with the whole of 

 the merchants, officers, and companies of two of the ships, perished miserably on the coast of 

 Lapland, from the effects of cold and starvation. Their dead bodies were found the following 

 year by some Russian fishermen. 



Master Richard Chancelor, the second in command, whose vessel had become separated 

 from the others, was more fortunate. After waiting vainly at Wardhuys, in Norway, for the 

 rest of the squadron, he held on his course till he reached a " very great bay," where he learned 

 from the fishermen that their country was Muscovy or Russia. He made a land journey of 

 fifteen hundred miles to Moscow, where he was well received, and from an abortive attempt at 

 making the north-east passage sprung that extensive commerce with Russia which has 

 continued, almost uninterruptedly, ever since. 



The events which immediately followed have little bearing on arctic history, excepting 

 that while our merchants were fully alive to the importance of the new commerce opening 

 to their vision they did not neglect exploration. Chancelor and his companions, on a 

 second voyage to Russia, whither they went as commissioners to arrange the treaties 

 and immunities which the Czar might be pleased to "grant, were instructed "to use all 

 wayes and meanes possible to learn howe men may passe from Russia, either by land or 

 sea, to Cathaia." They did not even wait the result of his voyage, but despatched a small 

 vessel, the Serchthrift, in command of Steven Burrowe, for north-eastern discovery. On 

 the 27th April, 1556, the vessel being ready at Gravesend, it was visited by many distin- 

 guished ladies and gentlemen, including old Cabot, then in his ninety-seventh year, who " gave 

 to the poore most liberall almes; and then, at the sign of the Christopher, hee and his 

 friends banketted," and "entered into the dance himselfe amongst the rest of the young 

 and lusty company." The Serchthrift reached the Cola and Petchora rivers, Nova Zembla 

 (the New Land), and the island of Weigats. In proceeding to the eastward they encountered 

 much ice, in which they became entangled, and " which," says the narrative, " was a 

 fearful sight to see." But on June 25th they met their first whale, which seems to have 

 inspired more terror even than the ice. The account given of it is amusing. "On St. 

 James his day, bolting to the windewardes, we had the latitude at noon in seventy degrees, 

 twentie minutes. The same day, at a south-west sunne, there was a monstrous whale 

 aboord of us, so neere to our side that we might have thrust a sworde or any other weapon 

 in him, which we durst not doe for feare he should have overthrowen our shippe ; and 

 then I called my company together, and all of us shouted, and with the crie that we made 

 he departed from us; there was as much above water of his backe as the bredth of our 



