VOYAGE TO SPITSBERGEN. 85 



pectations were disappointed, yet to this stimulus 

 the great discoveries made in the North are to be 

 principally ascribed. 



The honour of the discovery of Spitzbergen has 

 been long contested between the English and the 

 Dutch. The former claim it from Sir Hugh Wil- 

 loughby's pretended view of it in 1553 ; but the 

 land seen by him being in latitude 12°, could not 

 be any part of Spitzbergen, which extends no far- 

 ther south than 76° 30'. Some writers have sup- 

 posed, that if what Sir Hugh saw was not a fog 

 bank, it must have been either the island of Jan 

 Mayen, or some part of Greenland ; while others 

 allege, that it was either Nova Zembla, or the 

 island of Kolgow. The English historians have 

 likewise honoured Stephen Burrows with the title 

 of second discoverer of this country in 155G, 

 though he never advanced farther in these seas 

 than the latitude of 70° 4?/. The priority of this 

 discovery indubitably belongs to the Dutch, who, 

 under the pilotage of William Barentz, in 1596', 

 not only discovered, but landed on some of the 

 northernmost islands (in lat. 80°) by them named 

 Spitzbergen, or. Sharp Mountains. 



Barentz, as already observed, in the same voyage 

 discovered Cherry Island, which was by him called 

 Bear Island ; but changed its appellation in 1603, 



6 



