234 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (^ANNO l675. 



of finding encouragement to make further discoveries, petitioned the States 

 General that they would be pleased to grant the aavigation of the northern seas, 

 and of the eastern, not yet discovered, to them. — But the governors of the 

 East India Company, being sensible how nearly this concerned them, presented 

 a counter petition, desiring that the petition of the said merchants might for 

 the future be referred to them and their consideration. — The merchants finding 

 their petitions thus crossed, they addressed themselves to the King of Denmark, 

 who immediately granted their demands. Under his protection therefore they 

 equipped two or three ships, such as they judged most proper for this voyage. 

 On which the governor of the Dutch East India Company raised a considerable 

 sum of money, and easily persuaded the mariners to desist from so dangerous a 

 voyage, as they represented it; and that the merchants might have no just cause 

 to complain of the said company, the mariners went to sea ; but neglecting the 

 directions and orders of those merchants, they steered their course directly for 

 Spitzberg, took in their lading of fish, and returned home. 



Upon which the East India Company omitted nothing to find out a passage 

 through the north-eastern sea, for those who were to return into Europe from 

 the East Indies. — ^There was then much discourse of the Gulf of Anin, by which 

 a passage was said to be open into the Tartarian Sea : and they had some hints 

 from the people of Japan and the Portuguese, about the country of Jezzo, 

 which lay above Japan. But not resting satisfied with the bare relation, in the 

 years l652 and 1 653, they sent out some skilful persons to discover those 

 coasts ; who passing beyond Japan, the 50th degree of N. latitude, arrived on 

 the coast of Jezzo, wViere they fell into a narrow sea, yet broad and convenient 

 enough to lead into the Northern Ocean. The opposite shores they called i^et 

 CoiTlliilgntC Intlb, and an island seated in the middle of the gulf they called J^ct 

 ^tatcn <lB0antl» — Whether this land of Jezzo be annexed to Japan or not, the 

 inhabitants of both countries doubt ; because vast and inaccessible mountains 

 interpose, which hinder the communication. Neither does it as yet clearly ap- 

 pear, whether this land of Jezzo be a part of Tartary, or whether by an arm of 

 the sea divided from it. The Chinese affirm, that Tartary runs 300 China 

 leagues eastward beyond their famous wall : so that if we follow these, the 

 country of Jezzo and Japan may seem to be annexed to Tartary ; but those of 

 Jezzo say, that there runs an arm of the sea between them and Tartary : which 

 opinion may seem to receive some confirmation from what those Hollanders 

 affirm, who were shipwrecked some years since on Corea, a peninusula of China, 

 where they saw a whale, upon whose back stuck a harping-iron of Gascony. It 

 is therefore most probable, that this whale passed from Spitzberg through the 

 nearest arm of the sea, rather than through the more remote. — After the ex- 



