ii4 s4 rctic and A nt arctic Exploration [part i 
was baptised in the church of St Thomas the Apostle, 
in Vintry Ward within the City of London, in 1609, 
three years before Baffin joined Hall's expedition. This 
Ward includes Queenhithe, a landing-place frequented 
by sailors, and a likely locality for a seaman to take up 
his abode while on shore. We know that Baffin had 
a wife, for she gave a good deal of trouble to the East 
India Company after his death. Susan may have been 
his daughter. But Baffin himself, though probably a 
Londoner, must have been constantly at sea, and pro- 
bably raised himself, by his good conduct and talent, 
from a very humble position. There is no indication of 
the name at Hull. 
If Baffin was not a Hull man, he probably was not 
known to Captain Hall. It may, therefore, be con- 
jectured that one of the merchant adventurers associated 
with Hall in the voyage, perhaps Sir Thomas Smith, 
knowing Baffin's worth and ability, recommended him as 
chief pilot of the Patience. Andrew Barker was Master of 
the Heartsease, William Huntriss mate, and John Gatonby, 
quartermaster 1 . All were Yorkshiremen. The expedition 
finally left the Humber and made sail for Greenland on 
the 22nd April, 1612. 
The real interest attaching to the expedition is the 
record of Baffin's observations and the fact that it was 
his first Arctic voyage. 
Cape Farewell was sighted on the 14th May. Gatonby, 
on board the Heartsease, named a green and inviting- 
looking promontory Cape Comfort, and on the 26th the 
two vessels anchored in 64 0 15' N. at the mouth of a 
fjord which was named the Harbour of Hope. It was the 
Gilbert Sound of Davis, the modern Godthaab. Hall 
proceeded to explore the fjord in a boat, and named two 
of its arms Bell and Lancaster rivers after two of the 
merchant adventurers. A cliff or hill received the name 
of Huntcliff from its resemblance to Huntcliff Foot near 
Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. Leaving the Patience 
in Gilbert Sound, Hall went on northwards to explore 
1 J onn Gatonby may have been a native of Winestead, for he dedicated 
his narrative (in Churchill's Voyages) to Sir Christopher Hildyard of that 
place. Gatonby was a well-known Hull name. I have failed to find any 
further trace of young Huntriss, the Scarborough lad, though the name 
still exists in that town. 
