CHAPTER XVII 
JENS ERIKSEN MUNK. FOXE AND JAMES. WOOD 
Sir John Wolstenholme was one of the most per- 
sistent of the Merchant Adventurers and, after Baffin's 
return, he fitted out a ship in 1619 for John Hawkridge, 
the friend of Button who had accompanied him on his 
voyage. But Hawkridge never got beyond the entrance 
to Hudson Strait. 
The sailor King of Denmark then resolved to have 
a turn at the North-west Passage and appointed Jens 
Eriksen Munk to command an expedition. 
The early adventures of this gallant Danish seaman 
are not without interest. His father had an estate at 
Barbo near Arendal in Norway, but the boy Jens was 
brought up by an aunt at Aalborg in Jutland from the 
time that he was nine years old. Three years later, in 
1591, he was sent in charge of a Friesland skipper to 
England, and thence to Oporto to learn the language, 
in the employment of a Portuguese named Duarte Duez. 
Duez sent the boy at the age of 13 to his brother 
Miguel Duez at Bahia in Brazil. On his arrival young 
Munk found that Miguel Duez was gone, so the boy 
went on a returning ship to go home. The ship was 
attacked by a French privateer and sunk, only seven of 
the crew being saved, including the Danish boy. He 
was landed at Bahia destitute, and became a shoemaker's 
apprentice for eleven, and a portrait painter's boy for 
six months. At last Miguel Duez came back, and young 
Munk was with him for three years. In 1598 two Dutch 
vessels arrived, and the Spaniards on shore formed a plot 
to seize them. They were saved by the youthful Dane. 
Getting wind of the treachery, he swam off to the ships 
in the night, and warned them just in time. The Dutch- 
men were grateful, and enabled their saviour to return 
to Copenhagen. In 1601, Munk entered the service of 
a merchant named Hendrik Rommel, and made voyages 
to the Baltic ports and to Spain. He became a Captain 
