CH. XVII] 
Wood 
157 
sailed on the 28th May, 1676 ; the polar pack between 
the North Cape and Novaya Zemlya was reached on the 
22nd June, and Novaya Zemlya was sighted on the 
26th. But there was no one on board with any experience 
of ice navigation ; the Speedwell grounded on the 29th 
and became a wreck. Fortune, however, favoured the 
crew. There was no loss of life, and all the members 
of the expedition returned home in the pink, arriving 
in the Thames on the 24th August. 
The civil war and the unsettled state of the country 
gave pause to Arctic work until the 18th century, but 
this " Elizabethan era" of polar discovery as it may com- 
prehensively be termed, forms a truly magnificent record. 
Novaya Zemlya and the two straits on either side of the 
Waigat discovered, the greater part of the Spitsbergen 
shores delineated, portions of the eastern side of Green- 
land sighted, the whole west coast of Greenland from 
Cape Farewell to Smith Sound discovered or re-discovered, 
the whole western side of Baffin's Bay and Davis Strait 
traced, Hudson Strait, Hudson's Bay, and Fox Channel 
discovered, and this mostly in frail little vessels of from 
10 to 100 tons, with few appliances, no comforts, instru- 
ments most difficult to work with any accuracy, and very 
limited means. But the Elizabethan heroes had fortitude, 
indomitable energy, and the strongest sense of duty, and 
were influenced by that loyalty and patriotism without 
which no country can remain great. Virtute non armis 
fido was their motto. The splendour and magnitude of 
their achievements remains unsurpassed. 
