V.] 
MOXON’S PAMPHLET. 
263 
India Company, their petition was not granted, on which the 
merchants turned to Denmark. Here their proposal was 
immediately received with favour. Two vessels were fitted out, 
but instead of sailing to Japan, they went to Spitzhergen to 
the whale-fishing. It is further stated in the letter that it 
would not he unadvisable to let some persons live for a time 
with the Samoyeds, in order to find out what they knew of the 
matter, and that, when a more complete knowledge of the 
navigable waters was acquired, the whole voyage from England 
to Japan might be accomplished in five or six weeks. Were a 
wintering necessary, it would hot be attended with any danger, 
if, instead of a house of thick planks standing by itself, earth 
huts w^ere used. 
3. A pamphlet, whose contents are given in the long ^and 
peculiar title : “A brief Discourse of a Passage by the North- 
Pole to Japan, China, etc. Pleaded by Three Experiments: 
and Answers to all Objections that can be urged against a 
Passage that way. As : I. By a Navigation from Amsterdam 
into the North-Pole, and two Degrees beyond it. 2. By a 
Navigation from Japan towards the North-Pole. 3. By an 
Experiment made by the Czar of Muscovy, whereby it appears, 
that to the Northwards of Nova Zembla is a free and open Sea 
as far as Japan, China, etc. With a Map of all the Discovered 
Lands neerest to the Pole. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer 
to the Kings most Exellent Majesty. London, 1674” 
The most remarkable passage in this scarce little book is the 
following :■— 
‘‘ Being about twenty-two years ago in Amsterdam, I 
went into a drinking-house to drink a cup of beer for my thirst, 
and sitting by the public fire, among several people, there 
happened a seaman to come in, who, seeing a friend of his 
there, whom he knew wmnt in the Greenland voyage, wmndered 
to see him, because it was not yet time for the Greenland fleet 
to come home, and asked him what accident brought him home 
so soon; his friend (who was the steer-man aforsaid in a 
