LINDENAU S EXPEDITION. 
45 
northern parts of America, thereby hoping to be the first inarriv¬ 
ing at the goal, although they might have been the last to start. 
Amongst the lesser powers, the Danes began to rear their head, 
and to cast a wistful look towards those commercial advantages, 
which would accrue to them from the discovery of the north west 
passage, and for the accomplishment of which their geographical 
situation so well fitted them. Accordingly in 1605, the king of 
Denmark caused an expedition to be sent out, for the ostensible 
purpose of exploring the coast of Greenland, the command of 
which was given to Admiral Lindenau, but the majority of the 
officers were English, amongst whom James Hall acted as chief 
pilot. The result of this voyage was the discovery of some good 
sounds, bays, and rivers, as high as 69°, but here the crew became 
mutinous, and after having according to the example of Elizabeth 
put two Danish malefactors on shore, Hall returned to Denmark, 
where he found that his admiral had arrived before him. 
Although the existence of the golden mines of Greenland had 
been disproved by an assay of “ the glistening metal” which 
Frobisher had brought to England, yet the belief that not only 
gold, but silver was also to be found in that country, was so 
strongly impressed on the general opinion of the Danes, founded 
on the authority of Hall and of Knight who accompanied him, 
that the former had not long returned Hom his first expedition, 
than he was appointed to the command of four small vessels, 
the object of which, was not so much the discovery of lands 
unknown, as the discovery of mines of gold and silver, with 
which the voyagers were to return as the monopolists of so lucra¬ 
tive a branch of commerce, and the founders of their future 
fortune. The following remark of Hall cannot but excite a smile, 
for on his arrival at Cunningham Fiord (Bay) he says, “they all 
landed to see the silver mines, where it was decreed, we should 
take in as much as we could.'” Not finding however, any to 
take, they resolved to carry home with them some production of 
the country, and therefore they seized upon five Esquimaux, with 
whom they returned to Denmark, where they, doubtless appeared 
as miserable substitutes for the expected cargo of gold and silver. 
In the following year, Hall sailed again to Greenland, but the 
