24 
EXPEDITION OF SIR H. WILLOUGHBY. 
of this voyage, rather than mercantile speculations. On this 
subject, we may perhaps be allowed to express our sincere wish, 
that there were a few more Master Hore’s in London, “ given to 
the studie of cosmographie,” and who would transport “ to the 
strange regions,” a few hundreds of the present gentlemen of 
the Inns of Court and of Chancery, by which act a most essential 
benefit would be conferred upon the country. 
This enterprise of Hore had a most calamitous termination, 
unworthy the disinterested motives that gave birth to it, and in 
some respects, a severe reproach upon those engaged in it. On 
their arrival in Newfoundland, they suffered so much from 
famine, that they were driven to the horrible expedient of 
cannibalism. While gathering roots in the woods for their 
subsistence, some were treacherously murdered, and devoured by 
their companions. The captain on hearing of the circumstance, 
endeavoured to bring back the crew to a sense of their duty, and 
to teach them resignation, by keeping alive their hopes; but the 
famine increased, and they were driven to the necessity of casting 
lots, who should perish. The same night, a French ship arrived 
on the coast, and the English by a stratagem with which we are 
not made acquainted, contrived to make themselves masters of 
the vessel, and returned home. The Frenchmen were afterwards 
liberally indemnified by Henry VIII., who pardoned the violence, 
to which necessity had impelled the English adventurers. 
In the reign of Edward VI. 1553, an expedition of three ships 
sailed under the command of Sir H. Willoughby, for the pur¬ 
pose of making discoveries in the northern latitudes. Two of 
the ships advanced to 76° north, where they discovered the group 
of Islands, now known as Spitzbergen, but which was then 
supposed to be a part of Greenland, They prosecuted their 
voyage to the eastward, when they were shut up in the ice, and 
Sir H. Willoughby and the crew, consisting of sixty persons, 
perished miserably of cold and hunger on the eastern coast of 
Russian Lapland. The remaining vessel passed the north Cape 
to the eastward, and got safely to the Bay of St. Nicholas, on 
the Russian coast, being the first British vessel, which had en¬ 
tered those latitudes. 
