FAILURE OF IhE CO RTF REALS. 2 1 
ultimately impeded, by those physical objects, -which he couhi 
not overcome: Davis sails to the same latitudes, and for the same 
purpose of discovery ; he sails in the most beautiful season of the 
year, spends rather more than two months in the prosecution of 
his discoveries; is intimidated by a thick mist and adverse winds, 
and returns to England. 
The discovery of the north west passage, however appears to 
have been the favorite object of Gaspar Cortereal, and encouraged 
by the discoveries, which he had made on his former expedition, 
he obtained without any difficulty the consent of Alphonso, to 
undertake another voyage, and he accordingly sailed from Lisbon 
in May 1501. A violent storm overtook his ships off the coast 
of Greenland, which obliged them to separate; one of them 
directed its course homewards, but that on which Cortereal was 
on board, was never more heard of. 
On the following year Michael Cortereal, sailed with three 
vessels in search of his brother; two of the three returned, but 
Michael perished, no tidings ever having been received of him. 
Notwithstanding the encouragement which had been given to 
Cabot, and his gasconading account of the great discoveries 
which he had accomplished, accompanied with the display of 
the wealth which he had amassed, the spirit of discovery at 
the commencement of the sixteenth century, appears to have 
languished, or which is more probable, the feeble efforts of 
the former navigators were not crowned with that brilliant 
success, which was sufficient to attract the attention either of the 
government of the country, or of those private individuals, whose 
enterprising spirit might have led them to embark in such spe¬ 
culative expeditions. The first enterprise undertaken solely by 
Englishmen, to discover the north west passage, was suggested 
by Mr. Robert Thorne, an opulent merchant of Bristol, who had 
long resided at Seville, and who had imbibed perhaps in Spain 
the spirit of geographical discovery. Hakluyt has preserved two 
papers on this subject, addressed by Robert Thorne, one to king 
Henry VIII., and the other to Dr. Ley, the king’s ambassador to 
Charles V. In the first, he exhorts king Henry “ with very 
weighty and substantial reasons to set forth a discoverie even to 
