NORTH POLE. 
176 
the confpiracy, or at leaffc to remain neutral. It is to be 
remarked, that the part of Hudfon’s Journal which they 
brought home terminates on the 3d of Auguft, 1610, when 
between the Capes Wolftenholme and Digges ; but Hud- 
fon was not feized and thru ft into the boat till the 21ft of 
June, 1611. Is it notthen very furprifing that no inquiry 
fhould have been made for the matter's journal during 
this long period ? Pricket was the very perfon to have 
been made accountable; for he admits that he took charge 
of the matter's cabin, and that Greene gave him the key 
of the matter's chett. A llirewd navigator, commenting 
on the trail factions of this voyage, fays, “ Well, Pricket, I 
am in great doubt of thy fidelity to Matter Hudfon.” 
North-weft Fox, p. 117. 
In the year, 1609, the Mufcovy Company had taken 
formal potfeffion of an itland in the latitude of 74. 30. 
ftrft difcovered by Barentz in 1596, and called by him 
Bear f/land, but fince and now known by the name of 
Cherry IJlmid, having been fo denominated by Stephen 
Bennet (who went on a voyage of difcovery in 1603) in 
honour of “the worlhipful Francis Cherie.” In the 
following-year, 1610, fir Thomas Smith and the reft of 
the Mufcovy Company fitted out the Amity, a bark of 
70 tons, for a farther difcovery to be made towards the 
North Pole, either for trade or a paftage that way ; of 
"w hich fhip Jonas Poole, who had been on all the former 
voyages, was appointed mailer. He palled the North 
Cape on the 2d of May, “after many ftormes, much cold, 
finow, and extreame frofts.” He made the latitude of 
Cherry Illand on the 6th, but could not approach it on 
account of the vaft quantity of ice, among which “ the 
-fa ip had many a knocke.” He flood on to the northward ; 
and, on the 16th of May, faw land in 76. 50. which was, 
of courfe, a part of Spitzbergen. The boat was fent 011- 
fnore ; and, the people finding a deer’s horn, they gave 
the name of Horn Sound to the bay in which they landed; 
and to the land firft feen, about four leagues to the fouth- 
ward of the bay, that of Mufcovy Mount. Leaving this 
part of the coalt, he flood firft to the weftward, then to 
the northward, and in lat. 77. 25. finds the weather on 
the 17th of May “ very warme, and farre temperater” 
than at the North Cape at the fame period of the year. 
On the 19 th, however, he fays, “it was very thick fogges, 
with w’ind, froft, and fnow, and cold, that I thinke they 
did ftrive here which of them Ihouid have the fuperio- 
ritie.” Such was the continuance of fog, that he com¬ 
plains of not being able to fee the fun on the meridian 
for five days, and not at all for fixty hours, though con- 
flantly above the horizon. In 78. 37. he named the head¬ 
land of a fmall illand Fair Foreland ; and here he aftures 
himfelf “ that a paffage may be as foone attayned this way, 
by the pole, as any unknowne way whatfoever, by reafon 
the fun doth give a great heat in this climate; and the 
ice that freezeth here is nothing fo huge as I have feen in 
73 degrees. On a fmall illand he killed a great number of 
deer, and gave to the bay the name of Deer Sound ; after 
this they (lew feveral bears, and a multitude of the wal¬ 
rus, or fea-horfe. “The tenth day,” he goes on to fay, 
“ I went on-fhoore and flue five deeres, with the which, 
and them that I flue before, I have lengthened out my 
vifituals, blefled be the Creator of the world, which hath 
not made any part thereof in vaine, but fo that in thefe 
parts (which hath feemed impoflible to our anceltors to 
bee travelled unto, by reafon of the extreame cold which 
they fuppofed to be here) I find the ayre temperate in 
the lands, and nothing fo cold as I have found at Cherry 
Illand in five feverall voyages. Moreover, in this land I 
have feene great (lore of deere, which have neither bark 
nor tree to Ihelter them from the nipping cold of winter, 
nor yet any extraordinarie pafture to refrefh them. If 
they (I fay), having nothing but the rockes for a houfe, 
and rite Harry canopie for a covering, doe live here, why 
may not man, which hath all the gifts of God beftowed 
upon him for his health and fuccour ?” Journal of Jonas 
Poole , in Purchas, vol.iii.p. 703. j 
The fartheft latitude reached in this voyage was 79. 50; 
in which parallel was fituated a part of land, to which 
Poole gave the name of Gurnerd's Nofe, leading into Fa ire 
Haven, w'here he alfo met with and killed feveral deer, 
which were in fuch excellent condition, that both thefe 
and moft of them which had before been killed had two 
and three inches thick of fat upon them. In Deer Sound 
they found fea-coal, which burned very .well. Towards 
the end of July he flood to the fouthward, with the inten¬ 
tion of calling at Cherry Illand ; but the ice w'as 1 b 
thickly packed that he gave up the attempt, and pro¬ 
ceeded homewards, arriving in London on the laft day of 
Auguft. 
This voyage, as appears by the commiflion given to 
Poole, was intended, not only as an experiment to “ catch 
a whale or two,” and to kill fea-morfes, but alfo for 
northern difcovery. It thus fets out: “Inafmuch as it 
hath pleafed Almightie God, through the induftry of 
yourfelfe and others, to difcover unto our nation a land 
lying in eightie degrees toward the North Pole ; we are 
defirous, not only to difcover farther to the northward, 
along the faid land, to find whether the fame be an illand 
or a mayne, and which way the fame doth trend, either 
to the eaftward or to the weftward of the pole ; as alfo 
whether the fame be inhabited by any people, or whether 
there be an open fea farther northward then hath been 
already difcovered : for accomplilhing of all which our 
defires we have made choice of you, and to that end have 
entertained you into ourferyice for certaine yeares upon 
a ftipend certayne ; not doubting but you will fo carrie 
yourfelfe in the bufinefle for which you were fo enter- 
tayned, as God may be glorified, our countrey benefited, 
yourfelfe credited, and we in our defires latisfied, &c.” 
Jonas Poole appears to have been a faithful fervant, 
and a good and well-experienced mariner ; but Purchas 
tells ns that, after this voyage, as he had heard, “he was 
miferably and bafely murthered betwixt Ratcliffe and 
London ;” notwithftanding which he continues to give 
two more voyages, performed afterwards, and written by 
Jonas Poole himfelf. 
The lame company fent out the following year a large 
fhip of 150 tons, of which Stephen Bennet was mafter, 
and Thomas Edge fadtor, “for the killing of the whale ;” 
and, as this appears to have been the firft voyage under¬ 
taken exprefsly for that pui-pofe, it is Hated, that “they 
have bin at the charge of procuring of fixe men of Saint 
John de Luz accuftomed to that function.” Jonas Poole 
accompanied this Ihip as mafter of the Elizabeth, with 
two others, which were to proceed, one to St. Nicholas 
or Archangel, the other to Nova Zembla. While the 
fhips were engaged in filhing, Poole Hood to the northw’ard 
as high as 80®, near Spitzbergen, then crofled to the eaft 
coaft of Greenland, near Sanderfon’s Hold-with-Hope, 
and fays he ran about forty leagues to the weftward of 
the eafternmoft part of the land as it was then laid down 
in his charts ; he next flood acrofs to Cherry Illand, and 
again proceeded to Spitzbergen, where he found part of 
the crew of the large Ihip on-lhore, Hie having been loft 
in the ice ; they afterwards were taken on-board a veftel 
from Hull, which carried them home. 
The next year, 1612, the fame company of merchants 
fent out two fliips, the Whale and the Sea-horfe, under 
Jonas Poole. On their arrival at Cherry Illand, they 
found a Ihip from Holland, in which one Alan Salowes, 
an Englilhman, was pilot. From Cherry Illand, Poole 
proceeded to Spitzbergen 5 and, being in Foul Sound, the 
faid Alan Salowes came on-board, and reported, that his 
merchant (the Dutchman) “had broke his necke down 
a cliffe.” Here alfo Poole metwith one Thomas Marma- 
duke, of Hull, in a Ihip called the Hopewell, which how¬ 
ever foon left them, and Hood to the northward. “This 
Ihip,” (Poole fays,) “ as we were afterward informed, 
difcovered as farre as 82 degrees, two degrees beyond 
Hakluyt’s Headland.” This is the higheft degree of la¬ 
titude mentioned to which any Ihip had yet proceeded, 
except 
