IN THE YEAR 1613. 
35 
and lost no time in seeking to maintain their own right, 
and that of the English crown, to control this important 
trade in its Northern localities. 
The expedition of 1613, to which we have now ar¬ 
rived, was therefore fitted out with unusual care, and 
intrusted to the charge of some of the ablest men in the 
service. Besides the chief captain, Benjamin Joseph, 
William Baffin, and the author of our narrative, it 
was accompanied by Thomas Edge, who had already 
twice sailed to Spitzbergen. Purchas was indebted to 
Edge for the map of the coast inserted in his work ; 
and also for a summary of Northern discoveries, which 
appears in the same volume. Baffin was attached to 
the ship of the commander of the fleet; and from that 
circumstance, apart from his personal reputation and 
the value of his scientific observations, his journal 
would naturally be the one selected for publication. 
The author of our account was in another vessel, often 
separated from the rest. He thus experienced a differ¬ 
ent series of incidents, or observed the same from a 
different point of view. Our manuscript has upon it 
no name to indicate its authorship. A leaf at the be¬ 
ginning, of which only a fragment remains, may have 
contained this information; as a few words of writing 
are still left, showing that a portion of both sides must 
have been originally covered. The circumstantial evi¬ 
dence pointing to Bobert Fotherby as its author, is, 
however, nearly decisive. In the third volume of the 
“ Pilgrimes ” of Purchas are descriptions of the country, 
and of the business of whale-fishery as there conducted, 
so similar in thought and expression to those of our 
