26 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN 
the company might frequent without a forfeiture of 
ships and merchandise. 5 
A lucrative traffic with Russia followed these events, 
not without efforts to pass beyond to the coveted land 
of spices ; efforts which yielded only disappointment, 
yet did not extinguish hope. 6 
The Dutch — always on the lookout for chances of 
profit, and, if we may believe Purchas, always following 
in the steps of the English, wherever a business pro¬ 
mised to be gainful — were anxious to obtain a share 
of the trade with Russia. 
Passing by the English voyages of Burough in 1556, 
and Pet and Jackman in 1580, — which were productive 
of no important results bearing on our purpose, — we 
come to the more celebrated expedition of the Dutch, 
under the pilotage of William Barents, in 1596. It was 
the third voyage of that able navigator, wffiose name 
is variously written Barents, Bernards, Barentzoon, and 
Bernardzoon; meaning the son of Barent, or Bernard. 
5 Anderson’s Commerce, vol. ii. p. 131. 
6 In 1556, the company sent out men to bring home Willoughby’s ships and the 
bodies of the men; and, as a fitting conclusion to the tragedy, the vessels “sunk by 
the way, with their dead, and them also that brought them.” — Brief Hist, of Moscovia y 
ch. 5, in the Prose Works of John Milton. 
In the same year, Chancelor, conveying an ambassador from Russia to England 
in his ship the “Good Fortune” ( Bonadventure ), found it no longer answering to its 
name. He was wrecked on the coast of Scotland, and lost his life; though the am¬ 
bassador was saved. — Letter of Henry Lane to William Sanderson. Hakluyt , vol. i. 
p. 523. 
It may be worth mentioning, as a curious fact in reference to the recent resistance 
of our government and others to the exaction of tolls at the entrance of the Baltic, 
that, for the privilege of passing round the coasts of Norway and Danish Lapland, the 
Muscovy Company were bound by treaty to pay to the King of Denmark a toll of one 
hundred rose nobles annually. The reason assigned for this charge was, that the esta¬ 
blishment of the new route of trade had materially diminished the customary receipts 
at Elsinore. The Russians had then, however, no commercial ports on the Baltic; and 
the war with Sweden had closed the access through that sea. 
