Later in Henry the eighth’s reign1, in 1527, a larger expedition, composed of “divers2 cunning men,” set out for Northern discovery, but with no more satisfactory results. Their enterprise was impelled3 by the weighty reasoning of Robert Thorne, the observant Bristol merchant, then in Seville (whom Hakluyt terms a “notable member and ornament4 of his country”), in his “large discourse” of that year to Dr. Ley, the English ambassador in Spain, urging the immediate5 need of English discovery in the north parts, “even to the North pole,” to overcome the advantages gained by Spain and Portugal in their discoveries of “all the Indies and seas Occidental and Oriental,” so “by this part of the Orient and Occident” compassing the world. Who were the “divers cunning men” composing this expedition Hakluyt endeavoured to ascertain6 through much enquiry among “such as by their years and delight in Navigation” might inform him. He learned, however, of one only, and his name he could not get—a certain canon of St. Paul’s in London, 97a “great mathematician7, and indued with wealth,” apparently8 the leader. Two “fair ships” formed the squadron, one of them called “The Dominus Vobiscum.” They set forth9 out of the Thames on a mid-May day. When sailing “far northwestward” one of the ships was cast away as it entered into “a dangerous gulph about the great opening between the North parts of Newfoundland and the country lately called by her Majestie Meta Incognita.” Thereupon the other ship, “shaping her course toward Cape10 Briton and the coaste of Arambec, and oftentimes putting their men on land to search the state of those regions, returned home about the beginning of October.” So this story lamely11 ends.
Six years later an enterprise for discovery in the same parts was projected by certain London men, with the king’s “favour and good countenance,” under the leadership of one “Master Hore,” a “man of goodly stature12 and of great courage, and given to the studie of Cosmographie.” Master Hore’s “persuasions” were so effective that he soon drew into the scheme “many gentlemen of the Inns of court and of the Chancerie, and divers others of good worship, desirous to see the strange things of the world.” Two “tall ships” were obtained for the venture, the “Trinitie,” of one hundred and forty tons, which was designated the “admiral” (flag-ship) of the fleet, and the “Minion.” The company numbered about sixscore persons, of whom thirty were gentlemen. Among the latter were enrolled13 one Armigil Wade14, “a very learned and vertuous gentleman,” 98afterward clerk of the councils of Henry the eighth and his successor, Edward the sixth; one Joy, subsequently gentleman of the king’s chapel16; and Oliver Dawbeny, a merchant of London. All were “mustered in warlike manner” at Gravesend. After receiving the Sacrament they embarked17 and sailed away at the end of April, 1536. The adventures of these gentlemen-explorers were rare and tragic18.
From the time that they left Gravesend they were more than two months at sea without touching19 land. At length they arrived in the region of Cape Breton. Shaping their course northwestward they came to the “island of Penguin,” where they landed. This was found to be a place “full of rocks and stones” and inhabited by flocks of “great foules white and gray, as big as geese.” These strange fowls20 were the sea-birds known as Penguins21 from their first discovery on this island, and afterward15, when appearing in other parts, called Great Auks or Gare-Fowls. The sailors drove large numbers of them into the boats, and they made good eating. Quantities of their eggs were also seen on the island. No natives were encountered by the voyagers till they had lain anchored off Newfoundland for several days. Then one morning while Oliver Dawbeny was walking on the hatches he spied a boat full of savages22 rowing down the bay toward the ships. A ship’s boat was quickly manned and sent out to meet and take them. But at its approach the savages fled to a neighbouring island up the bay. The English pursued them, but they got away. On the island a 99fire was found, and by it the side of a bear on a wooden spit ready for roasting. A boot of leather was picked up, “garnished on the outward side of the calf23 with certain brave trails as it were of raw silke”; also a “great warm mitten24.” The voyagers tarried in the Newfoundland seas till famine came upon them.
Now the tale becomes gruesome. Temporary relief was had from the stock of a nest of an osprey “that brought hourly to her young great plentie of divers sort of fish.” For a while they lived on raw herbs and roots gathered on the main. Then, the relief from herbs becoming of “little purpose,” some of the hardest pressed, when ashore25 in companies of two, seeking food, fell to feeding upon their mates. “The fellow killed his mate while he stooped to take up a root for his relief, and cutting out pieces of his body whom he had murthered broyled the same on the coles [fire] and greedily devoured26 them.” By this means, the chronicler grimly adds, “the company decreased.” The officers on shipboard wondered at this falling off till the fate of the missing was disclosed through the admission of one well-fed sailor, under the goading27 taunts28 of a starving mate who had come upon him in a field, drawn29 thither30 by the pungent31 odour of broiled32 flesh, that the meat upon which he had feasted was a piece of a man’s side.
When this report was brought to the captain he called the company together and addressed them earnestly upon the awfulness of such conduct. “If,” he piously33 argued, “it had not pleased God to have 100helpen [helped] them in that distresse that it had been better to have perished in body and to have lived everlastingly35, than to have relieved for a poore time their mortal bodyes and to bee condemned36 everlastingly both body and soule to the unquenchable fire of hell.” He besought37 them all to pray “that it might please God to look upon their miserable38 present state and for his own mercy to relieve the same.” Still the famine continued unrelieved. At last, in sheer desperation, “they agreed amongst themselves rather than all should perish to cast lots who should be killed.” But the very night of this agreement, “such was the mercie of God” that a French ship well furnished with victuals39 hove into the harbour where they lay. Their action was prompt. “Such was the policy of the English,” as our chronicler ingenuously40 puts it, “that they became masters” of the Frenchmen’s craft, “and changing ships and victualling them they set sail to come into England.” In blunter words, they despoiled41 the Frenchmen of their property and made off with it, leaving them behind; not altogether desolate42, however, for they were left with a ship partly provisioned from their own store.
The expedition arrived back in England about the end of October, when the gentlemen of the party enjoyed a succession of entertainments, first at a “certain castle belonging to Sir John Luttrell,” afterward at Bath, Bristol, and London. The voyagers told in their reports how they had journeyed so far northward43 that they had seen “mighty islands of ice in the summer 101season on which were hawkes and other fowles to rest themselves being weary of flying over far from the main.” And how they had also seen “certain great white fowles with red bills and red legs somewhat bigger than herons which they supposed to be storkes.” Some months later the despoiled Frenchmen had got back to their home port, and they appeared in England with complaint to the king and demand for redress44. After an examination of the matter, however, the king was “so moved to pity” by the tale of the distress34 of the Englishmen, which was shown to be the occasion of their high-handed act, that “he punished not his subjects, but of his own purse made full and royal recompense unto the French.” Which was certainly generous as should become a king.
The account of this voyage was the one that Hakluyt travelled two hundred miles on horseback to get from the sole survivor45 of the company living at the time of his writing, or, in his own words, “to learn the whole truth of this voyage from his own mouth as being the only man now alive that was in this discovery.” He was Thomas Buts, a son of Sir William Buts of Norfolk. Hakluyt relates that upon his return from the voyage Buts was so changed in appearance through the hunger and misery46 he had undergone that his parents did not recognize him as their son till they found a secret mark on his person, “which was a wart47 upon one of his knees.”
With the accession of Edward the sixth, the boy 102king, in 1547, new projects began to develop for further discovery northward. Sebastian Cabot was again in England and settled at Bristol. He was now an old man, yet still stalwart in mind and red-blooded for action. His fame was widespread and he had come to be called “The Great Seaman48.” While pilot major of Spain, he had, with other achievements, made important discoveries in South America. Heading an expedition originally planned to pursue discovery in the Pacific, through the Strait of Magellan (discovered and passed by that brilliant Portuguese49, Fernao de Magalh?es, in 1520, who the next year discovered the Philippines), he had explored the River Plate, naming it Rio de la Plata, the Silver River, because of the splendour of the silver ornaments50 worn by the Indians of the region, and had anchored off the site of the present city of Buenos Ayres; had built a fort at one of the mouths of the Parana and begun a settlement there; had further ascended51 the Parana; penetrated52 the Paraguay; and thence entered the Vermejo, where he and his party had a fierce fight with the savages. In Edward’s second year, 1549, he was appointed Grand Pilot of England, with an annual pension of ￡166 13s. and 6d. in consideration of the “good and acceptable service done and to be done” by him for the English crown.
Not long after he is found turning from the Northwest Passage and advising a new voyage for the discovery of a Northeast route to India.
From this a project of various London merchant 103adventurers developed which resulted in an expedition in 1553 starting under Sir Hugh Willoughby and continued by Richard Chancellor53, which, although failing to find Cathay, made notable discoveries with the opening to Europe of the great empire of Russia.
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1
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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5
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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6
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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7
mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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8
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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9
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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10
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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13
enrolled
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| adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起 | |
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14
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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15
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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17
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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18
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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19
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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20
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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penguins
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| n.企鹅( penguin的名词复数 ) | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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23
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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24
mitten
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| n.连指手套，露指手套 | |
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25
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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26
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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goading
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| v.刺激( goad的现在分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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taunts
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| 嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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31
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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32
broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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33
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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34
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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everlastingly
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| 永久地，持久地 | |
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36
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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37
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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38
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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39
victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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40
ingenuously
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| adv.率直地，正直地 | |
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41
despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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43
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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44
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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45
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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46
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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47
wart
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| n.疣，肉赘；瑕疵 | |
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48
seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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49
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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50
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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51
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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53
chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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