WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.CHAPTER XXXIII.QUIROS' THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT—HIS ARGUMENTS AND MEMORIALS—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—DISCOVERIES—ENCARNAÇION—SAGITTARIA, OR TAHITI—DESCRIPTION OF THESE ISLANDS—MANICOLO—ESPIRITU SANTO—ITS PRODUCTIONS AND INHABITANTS—QUIROS BEFORE THE KING OF SPAIN—HIS BELIEF IN HIS DISCOVERY OF A CONTINENT—HIS DISAPPOINTMENT—RENEWED SOLICITATIONS—DEATH OF QUIROS—DISCOVERIES OF TORRÈS—THE MUSCOVY COMPANY OF LONDON—HENRY HUDSON—HIS VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN AND NOVA ZEMBLA—HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA—CASTS ANCHOR AT SANDY HOOK—ASCENDS THE HUDSON RIVER AS FAR AS THE SITE OF ALBANY—HIS VOYAGE TO ICELAND AND HUDSON'S BAY—DISASTROUS WINTER—MUTINY—HUDSON SET ADRIFT—HIS DEATH.We have said, in a preceding chapter, that Pedro Fernandez de Quiros was the pilot of Mendana's second expedition. During the voyage he had reflected deeply upon the probability of the existence of a Southern continent: on his return to Peru, heasserted it, and devoted the remainder of his life to the prosecution of a plan of discovery. He was the first to bring forward scientific arguments in support of the theory,—one which, by the way, was destined to agitate and interest the world for two centuries, till its final overthrow by Cook. He presented two memorials to Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy, praying for ships, men, and other necessaries, with which "to plough up the waters of the unknown sea, and to seek out the undiscovered lands around the Antarctic Pole, the centre of that horizon." His arguments were many of them profound, and made a deep impression upon the viceroy, who replied, however, that Quiros' desires exceeded the limits of his authority. He nevertheless despatched him with strong recommendations to the court of Spain. Philip III. gave favorable attention to his projects, and ordered that Quiros should go in person upon an expedition "among these hidden provinces and severed regions,—an expedition destined to win souls to heaven and kingdoms to the crown of Spain." Quiros returned to Lima "with the most honorable schedules which had ever passed the Council of State." He presented his papers to the viceroy, and, forgetting the obstacles and discouragements he had met with during eleven years, entered on his new and arduous labors. He built three ships, and embarked on the 20th of December, 1605, holding his course west by south.One thousand leagues from Peru, he discovered a small island which he named Encarnaçion: to others, of little importance and uninhabited, he gave the names of Santelmo, St. Miguel, and Archangel: the tenth he called Dezena. On the 10th of February, 1606, land was seen from the topmast-head, and, to the joy of all, columns of smoke—an unmistakable sign that the land was inhabited—were perceived ascending at numerous points. A boat advanced to the surf, through which it seemed impossible to gain the shore. A young man, Francisco Ponce by name, stripped off his clothes, saying that, if they shouldthus turn their faces from the first danger which offered, there would be no hope of eventual success. He threw himself into the sea, and, after a fierce struggle with the receding waves, clambered up a rock to a spot where one hundred Indians were awaiting him. They seemed pleased with his resolution, and frequently kissed his forehead. Peace was made, and a safe anchorage was pointed out. The island thus discovered subsequently became, for many reasons, the most famous in the whole Pacific Ocean. Quiros called it Sagittaria; but it is now known as Tahiti or Otaheite. We shall have occasion hereafter to describe at length this lovely oasis in the desert of the waters.SCENE IN TAHITI.The fleet stayed here but two days, and then continued on its way. Quiros discovered several islands which have not been seen again from that time to this. To one of them he gave the name of Isla de la Gente Hermosa,—Island of Handsome People. Convinced that the mainland must be near, he kept on in searchof what he called the "mother of so many islands." At one named Taumaco he seized four natives to serve him as guides and interpreters, and carried them away. He has been much blamed for this act of treachery towards a people who treated him with kindness and hospitality. Three of the four jumped overboard during the two days following, and escaped to islands in the vicinity. The chief of the island where he had taken them had informed him that, if he would change his course from the west to the south, he would come to a large tract, fertile and inhabited, named Manicolo. Following this advice, he discovered the islands of Tucopia and Nuestra Señora de la Luz. It is doubtful whether either of these has been seen by subsequent navigators. On the 26th of April, he made a land which he took to be the continent of which he was in search, and to which he gave the name of Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. Bougainville and Cook, who arrived here a century and a half afterwards, thought themselves justified, by acquiring the certitude that it was a group of islands and not a continent, in christening them anew,—Bougainville naming them the Grandes Cyclades, and Cook the New Hebrides.Quiros has left an admirable picture of this fertile and delightful spot. "The rivers Jordan and Salvador," he says, "give no small beauty to their shores, for they are full of odoriferous flowers and plants. Pleasant and agreeable groves front the sea in every part: we mounted to the tops of mountains and perceived fertile valleys and rivers winding amongst green meadows. The whole is a country which, without doubt, has the advantage over those of America, and the best of the European will be well if it is equal. It is plenteous of various and delicious fruits, potatoes, yams, plantains, oranges, limes, sweet basil, nutmegs, and ebony, all of which, without the help of sickle, plough, or other artifice, it yields in every season. There are also cattle, birds of many kinds and of charming notes, honey-bees, parrots, doves, and partridges. The houses wherein the Indians live arethatched and low, and they of a black complexion. There are earthquakes,—sign of a mainland." The Spaniards found it impossible to make peace with the natives, and the few days which they spent there were passed in wrangling and bloodshed.The achievements and discoveries of Quiros properly end here. His ships were separated, and his own crew disabled by the effects of poisonous fish which they had eaten. He called a council of his officers, and asked their opinion upon a choice of courses,—a prosecution of the voyage to China, or a return to Mexico. The latter was decided upon. Quiros arrived at Acapulco nine months after his departure from Callao.He soon returned to Spain, where he presented a memorial to Philip III. upon the results of his voyage, and the advantage of further efforts in the same direction. His grand argument in favor of the theory that he had discovered an Austral continent was drawn from the statements of Pedro,—the only one of the four kidnapped savages of Taumaco who had remained on board. A subsequent memorial shows the fate with which all his representations to Philip met:—"I, Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, say that with this I have presented to your majesty eight memorials touching the country of Australia Incognita, without to this time any resolution being taken with me, nor any reply made me, nor hope given to assure me that I shall be despatched,—having now been fourteen months in this court, and having been fourteen years engaged in this cause without pay or any other advantage in view but the success of it alone; wherewith, and through infinite contradictions, I have gone by land and sea twenty-two thousand leagues, spending all my estate and incommoding my person, suffering so many and such terrible things that even to myself they appear incredible: and all this has come to pass, that this work of so much goodness and benevolence should not be abandoned. In whose name, and all for the love of God, I beg your majesty not to neglectthese innumerable benefits, which shall last as long as the world subsists, and then be eternal."Quiros then enters into a detailed description of the islands and the continent he had seen. Their extent, he said, was as much as that of Europe, Asia Minor, England, and Ireland. They had no such turbulent neighbors as the Turks or the Moors. The people were intelligent and capable of civilization. Bread grew upon the trees. The palm yielded spirits, vinegar, honey, whey, and toddy. The green cocoanut served instead of artichoke; when ripe, for meat and cream; and, when old, for oil, wax, and balsams. The shells furnished cups and bottles. The fibres afforded oakum, cordage, and the best slow match. The leaves furnished sails, matting, and thatch. The garden-stuffs of the country were pumpkins, parsley, "with intimation of beans." The flesh was hogs, fowls, capons, partridges, geese, turkeys, ringdoves, and goats, "with intimation of cows and buffaloes." The riches were silver, pearls, and gold. The spices were nutmegs, mace, pepper, and ginger, "with intimation of cinnamon and cloves." There was ebony, and infinite woods for ship-building. At daybreak the harmony of thousands of birds trembled upon the air,—nightingales, blackbirds, larks, goldfinches, and swallows,—besides the chirping of grasshoppers and crickets. Every morning and evening the breeze was laden with fragrant scents wafted from orange-flowers and sweet basil. This enthusiastic document concludes thus:—"I can show this in a company of mathematicians, that this land will presently accommodate and sustain two hundred thousand Spaniards. None of our men fell sick from over-work, or sweating, or getting wet. Fish and flesh kept sound two or more days. I saw neither sandy ground, nor thistles, nor prickly trees, nor mangrovy swamps, nor snow on the mountains, nor crocodiles in the rivers, nor ants in the dust, nor mosquitos in the night."Acquire, sire, since you can with a little money, which will be required but once,—acquire heaven, eternal fame, and thatnew world with all its promises. Order the galleons to be ready, sire; for I have many places to go to, and much to provide and to do. Let it be observed that in all I shall be found very submissive to reason, and will give satisfaction in every thing."These stirring appeals were disregarded by the feeble successor of Charles V.; and Quiros, who, though a Portuguese by birth, is often styled the last of the Spanish heroes, died at Panama on his way back to Lima.We mentioned the dispersion of Quiros' fleet after leaving Espiritu Santo. We must recur for a moment to this incident, in order to follow the ship of Luis Vaez de Torrès, the second in command. He proceeded on his voyage to the southwest, and saw enough of Espiritu Santo to convince him that it was not a continent. He would have circumnavigated it had the season permitted. Standing finally to the northward, he fell in with numerous islands rich in pearls and spices, and "coasted for eight hundred leagues along the southern shore of some land to him unknown." This can have been no other shore than that of Papua or New Guinea; and it is considered positive that he was the first European to see this since famous and remarkable island. He found this whole sea to be filled with groups of islands producing spices and the usual tropical fruits. He made his way to the Philippines, where he rendered an account of his adventures since his separation from Quiros.While these distinguished navigators were thus searching the regions lying about the equator, another adventurer, equally enterprising, was endeavoring to reach the Pole. Henry Hudson, a seaman renowned for his hardy and daring achievements, was appointed, in 1607, by the Muscovy Company of London, to the command of a vessel intended to penetrate to China by the Arctic seas to the north of Europe. His crew consisted of ten men and a boy. He advanced as far as Greenland, and returned by Spitzbergen,—being convinced that the ice formedan insurmountable barrier against farther progress. He again set out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zembla. The ice again stopped him, and he returned,—persuaded that the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful, he crossed the Atlantic to America. He coasted along the continent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the highlands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced a "good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in what is now the Lower Bay of New York. "What an event," says Everett, "in the history of American population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of that anchor at Sandy Hook!"HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK."Here he lingered a week," continues the same author, "in friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And now the great question:—Shall he turn back, or ascend the stream? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on both sides 'as beautiful a land as one could tread on;' the ship floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream,—the first thatever rested on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, Nature's dark basaltic Malakoff; forced the iron gateway of the Highlands; anchored on the 14th near West Point; swept around and upwards the following day, by grassy meadows and tangled slopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling villages, by elevated banks and woody heights, the destined sites of towns and cities,—of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; on the evening of the 15th arrived 'opposite the mountains which rise from the river's side,' where he found 'a very loving people and very old men;' and, the day following, sailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between Schodac and Castleton; and here he landed and passed a day with the natives, greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality,—the land 'the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on.' On the following morning, with the early flood-tide, the Half-Moon ran higher up, and came to anchor in deep water, near the site of the present city of Albany. Happy if he could have closed his gallant career on the banks of the stream which so justly bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mysterious catastrophe which awaited him the next year."He soon after returned to England; and, not being discouraged, nor finding it difficult to obtain the means of continuing his maritime adventures, he set sail, in 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five tons' burden, manned by twenty-three men and victualled for six months. He touched at the Orkneys and anchored at Iceland. Mount Hecla revealed to him the magnificence of a volcano in travail, and the Hot Springs obligingly cooked his food. He passed Greenland, where the sun set in the north. In the course of June and July, he passed to the northward of Labrador, and followed the strait which now bears his name. In spite of ice and disturbances among his crew, which at times assumed the character of a mutiny, he pushed on into the great inland sea known as Hudson's Bay. For a long time he did not know that it was a bay, and naturally was led to hope that he was on the pointof attaining the object of all his efforts,—a passage by the northwest to China. The extent of its surface amply justified him in these expectations, for it is the largest inland sea in the world, with the exception of the Mediterranean.On the 1st of November, after seeking winter quarters, his men found a suitable spot for beaching their vessel. Ten days afterwards, they were frozen in, with provisions hardly sufficient to last, upon the most meagre allowance, till they could expect a release from the ice. A reward was offered to those who added to the general stock by catching either birds or fish, or animals serviceable for food. A house was built; but the season was so far advanced that it could not be rendered fit to dwell in. The winter was severe, and the men lived at first upon partridges, then upon swans and teal, and finally upon moss and frogs. They assuaged the pain of their frozen limbs by applying to them a hot decoction made from buds containing a balsam-like substance resembling turpentine. Towards spring, they obtained furs from the natives, in exchange for hatchets, glass, and buttons.When the ice broke up, they prepared to return,—the last ration of bread being exhausted on the day of their departure. A report was circulated among the crew that Hudson had concealed a quantity of bread for his own use, and a mutiny, fomented by a man named Green, broke out on the 21st of June. Hudson was seized and his hands bound. Together with the sick, and those whom the frost had deprived of the use of their limbs, he was put into the shallop and set adrift. Neither he, nor the boat, nor any of its crew, were ever heard of again.The wretched mutineers made the best of their way home in the ship they had thus foully obtained. Not one of the ringleaders lived to reach the land. The rest, after suffering the most awful extremities of famine, finally gained the shore.DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.CHAPTER XXXIV.THE FLEET OF JORIS SPILBERGEN—ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL—ADVENTURES IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—TRADE AT MOCHA ISLAND—TREACHERY AT SANTA MARIA—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS—RAVAGES OF THE COAST—SKIRMISHES UPON THE LAND—SPILBERGEN SAILS FOR MANILLA—ARRIVAL AT TERNATE—HIS RETURN HOME—THE VOYAGE OF SCHOUTEN AND LEMAIRE—LEMONADE AT SIERRA LEONE—A COLLISION AT SEA—DISCOVERY OF STATEN LAND—CAPE HORN—LEMAIRE'S STRAIT—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—CONFISCATION OF THE SHIPS—GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE—THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM BAFFIN—ARCTIC RESEARCHES DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.We have said, in a former chapter, that the Dutch succeeded the Portuguese in the possession of the East Indies. During the struggle between these two powers for supremacy over the Spice Islands, the Dutch East India Company resolved to make a vigorous effort to reach the Moluccas by the Strait of Magellan.They equipped a fleet of six ships, for the purpose of exploring a new route. These vessels were named the Great Sun, the Half-Moon, the Morning Star, the Huntsman, and the Sea Mew, and were placed under the command of Joris Spilbergen as admiral, who had already conducted a Dutch fleet to the Indies. He received his commission from their Mightinesses the States-General. He sailed from the Texel on the 8th of August, 1614.While upon the South American coast, a mutiny broke out in the Sea Mew, and the two ringleaders were condemned to be cast into the sea,—a sentence which was rigorously executed. They entered the Strait of Magellan on the 28th of February, 1615, but were forced out again by adverse currents. They entered again on the 2d of April, and saw men of gigantic stature upon the hills, dead bodies wrapped in the skins of penguins, and shrubs producing sweet blackberries. The mountains were covered with snow, yet the woods were filled with parrots. Water-cresses, and a tree whose bark had a biting taste, induced them to give to an inlet the name of Pepper Haven. The natives bartered ornaments of mother-of-pearl for knives and wine. The vessels entered the South Sea on the 6th of May, and on the 25th anchored off Mocha Island, half a league from the coast of Chili.The natives were delighted to learn that the strangers were the enemies of the Spaniards their oppressors, and to see that their ships were so large and well armed. The chief of the island visited the admiral's ship and remained his guest all night. A hatchet was the price fixed upon for two fat sheep; and a hundred were obtained at this rate. The natives would not permit the Dutch to see their women, and at last, when they had disposed of all the provisions and live stock they had to spare, made signs for them to re-enter their ships and depart, with which reasonable request Spilbergen at once complied.On the 29th, the vessels anchored off the island of SantaMaria, and, though there were Spaniards upon it, negotiations were opened. The Dutch officers were invited by a Spaniard to dine on shore, and, having accepted and assembled for the purpose, were either led to suspect treachery, or were convinced that they were strong enough to help themselves without negotiation. They summoned soldiers from the ships, burned a number of houses, and carried off five hundred sheep. The Spaniard who was to have been their host, but who was now their prisoner, informed them that the Viceroy of Peru had been for some months aware of their approach, and that a strong force was prepared at Lima to attack them. Spilbergen determined to go in search of the Spanish fleet: the gunners were ordered to have every thing in readiness for battle, and military regulations were promulgated,—every one, from the admiral to the swabs, being determined to do or die. One of the orders was that "during the action the decks were to be continually wetted, that accidents might not happen from ignited powder."At Concepçion, the Dutch landed and set fire to a number of houses; at Valparaiso, the Spaniards burned one of their own vessels, that she might not fall into the enemy's hands. At Arica—the seaport to which the Potosi silver was brought to be shipped to Panama—they took a small ship laden with treasure. On the evening of the 16th of July, the Spanish fleet, of eight sail, appeared in sight. The Jesu Maria, the flag-ship, had no less than four hundred and sixty men, and mounted twenty-four guns; and the whole squadron were in the same proportion better provided with men than artillery. Don Rodrigo de Mendoça was the commander. He insisted upon an immediate attack by night, saying that "any two of his ships could take all England, and much more these hens of Holland, who must be spent and wasted by so long a voyage." About ten at night, the Spanish admiral and the Dutch admiral closed,—the Jesu Maria and the Great Sun. They hailed each other, and some conversation passed before a shot was fired. The attack was then commenced bythe musketry, seconded by the great guns. The ships of both fleets came up in succession and joined battle. The pomp and circumstance of war were not neglected, for the braying of the cannon was accompanied by the sounding of tambours and trumpets. The Spanish San Francisco received a broadside which the Great Sun could spare from the Jesu Maria, and soon after went to the bottom. The Sun sent out one of her boats for a rescue; but it was mistaken by the Huntsman for an enemy's boat, and was blown out of the water by a cannon-shot. The night becoming very dark, the fleets were gradually separated. The next morning five of the Spanish ships sent word to their admiral that they were going to escape if they could. The Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were lashed together for mutual support, and were, in this condition, attacked by the Great Sun and the Half-Moon. The Spanish seamen several times hung out a white flag in token of surrender, which was as often cut down by their officers, who chose rather to die than yield, especially as they had sworn to the Viceroy of Peru to bring him all the Hollanders in chains. At nightfall, the Jesu Maria cut herself loose and fled from pursuit; but her leaks and damages were so serious that she went to the bottom before dawn. This decided the victory in favor of the Dutch, who are accused of allowing many of the enemy to drown who might easily have been saved.The victorious fleet sailed directly for Callao; but the Spanish shipping in the port was so well protected by batteries that it was not thought prudent to attack them. Soon after, a vessel laden with salt and sugar was captured and the cargo distributed. The town of Paita was plundered and burned. No money or treasure is mentioned among the booty. Keeping a sharp watch for the fleet of Panama, which the Dutch did not care to meet or engage, they proceeded to the north, and, on the 11th of October, entered the harbor of Acapulco, in Mexico or New Spain. Negotiations were entered into and a treaty was made, the Dutch agreeing to release all their prisoners, and the Spanish to furnish them with oxen, sheep, poultry, fruit, water, and wood. Thus the Spaniards saved their town at a small expense, and the Dutch found refreshments which they could have obtained in no other way.CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS.On the 10th of November, they anchored at the mouth of a river reported by their prisoners to abound in fish, while its banks produced citron and other fruit trees. Boats were sent to examine it. The Dutch noticed that the footprints upon the shore were the prints of shoes, and not of feet as Nature made them. Suspecting, therefore, the presence of Spaniards, they did not disembark, but returned to the ship. The next day the admiral landed with two hundred men, and was at once attacked by a strong body of Spaniards concealed in the woods. The latter were repulsed with loss, but Spilbergen withdrew his men to the ships, as his ammunition was nearly exhausted.THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS.On the 2d of December, the fleet left the American coast and directed their course west by south for the Ladrone Islands. The next year—1616—was ushered in with distempers that proved fatal to many of the seamen. On the 23d of January, they came in sight of the Ladrones, where they stopped two days to traffic with the natives for flesh, fish, fruit, and fowl. The savages were, as usual, treacherous and given to thieving, and at times required the chastisement of powder and ball. The fleet touched at the Philippines early in February, but the Indiansrefused to trade with them, as they were enemies of the Spaniards. They entered the Straits of Manilla, and anchored before the island of Mirabelles, remarkable for two rocks which tower to a vast height into the air. The Dutch took several barks laden with the tribute of numerous adjacent places to the city of Manilla. They gained intelligence of a fleet of twelve ships and four galleys, manned by two thousand Spaniards, besides Indians and Chinese, sent to drive their countrymen from the Moluccas and to reduce those islands to the dominion of Spain. On this news, they discharged all their prisoners, and made preparations to meet the Manilla fleet and to proceed to the assistance of their friends. They arrived on the 29th of March at Ternate, one of the principal islands of the group, where the Dutch possessed a trading-station. They were received with joy by their countrymen.Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and neighboring islands, in the service of the East India Company. A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the purpose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam. His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea; but the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day of his return, both as regards power and wealth,—the first resulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelligence.The Dutch East India Company held from the Government the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea,—all private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan on the west. This prohibition stimulated rather than checkedthe commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to attempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two ships were fitted out, the larger,—the Concord,—of three hundred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced for twenty-nine guns of small calibre; the Horn, of one hundred and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty-two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, receiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of Africa.On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade procured in this favored spot. They then made directly for thesouthwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Concord were startled by her receiving a violent blow upon her bottom, although no rock was visible. The color of the sea around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found in the ship's side, having passed through three of her planks and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most from the shock.Late in October, the ships' companies were informed of the design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. Early in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three hundred miles to the north of Magellan's Strait. Here the Horn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery. While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand, they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which they named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed between the two, and soon after rounded the promontory which advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being the first who passed completely round the South American continent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the strait which had brought them to the Cape,—one which clearly belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition. The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geographershaving consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of injustice.CAPE HORN.Altering their course to the northward, they soon recognised the mouth of Magellan's Strait,—which rendered their discovery complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schouten then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The currents and the winds would not permit him to land; and he was compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean without seeing any of the important islands which, just below the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few insignificant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this latitude.At one of these spots his men met an enemy more numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innumerable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship, so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island.THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry, tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord, together with what had been saved from the Horn; they received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar, as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They thensailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra—now Batavia—sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly terminates here; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten made several subsequent voyages to the East Indies, and died, in 1625, in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs the credit of improving upon Magellan's discovery by furnishing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait.During this same year, the English made their last attempt for nearly two centuries in the Arctic waters of America. William Baffin, who had accompanied Hudson in one of his earlier voyages, embarked in the capacity of pilot on board the Discovery,—a vessel bound for the northwest and commanded by one Robert Bylot. The crew consisted of fourteen men and two boys. Passing through Davis' Strait, they came to the vast bay which now bears Baffin's name. They found it to be eight hundred miles long and three hundred wide. They ascended to the north as far as the seventy-eighth degree of latitude, where the bay seemed to taper off in a strait or sound, which they called Thomas Smith's Sound. Here Baffin observed the greatest variation of the needle known at that time,—fifty-six degrees to the west. The charts of Baffin are lost; but several of his journals are extant, and contain numerous astronomical and hydrographic observations, which have since been fully verified by the superior instruments of modern science.Baffin saw the opening to the west which Ross, two centuries later, was to call Lancaster Sound, and through which Parry was to penetrate to Melville Island and to the Polar Sea. He was convinced that a northwest passage existed, though he never made a second voyage in search of it. For one hundred and sixty years, now, the Arctic waters of the American continent were left undisturbed by adventurers from Europe. Their icy coasts remained unvisited till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the energies of English navigators were roused into activity by the reward offered by Parliament,—twenty thousand pounds to him who should sail to China by the northwest.ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.Section V.FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION; 1616-1807.CHAPTER XXXV.A FAMOUS VESSEL—THE MAYFLOWER—HER APPEARANCE—THE SPEEDWELL—DEPARTURE OF THE TWO SHIPS—ALLEGED UNSEAWORTHINESS OF THE SPEEDWELL—THE MAYFLOWER SAILS ALONE—THE EQUINOCTIAL—CONSULTATIONS—A REMEDY APPLIED—FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY AND FATE OF THE MAYFLOWER.We have now to narrate the incidents of a voyage without precedent, in one point of view, in maritime annals, and to chronicle the adventures of a ship which may be safely said to have achieved a fame beyond that of any other that ever ploughed the ocean. When we mention the name of the Mayflower, in which the Pilgrim Fathers proceeded from Southampton Water to Plymouth Rock, we are sure that the distinction which we claim for this feeble vessel will be contested by none,—not even by those who would gladly accord the supremacy of the seas to the Nina of Columbus or the Vittoria of Magellan. The details of the voyage are few and unsatisfactory; but the vivid imagination of historians and orators has amply supplied their place.SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.The Mayflower was built in England, at a time when English commerce could bear no comparison with that of Holland, and when the trade with the latter power employed six hundred Dutch ships to one hundred of English build. They were picturesque in appearance, though tub-like and clumsy, the hull being broad-bottomed and capacious, while the lofty cabins, towering high both fore and aft,—a style now obsolete in Europe, but still prevailing in the Red Sea and the Levant,—caused them to roll heavily in rough water. The Mayflower was a high-sterned, quaint, but staunch little vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, and was built for one of the trading companies lately chartered by the Government. The Dutch portion of the emigration had already embarked at Delfthaven in the Speedwell, of sixty tons, and both vessels were, on the 1st of August, 1620, anchored before the old towers of Southampton. The pilgrims were then regularly organized for the voyage, being distributed according to rules laid down and accepted by all. The larger number were of course received on board the Mayflower. On the 5th of August, both vessels weighed anchor, and sailed down the beautiful estuary of SouthamptonWater: passing the Isle of Wight and the rocks known as the Needles, they entered the English Channel.They were no sooner launched upon the fretful waters of this confined strait than their disasters began. The captain of the Speedwell, who had engaged to remain a year abroad with the vessel, actuated either by cowardice or by dissatisfaction with the enterprise, declared that his ship was leaky, and that she could not proceed to sea. Dartmouth Harbor offered an opportunity for effecting the necessary repairs, and here a week was spent: the Speedwell was then pronounced quite sound by the carpenters and surveyors. They again set sail; but the captain of the Speedwell soon profited by the vicinity of Plymouth to assert a second time that he was ready to founder. He ran into port, and the Mayflower followed. No special cause was discovered for the apprehensions of the captain; but it was decided that the Speedwell should be sent back to London as unseaworthy, with such of her passengers as were disheartened, the remainder being transferred to the larger ship. One hundred and one persons—some of them aged and infirm, and several of them women soon to become mothers—were thus imprisoned, as it were, in a vessel much too small to accommodate them; while the delays resulting from the treachery or stratagem practised by the captain of the Speedwell had already proved so serious, that it was the 6th of September before the Mayflower, with her crowd of suffering passengers, could continue the voyage thus inauspiciously commenced.The wind was east by north, blowing, according to the journal, "a fine small gale," when the Mayflower started from Plymouth upon her lonely way. The solitude of the ocean—in this latitude almost a trackless waste—lay stretched out before them. The prosperous gale soon gave way to the equinoctial storm, and a terrible head-wind from the northwest compelled the little bark to struggle anxiously with waves which threatened to engulf her. She was soon sorely shattered: her upper workswere strained, and one of the main beams amidships was bent and cracked. A consultation was held between the seamen and passengers, and the question was seriously debated whether it would not be better to put back. It was fortunately discovered, however, that one of the Dutch pilgrims had accidentally brought on board a large iron screw, and this served to rivet the defective beam. The ship proceeded on her course, struggling with westerly gales and tempestuous seas. For whole days together she was compelled to lie to, or to scud with bare poles. "Methinks," says Everett, "I see the adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass; and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel." Only one death occurred during this terrible voyage,—a loss in numbers which was made good by the birth of a boy, to whom was given the name of Oceanus Hopkins.Sixty-four days had passed, and the 9th of November had dawned. Upon this date the tempest-tossed pilgrims obtained their first view of the American coast. "To the storm-ridden voyager," writes one of their descendants, "exhausted by confinement and suffering, the sight of any shore, however wild, thearomatic fragrance that blows from the land, are inexpressibly sweet and refreshing:Lovely seems any object that shall sweepAway the vast—salt—dread—eternal deep!And thus we find that the low sand-hills of Cape Cod, covered with scrubby woods that descended to the margin of the sea, seemed, at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the eyes of these poor sea-beaten wanderers."The orator and statesman from whom we have already quoted thus eloquently alludes to the providential circumstances attending the arrival of the Mayflower upon the American shore:—"Let us go up in imagination to yonder hill and look out upon the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible through the perspective glass on the waste of waters, is the fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown Harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver and gold,—for of them she has none,—but of courage, of patience, of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagination on this scene,—when I consider the condition of the Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through another gale,—when I survey the terrible front presented by our coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season,—I dare not call it a mere piece of good fortune that the general north and south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the destinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the sea-board, I feelmy spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones: they rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bulwark, around the Heaven-directed vessel. Yes! the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power in substantial manifestations, and gathers the meek company of his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand.""I see the pilgrims," he continues, "escaped from their perils, landed at last, after a two months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage,—without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, or disease, or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk—that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?"The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the home of the women and children during the severe winter of 1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage,—though she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th ofFebruary, her want of ballast—unladen as she was—rendering her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the calamities which had overtaken them,—for they had buried half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Winthrop's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very uncertain; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim celebrity from others of obscurer fame.THE COD.
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.CHAPTER XXXIII.QUIROS' THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT—HIS ARGUMENTS AND MEMORIALS—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—DISCOVERIES—ENCARNAÇION—SAGITTARIA, OR TAHITI—DESCRIPTION OF THESE ISLANDS—MANICOLO—ESPIRITU SANTO—ITS PRODUCTIONS AND INHABITANTS—QUIROS BEFORE THE KING OF SPAIN—HIS BELIEF IN HIS DISCOVERY OF A CONTINENT—HIS DISAPPOINTMENT—RENEWED SOLICITATIONS—DEATH OF QUIROS—DISCOVERIES OF TORRÈS—THE MUSCOVY COMPANY OF LONDON—HENRY HUDSON—HIS VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN AND NOVA ZEMBLA—HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA—CASTS ANCHOR AT SANDY HOOK—ASCENDS THE HUDSON RIVER AS FAR AS THE SITE OF ALBANY—HIS VOYAGE TO ICELAND AND HUDSON'S BAY—DISASTROUS WINTER—MUTINY—HUDSON SET ADRIFT—HIS DEATH.We have said, in a preceding chapter, that Pedro Fernandez de Quiros was the pilot of Mendana's second expedition. During the voyage he had reflected deeply upon the probability of the existence of a Southern continent: on his return to Peru, heasserted it, and devoted the remainder of his life to the prosecution of a plan of discovery. He was the first to bring forward scientific arguments in support of the theory,—one which, by the way, was destined to agitate and interest the world for two centuries, till its final overthrow by Cook. He presented two memorials to Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy, praying for ships, men, and other necessaries, with which "to plough up the waters of the unknown sea, and to seek out the undiscovered lands around the Antarctic Pole, the centre of that horizon." His arguments were many of them profound, and made a deep impression upon the viceroy, who replied, however, that Quiros' desires exceeded the limits of his authority. He nevertheless despatched him with strong recommendations to the court of Spain. Philip III. gave favorable attention to his projects, and ordered that Quiros should go in person upon an expedition "among these hidden provinces and severed regions,—an expedition destined to win souls to heaven and kingdoms to the crown of Spain." Quiros returned to Lima "with the most honorable schedules which had ever passed the Council of State." He presented his papers to the viceroy, and, forgetting the obstacles and discouragements he had met with during eleven years, entered on his new and arduous labors. He built three ships, and embarked on the 20th of December, 1605, holding his course west by south.One thousand leagues from Peru, he discovered a small island which he named Encarnaçion: to others, of little importance and uninhabited, he gave the names of Santelmo, St. Miguel, and Archangel: the tenth he called Dezena. On the 10th of February, 1606, land was seen from the topmast-head, and, to the joy of all, columns of smoke—an unmistakable sign that the land was inhabited—were perceived ascending at numerous points. A boat advanced to the surf, through which it seemed impossible to gain the shore. A young man, Francisco Ponce by name, stripped off his clothes, saying that, if they shouldthus turn their faces from the first danger which offered, there would be no hope of eventual success. He threw himself into the sea, and, after a fierce struggle with the receding waves, clambered up a rock to a spot where one hundred Indians were awaiting him. They seemed pleased with his resolution, and frequently kissed his forehead. Peace was made, and a safe anchorage was pointed out. The island thus discovered subsequently became, for many reasons, the most famous in the whole Pacific Ocean. Quiros called it Sagittaria; but it is now known as Tahiti or Otaheite. We shall have occasion hereafter to describe at length this lovely oasis in the desert of the waters.SCENE IN TAHITI.The fleet stayed here but two days, and then continued on its way. Quiros discovered several islands which have not been seen again from that time to this. To one of them he gave the name of Isla de la Gente Hermosa,—Island of Handsome People. Convinced that the mainland must be near, he kept on in searchof what he called the "mother of so many islands." At one named Taumaco he seized four natives to serve him as guides and interpreters, and carried them away. He has been much blamed for this act of treachery towards a people who treated him with kindness and hospitality. Three of the four jumped overboard during the two days following, and escaped to islands in the vicinity. The chief of the island where he had taken them had informed him that, if he would change his course from the west to the south, he would come to a large tract, fertile and inhabited, named Manicolo. Following this advice, he discovered the islands of Tucopia and Nuestra Señora de la Luz. It is doubtful whether either of these has been seen by subsequent navigators. On the 26th of April, he made a land which he took to be the continent of which he was in search, and to which he gave the name of Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. Bougainville and Cook, who arrived here a century and a half afterwards, thought themselves justified, by acquiring the certitude that it was a group of islands and not a continent, in christening them anew,—Bougainville naming them the Grandes Cyclades, and Cook the New Hebrides.Quiros has left an admirable picture of this fertile and delightful spot. "The rivers Jordan and Salvador," he says, "give no small beauty to their shores, for they are full of odoriferous flowers and plants. Pleasant and agreeable groves front the sea in every part: we mounted to the tops of mountains and perceived fertile valleys and rivers winding amongst green meadows. The whole is a country which, without doubt, has the advantage over those of America, and the best of the European will be well if it is equal. It is plenteous of various and delicious fruits, potatoes, yams, plantains, oranges, limes, sweet basil, nutmegs, and ebony, all of which, without the help of sickle, plough, or other artifice, it yields in every season. There are also cattle, birds of many kinds and of charming notes, honey-bees, parrots, doves, and partridges. The houses wherein the Indians live arethatched and low, and they of a black complexion. There are earthquakes,—sign of a mainland." The Spaniards found it impossible to make peace with the natives, and the few days which they spent there were passed in wrangling and bloodshed.The achievements and discoveries of Quiros properly end here. His ships were separated, and his own crew disabled by the effects of poisonous fish which they had eaten. He called a council of his officers, and asked their opinion upon a choice of courses,—a prosecution of the voyage to China, or a return to Mexico. The latter was decided upon. Quiros arrived at Acapulco nine months after his departure from Callao.He soon returned to Spain, where he presented a memorial to Philip III. upon the results of his voyage, and the advantage of further efforts in the same direction. His grand argument in favor of the theory that he had discovered an Austral continent was drawn from the statements of Pedro,—the only one of the four kidnapped savages of Taumaco who had remained on board. A subsequent memorial shows the fate with which all his representations to Philip met:—"I, Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, say that with this I have presented to your majesty eight memorials touching the country of Australia Incognita, without to this time any resolution being taken with me, nor any reply made me, nor hope given to assure me that I shall be despatched,—having now been fourteen months in this court, and having been fourteen years engaged in this cause without pay or any other advantage in view but the success of it alone; wherewith, and through infinite contradictions, I have gone by land and sea twenty-two thousand leagues, spending all my estate and incommoding my person, suffering so many and such terrible things that even to myself they appear incredible: and all this has come to pass, that this work of so much goodness and benevolence should not be abandoned. In whose name, and all for the love of God, I beg your majesty not to neglectthese innumerable benefits, which shall last as long as the world subsists, and then be eternal."Quiros then enters into a detailed description of the islands and the continent he had seen. Their extent, he said, was as much as that of Europe, Asia Minor, England, and Ireland. They had no such turbulent neighbors as the Turks or the Moors. The people were intelligent and capable of civilization. Bread grew upon the trees. The palm yielded spirits, vinegar, honey, whey, and toddy. The green cocoanut served instead of artichoke; when ripe, for meat and cream; and, when old, for oil, wax, and balsams. The shells furnished cups and bottles. The fibres afforded oakum, cordage, and the best slow match. The leaves furnished sails, matting, and thatch. The garden-stuffs of the country were pumpkins, parsley, "with intimation of beans." The flesh was hogs, fowls, capons, partridges, geese, turkeys, ringdoves, and goats, "with intimation of cows and buffaloes." The riches were silver, pearls, and gold. The spices were nutmegs, mace, pepper, and ginger, "with intimation of cinnamon and cloves." There was ebony, and infinite woods for ship-building. At daybreak the harmony of thousands of birds trembled upon the air,—nightingales, blackbirds, larks, goldfinches, and swallows,—besides the chirping of grasshoppers and crickets. Every morning and evening the breeze was laden with fragrant scents wafted from orange-flowers and sweet basil. This enthusiastic document concludes thus:—"I can show this in a company of mathematicians, that this land will presently accommodate and sustain two hundred thousand Spaniards. None of our men fell sick from over-work, or sweating, or getting wet. Fish and flesh kept sound two or more days. I saw neither sandy ground, nor thistles, nor prickly trees, nor mangrovy swamps, nor snow on the mountains, nor crocodiles in the rivers, nor ants in the dust, nor mosquitos in the night."Acquire, sire, since you can with a little money, which will be required but once,—acquire heaven, eternal fame, and thatnew world with all its promises. Order the galleons to be ready, sire; for I have many places to go to, and much to provide and to do. Let it be observed that in all I shall be found very submissive to reason, and will give satisfaction in every thing."These stirring appeals were disregarded by the feeble successor of Charles V.; and Quiros, who, though a Portuguese by birth, is often styled the last of the Spanish heroes, died at Panama on his way back to Lima.We mentioned the dispersion of Quiros' fleet after leaving Espiritu Santo. We must recur for a moment to this incident, in order to follow the ship of Luis Vaez de Torrès, the second in command. He proceeded on his voyage to the southwest, and saw enough of Espiritu Santo to convince him that it was not a continent. He would have circumnavigated it had the season permitted. Standing finally to the northward, he fell in with numerous islands rich in pearls and spices, and "coasted for eight hundred leagues along the southern shore of some land to him unknown." This can have been no other shore than that of Papua or New Guinea; and it is considered positive that he was the first European to see this since famous and remarkable island. He found this whole sea to be filled with groups of islands producing spices and the usual tropical fruits. He made his way to the Philippines, where he rendered an account of his adventures since his separation from Quiros.While these distinguished navigators were thus searching the regions lying about the equator, another adventurer, equally enterprising, was endeavoring to reach the Pole. Henry Hudson, a seaman renowned for his hardy and daring achievements, was appointed, in 1607, by the Muscovy Company of London, to the command of a vessel intended to penetrate to China by the Arctic seas to the north of Europe. His crew consisted of ten men and a boy. He advanced as far as Greenland, and returned by Spitzbergen,—being convinced that the ice formedan insurmountable barrier against farther progress. He again set out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zembla. The ice again stopped him, and he returned,—persuaded that the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful, he crossed the Atlantic to America. He coasted along the continent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the highlands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced a "good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in what is now the Lower Bay of New York. "What an event," says Everett, "in the history of American population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of that anchor at Sandy Hook!"HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK."Here he lingered a week," continues the same author, "in friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And now the great question:—Shall he turn back, or ascend the stream? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on both sides 'as beautiful a land as one could tread on;' the ship floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream,—the first thatever rested on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, Nature's dark basaltic Malakoff; forced the iron gateway of the Highlands; anchored on the 14th near West Point; swept around and upwards the following day, by grassy meadows and tangled slopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling villages, by elevated banks and woody heights, the destined sites of towns and cities,—of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; on the evening of the 15th arrived 'opposite the mountains which rise from the river's side,' where he found 'a very loving people and very old men;' and, the day following, sailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between Schodac and Castleton; and here he landed and passed a day with the natives, greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality,—the land 'the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on.' On the following morning, with the early flood-tide, the Half-Moon ran higher up, and came to anchor in deep water, near the site of the present city of Albany. Happy if he could have closed his gallant career on the banks of the stream which so justly bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mysterious catastrophe which awaited him the next year."He soon after returned to England; and, not being discouraged, nor finding it difficult to obtain the means of continuing his maritime adventures, he set sail, in 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five tons' burden, manned by twenty-three men and victualled for six months. He touched at the Orkneys and anchored at Iceland. Mount Hecla revealed to him the magnificence of a volcano in travail, and the Hot Springs obligingly cooked his food. He passed Greenland, where the sun set in the north. In the course of June and July, he passed to the northward of Labrador, and followed the strait which now bears his name. In spite of ice and disturbances among his crew, which at times assumed the character of a mutiny, he pushed on into the great inland sea known as Hudson's Bay. For a long time he did not know that it was a bay, and naturally was led to hope that he was on the pointof attaining the object of all his efforts,—a passage by the northwest to China. The extent of its surface amply justified him in these expectations, for it is the largest inland sea in the world, with the exception of the Mediterranean.On the 1st of November, after seeking winter quarters, his men found a suitable spot for beaching their vessel. Ten days afterwards, they were frozen in, with provisions hardly sufficient to last, upon the most meagre allowance, till they could expect a release from the ice. A reward was offered to those who added to the general stock by catching either birds or fish, or animals serviceable for food. A house was built; but the season was so far advanced that it could not be rendered fit to dwell in. The winter was severe, and the men lived at first upon partridges, then upon swans and teal, and finally upon moss and frogs. They assuaged the pain of their frozen limbs by applying to them a hot decoction made from buds containing a balsam-like substance resembling turpentine. Towards spring, they obtained furs from the natives, in exchange for hatchets, glass, and buttons.When the ice broke up, they prepared to return,—the last ration of bread being exhausted on the day of their departure. A report was circulated among the crew that Hudson had concealed a quantity of bread for his own use, and a mutiny, fomented by a man named Green, broke out on the 21st of June. Hudson was seized and his hands bound. Together with the sick, and those whom the frost had deprived of the use of their limbs, he was put into the shallop and set adrift. Neither he, nor the boat, nor any of its crew, were ever heard of again.The wretched mutineers made the best of their way home in the ship they had thus foully obtained. Not one of the ringleaders lived to reach the land. The rest, after suffering the most awful extremities of famine, finally gained the shore.
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.
QUIROS' THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT—HIS ARGUMENTS AND MEMORIALS—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—DISCOVERIES—ENCARNAÇION—SAGITTARIA, OR TAHITI—DESCRIPTION OF THESE ISLANDS—MANICOLO—ESPIRITU SANTO—ITS PRODUCTIONS AND INHABITANTS—QUIROS BEFORE THE KING OF SPAIN—HIS BELIEF IN HIS DISCOVERY OF A CONTINENT—HIS DISAPPOINTMENT—RENEWED SOLICITATIONS—DEATH OF QUIROS—DISCOVERIES OF TORRÈS—THE MUSCOVY COMPANY OF LONDON—HENRY HUDSON—HIS VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN AND NOVA ZEMBLA—HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA—CASTS ANCHOR AT SANDY HOOK—ASCENDS THE HUDSON RIVER AS FAR AS THE SITE OF ALBANY—HIS VOYAGE TO ICELAND AND HUDSON'S BAY—DISASTROUS WINTER—MUTINY—HUDSON SET ADRIFT—HIS DEATH.
We have said, in a preceding chapter, that Pedro Fernandez de Quiros was the pilot of Mendana's second expedition. During the voyage he had reflected deeply upon the probability of the existence of a Southern continent: on his return to Peru, heasserted it, and devoted the remainder of his life to the prosecution of a plan of discovery. He was the first to bring forward scientific arguments in support of the theory,—one which, by the way, was destined to agitate and interest the world for two centuries, till its final overthrow by Cook. He presented two memorials to Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy, praying for ships, men, and other necessaries, with which "to plough up the waters of the unknown sea, and to seek out the undiscovered lands around the Antarctic Pole, the centre of that horizon." His arguments were many of them profound, and made a deep impression upon the viceroy, who replied, however, that Quiros' desires exceeded the limits of his authority. He nevertheless despatched him with strong recommendations to the court of Spain. Philip III. gave favorable attention to his projects, and ordered that Quiros should go in person upon an expedition "among these hidden provinces and severed regions,—an expedition destined to win souls to heaven and kingdoms to the crown of Spain." Quiros returned to Lima "with the most honorable schedules which had ever passed the Council of State." He presented his papers to the viceroy, and, forgetting the obstacles and discouragements he had met with during eleven years, entered on his new and arduous labors. He built three ships, and embarked on the 20th of December, 1605, holding his course west by south.
One thousand leagues from Peru, he discovered a small island which he named Encarnaçion: to others, of little importance and uninhabited, he gave the names of Santelmo, St. Miguel, and Archangel: the tenth he called Dezena. On the 10th of February, 1606, land was seen from the topmast-head, and, to the joy of all, columns of smoke—an unmistakable sign that the land was inhabited—were perceived ascending at numerous points. A boat advanced to the surf, through which it seemed impossible to gain the shore. A young man, Francisco Ponce by name, stripped off his clothes, saying that, if they shouldthus turn their faces from the first danger which offered, there would be no hope of eventual success. He threw himself into the sea, and, after a fierce struggle with the receding waves, clambered up a rock to a spot where one hundred Indians were awaiting him. They seemed pleased with his resolution, and frequently kissed his forehead. Peace was made, and a safe anchorage was pointed out. The island thus discovered subsequently became, for many reasons, the most famous in the whole Pacific Ocean. Quiros called it Sagittaria; but it is now known as Tahiti or Otaheite. We shall have occasion hereafter to describe at length this lovely oasis in the desert of the waters.
SCENE IN TAHITI.
SCENE IN TAHITI.
SCENE IN TAHITI.
The fleet stayed here but two days, and then continued on its way. Quiros discovered several islands which have not been seen again from that time to this. To one of them he gave the name of Isla de la Gente Hermosa,—Island of Handsome People. Convinced that the mainland must be near, he kept on in searchof what he called the "mother of so many islands." At one named Taumaco he seized four natives to serve him as guides and interpreters, and carried them away. He has been much blamed for this act of treachery towards a people who treated him with kindness and hospitality. Three of the four jumped overboard during the two days following, and escaped to islands in the vicinity. The chief of the island where he had taken them had informed him that, if he would change his course from the west to the south, he would come to a large tract, fertile and inhabited, named Manicolo. Following this advice, he discovered the islands of Tucopia and Nuestra Señora de la Luz. It is doubtful whether either of these has been seen by subsequent navigators. On the 26th of April, he made a land which he took to be the continent of which he was in search, and to which he gave the name of Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. Bougainville and Cook, who arrived here a century and a half afterwards, thought themselves justified, by acquiring the certitude that it was a group of islands and not a continent, in christening them anew,—Bougainville naming them the Grandes Cyclades, and Cook the New Hebrides.
Quiros has left an admirable picture of this fertile and delightful spot. "The rivers Jordan and Salvador," he says, "give no small beauty to their shores, for they are full of odoriferous flowers and plants. Pleasant and agreeable groves front the sea in every part: we mounted to the tops of mountains and perceived fertile valleys and rivers winding amongst green meadows. The whole is a country which, without doubt, has the advantage over those of America, and the best of the European will be well if it is equal. It is plenteous of various and delicious fruits, potatoes, yams, plantains, oranges, limes, sweet basil, nutmegs, and ebony, all of which, without the help of sickle, plough, or other artifice, it yields in every season. There are also cattle, birds of many kinds and of charming notes, honey-bees, parrots, doves, and partridges. The houses wherein the Indians live arethatched and low, and they of a black complexion. There are earthquakes,—sign of a mainland." The Spaniards found it impossible to make peace with the natives, and the few days which they spent there were passed in wrangling and bloodshed.
The achievements and discoveries of Quiros properly end here. His ships were separated, and his own crew disabled by the effects of poisonous fish which they had eaten. He called a council of his officers, and asked their opinion upon a choice of courses,—a prosecution of the voyage to China, or a return to Mexico. The latter was decided upon. Quiros arrived at Acapulco nine months after his departure from Callao.
He soon returned to Spain, where he presented a memorial to Philip III. upon the results of his voyage, and the advantage of further efforts in the same direction. His grand argument in favor of the theory that he had discovered an Austral continent was drawn from the statements of Pedro,—the only one of the four kidnapped savages of Taumaco who had remained on board. A subsequent memorial shows the fate with which all his representations to Philip met:—"I, Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, say that with this I have presented to your majesty eight memorials touching the country of Australia Incognita, without to this time any resolution being taken with me, nor any reply made me, nor hope given to assure me that I shall be despatched,—having now been fourteen months in this court, and having been fourteen years engaged in this cause without pay or any other advantage in view but the success of it alone; wherewith, and through infinite contradictions, I have gone by land and sea twenty-two thousand leagues, spending all my estate and incommoding my person, suffering so many and such terrible things that even to myself they appear incredible: and all this has come to pass, that this work of so much goodness and benevolence should not be abandoned. In whose name, and all for the love of God, I beg your majesty not to neglectthese innumerable benefits, which shall last as long as the world subsists, and then be eternal."
Quiros then enters into a detailed description of the islands and the continent he had seen. Their extent, he said, was as much as that of Europe, Asia Minor, England, and Ireland. They had no such turbulent neighbors as the Turks or the Moors. The people were intelligent and capable of civilization. Bread grew upon the trees. The palm yielded spirits, vinegar, honey, whey, and toddy. The green cocoanut served instead of artichoke; when ripe, for meat and cream; and, when old, for oil, wax, and balsams. The shells furnished cups and bottles. The fibres afforded oakum, cordage, and the best slow match. The leaves furnished sails, matting, and thatch. The garden-stuffs of the country were pumpkins, parsley, "with intimation of beans." The flesh was hogs, fowls, capons, partridges, geese, turkeys, ringdoves, and goats, "with intimation of cows and buffaloes." The riches were silver, pearls, and gold. The spices were nutmegs, mace, pepper, and ginger, "with intimation of cinnamon and cloves." There was ebony, and infinite woods for ship-building. At daybreak the harmony of thousands of birds trembled upon the air,—nightingales, blackbirds, larks, goldfinches, and swallows,—besides the chirping of grasshoppers and crickets. Every morning and evening the breeze was laden with fragrant scents wafted from orange-flowers and sweet basil. This enthusiastic document concludes thus:—"I can show this in a company of mathematicians, that this land will presently accommodate and sustain two hundred thousand Spaniards. None of our men fell sick from over-work, or sweating, or getting wet. Fish and flesh kept sound two or more days. I saw neither sandy ground, nor thistles, nor prickly trees, nor mangrovy swamps, nor snow on the mountains, nor crocodiles in the rivers, nor ants in the dust, nor mosquitos in the night.
"Acquire, sire, since you can with a little money, which will be required but once,—acquire heaven, eternal fame, and thatnew world with all its promises. Order the galleons to be ready, sire; for I have many places to go to, and much to provide and to do. Let it be observed that in all I shall be found very submissive to reason, and will give satisfaction in every thing."
These stirring appeals were disregarded by the feeble successor of Charles V.; and Quiros, who, though a Portuguese by birth, is often styled the last of the Spanish heroes, died at Panama on his way back to Lima.
We mentioned the dispersion of Quiros' fleet after leaving Espiritu Santo. We must recur for a moment to this incident, in order to follow the ship of Luis Vaez de Torrès, the second in command. He proceeded on his voyage to the southwest, and saw enough of Espiritu Santo to convince him that it was not a continent. He would have circumnavigated it had the season permitted. Standing finally to the northward, he fell in with numerous islands rich in pearls and spices, and "coasted for eight hundred leagues along the southern shore of some land to him unknown." This can have been no other shore than that of Papua or New Guinea; and it is considered positive that he was the first European to see this since famous and remarkable island. He found this whole sea to be filled with groups of islands producing spices and the usual tropical fruits. He made his way to the Philippines, where he rendered an account of his adventures since his separation from Quiros.
While these distinguished navigators were thus searching the regions lying about the equator, another adventurer, equally enterprising, was endeavoring to reach the Pole. Henry Hudson, a seaman renowned for his hardy and daring achievements, was appointed, in 1607, by the Muscovy Company of London, to the command of a vessel intended to penetrate to China by the Arctic seas to the north of Europe. His crew consisted of ten men and a boy. He advanced as far as Greenland, and returned by Spitzbergen,—being convinced that the ice formedan insurmountable barrier against farther progress. He again set out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zembla. The ice again stopped him, and he returned,—persuaded that the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful, he crossed the Atlantic to America. He coasted along the continent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the highlands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced a "good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in what is now the Lower Bay of New York. "What an event," says Everett, "in the history of American population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of that anchor at Sandy Hook!"
HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK.
HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK.
HUDSON'S VESSEL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANDY HOOK.
"Here he lingered a week," continues the same author, "in friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And now the great question:—Shall he turn back, or ascend the stream? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on both sides 'as beautiful a land as one could tread on;' the ship floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream,—the first thatever rested on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, Nature's dark basaltic Malakoff; forced the iron gateway of the Highlands; anchored on the 14th near West Point; swept around and upwards the following day, by grassy meadows and tangled slopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling villages, by elevated banks and woody heights, the destined sites of towns and cities,—of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; on the evening of the 15th arrived 'opposite the mountains which rise from the river's side,' where he found 'a very loving people and very old men;' and, the day following, sailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between Schodac and Castleton; and here he landed and passed a day with the natives, greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality,—the land 'the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on.' On the following morning, with the early flood-tide, the Half-Moon ran higher up, and came to anchor in deep water, near the site of the present city of Albany. Happy if he could have closed his gallant career on the banks of the stream which so justly bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mysterious catastrophe which awaited him the next year."
He soon after returned to England; and, not being discouraged, nor finding it difficult to obtain the means of continuing his maritime adventures, he set sail, in 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five tons' burden, manned by twenty-three men and victualled for six months. He touched at the Orkneys and anchored at Iceland. Mount Hecla revealed to him the magnificence of a volcano in travail, and the Hot Springs obligingly cooked his food. He passed Greenland, where the sun set in the north. In the course of June and July, he passed to the northward of Labrador, and followed the strait which now bears his name. In spite of ice and disturbances among his crew, which at times assumed the character of a mutiny, he pushed on into the great inland sea known as Hudson's Bay. For a long time he did not know that it was a bay, and naturally was led to hope that he was on the pointof attaining the object of all his efforts,—a passage by the northwest to China. The extent of its surface amply justified him in these expectations, for it is the largest inland sea in the world, with the exception of the Mediterranean.
On the 1st of November, after seeking winter quarters, his men found a suitable spot for beaching their vessel. Ten days afterwards, they were frozen in, with provisions hardly sufficient to last, upon the most meagre allowance, till they could expect a release from the ice. A reward was offered to those who added to the general stock by catching either birds or fish, or animals serviceable for food. A house was built; but the season was so far advanced that it could not be rendered fit to dwell in. The winter was severe, and the men lived at first upon partridges, then upon swans and teal, and finally upon moss and frogs. They assuaged the pain of their frozen limbs by applying to them a hot decoction made from buds containing a balsam-like substance resembling turpentine. Towards spring, they obtained furs from the natives, in exchange for hatchets, glass, and buttons.
When the ice broke up, they prepared to return,—the last ration of bread being exhausted on the day of their departure. A report was circulated among the crew that Hudson had concealed a quantity of bread for his own use, and a mutiny, fomented by a man named Green, broke out on the 21st of June. Hudson was seized and his hands bound. Together with the sick, and those whom the frost had deprived of the use of their limbs, he was put into the shallop and set adrift. Neither he, nor the boat, nor any of its crew, were ever heard of again.
The wretched mutineers made the best of their way home in the ship they had thus foully obtained. Not one of the ringleaders lived to reach the land. The rest, after suffering the most awful extremities of famine, finally gained the shore.
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.CHAPTER XXXIV.THE FLEET OF JORIS SPILBERGEN—ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL—ADVENTURES IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—TRADE AT MOCHA ISLAND—TREACHERY AT SANTA MARIA—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS—RAVAGES OF THE COAST—SKIRMISHES UPON THE LAND—SPILBERGEN SAILS FOR MANILLA—ARRIVAL AT TERNATE—HIS RETURN HOME—THE VOYAGE OF SCHOUTEN AND LEMAIRE—LEMONADE AT SIERRA LEONE—A COLLISION AT SEA—DISCOVERY OF STATEN LAND—CAPE HORN—LEMAIRE'S STRAIT—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—CONFISCATION OF THE SHIPS—GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE—THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM BAFFIN—ARCTIC RESEARCHES DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.We have said, in a former chapter, that the Dutch succeeded the Portuguese in the possession of the East Indies. During the struggle between these two powers for supremacy over the Spice Islands, the Dutch East India Company resolved to make a vigorous effort to reach the Moluccas by the Strait of Magellan.They equipped a fleet of six ships, for the purpose of exploring a new route. These vessels were named the Great Sun, the Half-Moon, the Morning Star, the Huntsman, and the Sea Mew, and were placed under the command of Joris Spilbergen as admiral, who had already conducted a Dutch fleet to the Indies. He received his commission from their Mightinesses the States-General. He sailed from the Texel on the 8th of August, 1614.While upon the South American coast, a mutiny broke out in the Sea Mew, and the two ringleaders were condemned to be cast into the sea,—a sentence which was rigorously executed. They entered the Strait of Magellan on the 28th of February, 1615, but were forced out again by adverse currents. They entered again on the 2d of April, and saw men of gigantic stature upon the hills, dead bodies wrapped in the skins of penguins, and shrubs producing sweet blackberries. The mountains were covered with snow, yet the woods were filled with parrots. Water-cresses, and a tree whose bark had a biting taste, induced them to give to an inlet the name of Pepper Haven. The natives bartered ornaments of mother-of-pearl for knives and wine. The vessels entered the South Sea on the 6th of May, and on the 25th anchored off Mocha Island, half a league from the coast of Chili.The natives were delighted to learn that the strangers were the enemies of the Spaniards their oppressors, and to see that their ships were so large and well armed. The chief of the island visited the admiral's ship and remained his guest all night. A hatchet was the price fixed upon for two fat sheep; and a hundred were obtained at this rate. The natives would not permit the Dutch to see their women, and at last, when they had disposed of all the provisions and live stock they had to spare, made signs for them to re-enter their ships and depart, with which reasonable request Spilbergen at once complied.On the 29th, the vessels anchored off the island of SantaMaria, and, though there were Spaniards upon it, negotiations were opened. The Dutch officers were invited by a Spaniard to dine on shore, and, having accepted and assembled for the purpose, were either led to suspect treachery, or were convinced that they were strong enough to help themselves without negotiation. They summoned soldiers from the ships, burned a number of houses, and carried off five hundred sheep. The Spaniard who was to have been their host, but who was now their prisoner, informed them that the Viceroy of Peru had been for some months aware of their approach, and that a strong force was prepared at Lima to attack them. Spilbergen determined to go in search of the Spanish fleet: the gunners were ordered to have every thing in readiness for battle, and military regulations were promulgated,—every one, from the admiral to the swabs, being determined to do or die. One of the orders was that "during the action the decks were to be continually wetted, that accidents might not happen from ignited powder."At Concepçion, the Dutch landed and set fire to a number of houses; at Valparaiso, the Spaniards burned one of their own vessels, that she might not fall into the enemy's hands. At Arica—the seaport to which the Potosi silver was brought to be shipped to Panama—they took a small ship laden with treasure. On the evening of the 16th of July, the Spanish fleet, of eight sail, appeared in sight. The Jesu Maria, the flag-ship, had no less than four hundred and sixty men, and mounted twenty-four guns; and the whole squadron were in the same proportion better provided with men than artillery. Don Rodrigo de Mendoça was the commander. He insisted upon an immediate attack by night, saying that "any two of his ships could take all England, and much more these hens of Holland, who must be spent and wasted by so long a voyage." About ten at night, the Spanish admiral and the Dutch admiral closed,—the Jesu Maria and the Great Sun. They hailed each other, and some conversation passed before a shot was fired. The attack was then commenced bythe musketry, seconded by the great guns. The ships of both fleets came up in succession and joined battle. The pomp and circumstance of war were not neglected, for the braying of the cannon was accompanied by the sounding of tambours and trumpets. The Spanish San Francisco received a broadside which the Great Sun could spare from the Jesu Maria, and soon after went to the bottom. The Sun sent out one of her boats for a rescue; but it was mistaken by the Huntsman for an enemy's boat, and was blown out of the water by a cannon-shot. The night becoming very dark, the fleets were gradually separated. The next morning five of the Spanish ships sent word to their admiral that they were going to escape if they could. The Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were lashed together for mutual support, and were, in this condition, attacked by the Great Sun and the Half-Moon. The Spanish seamen several times hung out a white flag in token of surrender, which was as often cut down by their officers, who chose rather to die than yield, especially as they had sworn to the Viceroy of Peru to bring him all the Hollanders in chains. At nightfall, the Jesu Maria cut herself loose and fled from pursuit; but her leaks and damages were so serious that she went to the bottom before dawn. This decided the victory in favor of the Dutch, who are accused of allowing many of the enemy to drown who might easily have been saved.The victorious fleet sailed directly for Callao; but the Spanish shipping in the port was so well protected by batteries that it was not thought prudent to attack them. Soon after, a vessel laden with salt and sugar was captured and the cargo distributed. The town of Paita was plundered and burned. No money or treasure is mentioned among the booty. Keeping a sharp watch for the fleet of Panama, which the Dutch did not care to meet or engage, they proceeded to the north, and, on the 11th of October, entered the harbor of Acapulco, in Mexico or New Spain. Negotiations were entered into and a treaty was made, the Dutch agreeing to release all their prisoners, and the Spanish to furnish them with oxen, sheep, poultry, fruit, water, and wood. Thus the Spaniards saved their town at a small expense, and the Dutch found refreshments which they could have obtained in no other way.CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS.On the 10th of November, they anchored at the mouth of a river reported by their prisoners to abound in fish, while its banks produced citron and other fruit trees. Boats were sent to examine it. The Dutch noticed that the footprints upon the shore were the prints of shoes, and not of feet as Nature made them. Suspecting, therefore, the presence of Spaniards, they did not disembark, but returned to the ship. The next day the admiral landed with two hundred men, and was at once attacked by a strong body of Spaniards concealed in the woods. The latter were repulsed with loss, but Spilbergen withdrew his men to the ships, as his ammunition was nearly exhausted.THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS.On the 2d of December, the fleet left the American coast and directed their course west by south for the Ladrone Islands. The next year—1616—was ushered in with distempers that proved fatal to many of the seamen. On the 23d of January, they came in sight of the Ladrones, where they stopped two days to traffic with the natives for flesh, fish, fruit, and fowl. The savages were, as usual, treacherous and given to thieving, and at times required the chastisement of powder and ball. The fleet touched at the Philippines early in February, but the Indiansrefused to trade with them, as they were enemies of the Spaniards. They entered the Straits of Manilla, and anchored before the island of Mirabelles, remarkable for two rocks which tower to a vast height into the air. The Dutch took several barks laden with the tribute of numerous adjacent places to the city of Manilla. They gained intelligence of a fleet of twelve ships and four galleys, manned by two thousand Spaniards, besides Indians and Chinese, sent to drive their countrymen from the Moluccas and to reduce those islands to the dominion of Spain. On this news, they discharged all their prisoners, and made preparations to meet the Manilla fleet and to proceed to the assistance of their friends. They arrived on the 29th of March at Ternate, one of the principal islands of the group, where the Dutch possessed a trading-station. They were received with joy by their countrymen.Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and neighboring islands, in the service of the East India Company. A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the purpose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam. His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea; but the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day of his return, both as regards power and wealth,—the first resulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelligence.The Dutch East India Company held from the Government the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea,—all private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan on the west. This prohibition stimulated rather than checkedthe commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to attempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two ships were fitted out, the larger,—the Concord,—of three hundred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced for twenty-nine guns of small calibre; the Horn, of one hundred and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty-two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, receiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of Africa.On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade procured in this favored spot. They then made directly for thesouthwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Concord were startled by her receiving a violent blow upon her bottom, although no rock was visible. The color of the sea around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found in the ship's side, having passed through three of her planks and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most from the shock.Late in October, the ships' companies were informed of the design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. Early in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three hundred miles to the north of Magellan's Strait. Here the Horn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery. While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand, they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which they named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed between the two, and soon after rounded the promontory which advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being the first who passed completely round the South American continent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the strait which had brought them to the Cape,—one which clearly belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition. The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geographershaving consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of injustice.CAPE HORN.Altering their course to the northward, they soon recognised the mouth of Magellan's Strait,—which rendered their discovery complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schouten then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The currents and the winds would not permit him to land; and he was compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean without seeing any of the important islands which, just below the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few insignificant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this latitude.At one of these spots his men met an enemy more numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innumerable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship, so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island.THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry, tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord, together with what had been saved from the Horn; they received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar, as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They thensailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra—now Batavia—sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly terminates here; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten made several subsequent voyages to the East Indies, and died, in 1625, in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs the credit of improving upon Magellan's discovery by furnishing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait.During this same year, the English made their last attempt for nearly two centuries in the Arctic waters of America. William Baffin, who had accompanied Hudson in one of his earlier voyages, embarked in the capacity of pilot on board the Discovery,—a vessel bound for the northwest and commanded by one Robert Bylot. The crew consisted of fourteen men and two boys. Passing through Davis' Strait, they came to the vast bay which now bears Baffin's name. They found it to be eight hundred miles long and three hundred wide. They ascended to the north as far as the seventy-eighth degree of latitude, where the bay seemed to taper off in a strait or sound, which they called Thomas Smith's Sound. Here Baffin observed the greatest variation of the needle known at that time,—fifty-six degrees to the west. The charts of Baffin are lost; but several of his journals are extant, and contain numerous astronomical and hydrographic observations, which have since been fully verified by the superior instruments of modern science.Baffin saw the opening to the west which Ross, two centuries later, was to call Lancaster Sound, and through which Parry was to penetrate to Melville Island and to the Polar Sea. He was convinced that a northwest passage existed, though he never made a second voyage in search of it. For one hundred and sixty years, now, the Arctic waters of the American continent were left undisturbed by adventurers from Europe. Their icy coasts remained unvisited till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the energies of English navigators were roused into activity by the reward offered by Parliament,—twenty thousand pounds to him who should sail to China by the northwest.ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.
THE FLEET OF JORIS SPILBERGEN—ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL—ADVENTURES IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—TRADE AT MOCHA ISLAND—TREACHERY AT SANTA MARIA—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS—RAVAGES OF THE COAST—SKIRMISHES UPON THE LAND—SPILBERGEN SAILS FOR MANILLA—ARRIVAL AT TERNATE—HIS RETURN HOME—THE VOYAGE OF SCHOUTEN AND LEMAIRE—LEMONADE AT SIERRA LEONE—A COLLISION AT SEA—DISCOVERY OF STATEN LAND—CAPE HORN—LEMAIRE'S STRAIT—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—CONFISCATION OF THE SHIPS—GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE—THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM BAFFIN—ARCTIC RESEARCHES DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
We have said, in a former chapter, that the Dutch succeeded the Portuguese in the possession of the East Indies. During the struggle between these two powers for supremacy over the Spice Islands, the Dutch East India Company resolved to make a vigorous effort to reach the Moluccas by the Strait of Magellan.They equipped a fleet of six ships, for the purpose of exploring a new route. These vessels were named the Great Sun, the Half-Moon, the Morning Star, the Huntsman, and the Sea Mew, and were placed under the command of Joris Spilbergen as admiral, who had already conducted a Dutch fleet to the Indies. He received his commission from their Mightinesses the States-General. He sailed from the Texel on the 8th of August, 1614.
While upon the South American coast, a mutiny broke out in the Sea Mew, and the two ringleaders were condemned to be cast into the sea,—a sentence which was rigorously executed. They entered the Strait of Magellan on the 28th of February, 1615, but were forced out again by adverse currents. They entered again on the 2d of April, and saw men of gigantic stature upon the hills, dead bodies wrapped in the skins of penguins, and shrubs producing sweet blackberries. The mountains were covered with snow, yet the woods were filled with parrots. Water-cresses, and a tree whose bark had a biting taste, induced them to give to an inlet the name of Pepper Haven. The natives bartered ornaments of mother-of-pearl for knives and wine. The vessels entered the South Sea on the 6th of May, and on the 25th anchored off Mocha Island, half a league from the coast of Chili.
The natives were delighted to learn that the strangers were the enemies of the Spaniards their oppressors, and to see that their ships were so large and well armed. The chief of the island visited the admiral's ship and remained his guest all night. A hatchet was the price fixed upon for two fat sheep; and a hundred were obtained at this rate. The natives would not permit the Dutch to see their women, and at last, when they had disposed of all the provisions and live stock they had to spare, made signs for them to re-enter their ships and depart, with which reasonable request Spilbergen at once complied.
On the 29th, the vessels anchored off the island of SantaMaria, and, though there were Spaniards upon it, negotiations were opened. The Dutch officers were invited by a Spaniard to dine on shore, and, having accepted and assembled for the purpose, were either led to suspect treachery, or were convinced that they were strong enough to help themselves without negotiation. They summoned soldiers from the ships, burned a number of houses, and carried off five hundred sheep. The Spaniard who was to have been their host, but who was now their prisoner, informed them that the Viceroy of Peru had been for some months aware of their approach, and that a strong force was prepared at Lima to attack them. Spilbergen determined to go in search of the Spanish fleet: the gunners were ordered to have every thing in readiness for battle, and military regulations were promulgated,—every one, from the admiral to the swabs, being determined to do or die. One of the orders was that "during the action the decks were to be continually wetted, that accidents might not happen from ignited powder."
At Concepçion, the Dutch landed and set fire to a number of houses; at Valparaiso, the Spaniards burned one of their own vessels, that she might not fall into the enemy's hands. At Arica—the seaport to which the Potosi silver was brought to be shipped to Panama—they took a small ship laden with treasure. On the evening of the 16th of July, the Spanish fleet, of eight sail, appeared in sight. The Jesu Maria, the flag-ship, had no less than four hundred and sixty men, and mounted twenty-four guns; and the whole squadron were in the same proportion better provided with men than artillery. Don Rodrigo de Mendoça was the commander. He insisted upon an immediate attack by night, saying that "any two of his ships could take all England, and much more these hens of Holland, who must be spent and wasted by so long a voyage." About ten at night, the Spanish admiral and the Dutch admiral closed,—the Jesu Maria and the Great Sun. They hailed each other, and some conversation passed before a shot was fired. The attack was then commenced bythe musketry, seconded by the great guns. The ships of both fleets came up in succession and joined battle. The pomp and circumstance of war were not neglected, for the braying of the cannon was accompanied by the sounding of tambours and trumpets. The Spanish San Francisco received a broadside which the Great Sun could spare from the Jesu Maria, and soon after went to the bottom. The Sun sent out one of her boats for a rescue; but it was mistaken by the Huntsman for an enemy's boat, and was blown out of the water by a cannon-shot. The night becoming very dark, the fleets were gradually separated. The next morning five of the Spanish ships sent word to their admiral that they were going to escape if they could. The Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were lashed together for mutual support, and were, in this condition, attacked by the Great Sun and the Half-Moon. The Spanish seamen several times hung out a white flag in token of surrender, which was as often cut down by their officers, who chose rather to die than yield, especially as they had sworn to the Viceroy of Peru to bring him all the Hollanders in chains. At nightfall, the Jesu Maria cut herself loose and fled from pursuit; but her leaks and damages were so serious that she went to the bottom before dawn. This decided the victory in favor of the Dutch, who are accused of allowing many of the enemy to drown who might easily have been saved.
The victorious fleet sailed directly for Callao; but the Spanish shipping in the port was so well protected by batteries that it was not thought prudent to attack them. Soon after, a vessel laden with salt and sugar was captured and the cargo distributed. The town of Paita was plundered and burned. No money or treasure is mentioned among the booty. Keeping a sharp watch for the fleet of Panama, which the Dutch did not care to meet or engage, they proceeded to the north, and, on the 11th of October, entered the harbor of Acapulco, in Mexico or New Spain. Negotiations were entered into and a treaty was made, the Dutch agreeing to release all their prisoners, and the Spanish to furnish them with oxen, sheep, poultry, fruit, water, and wood. Thus the Spaniards saved their town at a small expense, and the Dutch found refreshments which they could have obtained in no other way.
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS.
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS.
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS.
On the 10th of November, they anchored at the mouth of a river reported by their prisoners to abound in fish, while its banks produced citron and other fruit trees. Boats were sent to examine it. The Dutch noticed that the footprints upon the shore were the prints of shoes, and not of feet as Nature made them. Suspecting, therefore, the presence of Spaniards, they did not disembark, but returned to the ship. The next day the admiral landed with two hundred men, and was at once attacked by a strong body of Spaniards concealed in the woods. The latter were repulsed with loss, but Spilbergen withdrew his men to the ships, as his ammunition was nearly exhausted.
THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS.
THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS.
THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS.
On the 2d of December, the fleet left the American coast and directed their course west by south for the Ladrone Islands. The next year—1616—was ushered in with distempers that proved fatal to many of the seamen. On the 23d of January, they came in sight of the Ladrones, where they stopped two days to traffic with the natives for flesh, fish, fruit, and fowl. The savages were, as usual, treacherous and given to thieving, and at times required the chastisement of powder and ball. The fleet touched at the Philippines early in February, but the Indiansrefused to trade with them, as they were enemies of the Spaniards. They entered the Straits of Manilla, and anchored before the island of Mirabelles, remarkable for two rocks which tower to a vast height into the air. The Dutch took several barks laden with the tribute of numerous adjacent places to the city of Manilla. They gained intelligence of a fleet of twelve ships and four galleys, manned by two thousand Spaniards, besides Indians and Chinese, sent to drive their countrymen from the Moluccas and to reduce those islands to the dominion of Spain. On this news, they discharged all their prisoners, and made preparations to meet the Manilla fleet and to proceed to the assistance of their friends. They arrived on the 29th of March at Ternate, one of the principal islands of the group, where the Dutch possessed a trading-station. They were received with joy by their countrymen.
Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and neighboring islands, in the service of the East India Company. A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the purpose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam. His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea; but the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day of his return, both as regards power and wealth,—the first resulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelligence.
The Dutch East India Company held from the Government the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea,—all private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan on the west. This prohibition stimulated rather than checkedthe commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to attempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two ships were fitted out, the larger,—the Concord,—of three hundred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced for twenty-nine guns of small calibre; the Horn, of one hundred and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty-two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, receiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of Africa.
On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade procured in this favored spot. They then made directly for thesouthwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Concord were startled by her receiving a violent blow upon her bottom, although no rock was visible. The color of the sea around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found in the ship's side, having passed through three of her planks and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most from the shock.
Late in October, the ships' companies were informed of the design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. Early in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three hundred miles to the north of Magellan's Strait. Here the Horn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery. While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand, they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which they named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed between the two, and soon after rounded the promontory which advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being the first who passed completely round the South American continent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the strait which had brought them to the Cape,—one which clearly belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition. The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geographershaving consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of injustice.
CAPE HORN.
CAPE HORN.
CAPE HORN.
Altering their course to the northward, they soon recognised the mouth of Magellan's Strait,—which rendered their discovery complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schouten then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The currents and the winds would not permit him to land; and he was compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean without seeing any of the important islands which, just below the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few insignificant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this latitude.At one of these spots his men met an enemy more numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innumerable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship, so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island.
THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.
THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.
THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.
Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry, tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord, together with what had been saved from the Horn; they received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar, as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They thensailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra—now Batavia—sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly terminates here; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten made several subsequent voyages to the East Indies, and died, in 1625, in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs the credit of improving upon Magellan's discovery by furnishing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait.
During this same year, the English made their last attempt for nearly two centuries in the Arctic waters of America. William Baffin, who had accompanied Hudson in one of his earlier voyages, embarked in the capacity of pilot on board the Discovery,—a vessel bound for the northwest and commanded by one Robert Bylot. The crew consisted of fourteen men and two boys. Passing through Davis' Strait, they came to the vast bay which now bears Baffin's name. They found it to be eight hundred miles long and three hundred wide. They ascended to the north as far as the seventy-eighth degree of latitude, where the bay seemed to taper off in a strait or sound, which they called Thomas Smith's Sound. Here Baffin observed the greatest variation of the needle known at that time,—fifty-six degrees to the west. The charts of Baffin are lost; but several of his journals are extant, and contain numerous astronomical and hydrographic observations, which have since been fully verified by the superior instruments of modern science.Baffin saw the opening to the west which Ross, two centuries later, was to call Lancaster Sound, and through which Parry was to penetrate to Melville Island and to the Polar Sea. He was convinced that a northwest passage existed, though he never made a second voyage in search of it. For one hundred and sixty years, now, the Arctic waters of the American continent were left undisturbed by adventurers from Europe. Their icy coasts remained unvisited till the middle of the eighteenth century, when the energies of English navigators were roused into activity by the reward offered by Parliament,—twenty thousand pounds to him who should sail to China by the northwest.
ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.
ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.
ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.
Section V.FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION; 1616-1807.CHAPTER XXXV.A FAMOUS VESSEL—THE MAYFLOWER—HER APPEARANCE—THE SPEEDWELL—DEPARTURE OF THE TWO SHIPS—ALLEGED UNSEAWORTHINESS OF THE SPEEDWELL—THE MAYFLOWER SAILS ALONE—THE EQUINOCTIAL—CONSULTATIONS—A REMEDY APPLIED—FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY AND FATE OF THE MAYFLOWER.We have now to narrate the incidents of a voyage without precedent, in one point of view, in maritime annals, and to chronicle the adventures of a ship which may be safely said to have achieved a fame beyond that of any other that ever ploughed the ocean. When we mention the name of the Mayflower, in which the Pilgrim Fathers proceeded from Southampton Water to Plymouth Rock, we are sure that the distinction which we claim for this feeble vessel will be contested by none,—not even by those who would gladly accord the supremacy of the seas to the Nina of Columbus or the Vittoria of Magellan. The details of the voyage are few and unsatisfactory; but the vivid imagination of historians and orators has amply supplied their place.SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.The Mayflower was built in England, at a time when English commerce could bear no comparison with that of Holland, and when the trade with the latter power employed six hundred Dutch ships to one hundred of English build. They were picturesque in appearance, though tub-like and clumsy, the hull being broad-bottomed and capacious, while the lofty cabins, towering high both fore and aft,—a style now obsolete in Europe, but still prevailing in the Red Sea and the Levant,—caused them to roll heavily in rough water. The Mayflower was a high-sterned, quaint, but staunch little vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, and was built for one of the trading companies lately chartered by the Government. The Dutch portion of the emigration had already embarked at Delfthaven in the Speedwell, of sixty tons, and both vessels were, on the 1st of August, 1620, anchored before the old towers of Southampton. The pilgrims were then regularly organized for the voyage, being distributed according to rules laid down and accepted by all. The larger number were of course received on board the Mayflower. On the 5th of August, both vessels weighed anchor, and sailed down the beautiful estuary of SouthamptonWater: passing the Isle of Wight and the rocks known as the Needles, they entered the English Channel.They were no sooner launched upon the fretful waters of this confined strait than their disasters began. The captain of the Speedwell, who had engaged to remain a year abroad with the vessel, actuated either by cowardice or by dissatisfaction with the enterprise, declared that his ship was leaky, and that she could not proceed to sea. Dartmouth Harbor offered an opportunity for effecting the necessary repairs, and here a week was spent: the Speedwell was then pronounced quite sound by the carpenters and surveyors. They again set sail; but the captain of the Speedwell soon profited by the vicinity of Plymouth to assert a second time that he was ready to founder. He ran into port, and the Mayflower followed. No special cause was discovered for the apprehensions of the captain; but it was decided that the Speedwell should be sent back to London as unseaworthy, with such of her passengers as were disheartened, the remainder being transferred to the larger ship. One hundred and one persons—some of them aged and infirm, and several of them women soon to become mothers—were thus imprisoned, as it were, in a vessel much too small to accommodate them; while the delays resulting from the treachery or stratagem practised by the captain of the Speedwell had already proved so serious, that it was the 6th of September before the Mayflower, with her crowd of suffering passengers, could continue the voyage thus inauspiciously commenced.The wind was east by north, blowing, according to the journal, "a fine small gale," when the Mayflower started from Plymouth upon her lonely way. The solitude of the ocean—in this latitude almost a trackless waste—lay stretched out before them. The prosperous gale soon gave way to the equinoctial storm, and a terrible head-wind from the northwest compelled the little bark to struggle anxiously with waves which threatened to engulf her. She was soon sorely shattered: her upper workswere strained, and one of the main beams amidships was bent and cracked. A consultation was held between the seamen and passengers, and the question was seriously debated whether it would not be better to put back. It was fortunately discovered, however, that one of the Dutch pilgrims had accidentally brought on board a large iron screw, and this served to rivet the defective beam. The ship proceeded on her course, struggling with westerly gales and tempestuous seas. For whole days together she was compelled to lie to, or to scud with bare poles. "Methinks," says Everett, "I see the adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass; and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel." Only one death occurred during this terrible voyage,—a loss in numbers which was made good by the birth of a boy, to whom was given the name of Oceanus Hopkins.Sixty-four days had passed, and the 9th of November had dawned. Upon this date the tempest-tossed pilgrims obtained their first view of the American coast. "To the storm-ridden voyager," writes one of their descendants, "exhausted by confinement and suffering, the sight of any shore, however wild, thearomatic fragrance that blows from the land, are inexpressibly sweet and refreshing:Lovely seems any object that shall sweepAway the vast—salt—dread—eternal deep!And thus we find that the low sand-hills of Cape Cod, covered with scrubby woods that descended to the margin of the sea, seemed, at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the eyes of these poor sea-beaten wanderers."The orator and statesman from whom we have already quoted thus eloquently alludes to the providential circumstances attending the arrival of the Mayflower upon the American shore:—"Let us go up in imagination to yonder hill and look out upon the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible through the perspective glass on the waste of waters, is the fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown Harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver and gold,—for of them she has none,—but of courage, of patience, of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagination on this scene,—when I consider the condition of the Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through another gale,—when I survey the terrible front presented by our coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season,—I dare not call it a mere piece of good fortune that the general north and south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the destinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the sea-board, I feelmy spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones: they rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bulwark, around the Heaven-directed vessel. Yes! the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power in substantial manifestations, and gathers the meek company of his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand.""I see the pilgrims," he continues, "escaped from their perils, landed at last, after a two months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage,—without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, or disease, or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk—that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?"The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the home of the women and children during the severe winter of 1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage,—though she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th ofFebruary, her want of ballast—unladen as she was—rendering her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the calamities which had overtaken them,—for they had buried half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Winthrop's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very uncertain; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim celebrity from others of obscurer fame.THE COD.
Section V.
FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION; 1616-1807.
A FAMOUS VESSEL—THE MAYFLOWER—HER APPEARANCE—THE SPEEDWELL—DEPARTURE OF THE TWO SHIPS—ALLEGED UNSEAWORTHINESS OF THE SPEEDWELL—THE MAYFLOWER SAILS ALONE—THE EQUINOCTIAL—CONSULTATIONS—A REMEDY APPLIED—FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY AND FATE OF THE MAYFLOWER.
We have now to narrate the incidents of a voyage without precedent, in one point of view, in maritime annals, and to chronicle the adventures of a ship which may be safely said to have achieved a fame beyond that of any other that ever ploughed the ocean. When we mention the name of the Mayflower, in which the Pilgrim Fathers proceeded from Southampton Water to Plymouth Rock, we are sure that the distinction which we claim for this feeble vessel will be contested by none,—not even by those who would gladly accord the supremacy of the seas to the Nina of Columbus or the Vittoria of Magellan. The details of the voyage are few and unsatisfactory; but the vivid imagination of historians and orators has amply supplied their place.
SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.
SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.
SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.
The Mayflower was built in England, at a time when English commerce could bear no comparison with that of Holland, and when the trade with the latter power employed six hundred Dutch ships to one hundred of English build. They were picturesque in appearance, though tub-like and clumsy, the hull being broad-bottomed and capacious, while the lofty cabins, towering high both fore and aft,—a style now obsolete in Europe, but still prevailing in the Red Sea and the Levant,—caused them to roll heavily in rough water. The Mayflower was a high-sterned, quaint, but staunch little vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, and was built for one of the trading companies lately chartered by the Government. The Dutch portion of the emigration had already embarked at Delfthaven in the Speedwell, of sixty tons, and both vessels were, on the 1st of August, 1620, anchored before the old towers of Southampton. The pilgrims were then regularly organized for the voyage, being distributed according to rules laid down and accepted by all. The larger number were of course received on board the Mayflower. On the 5th of August, both vessels weighed anchor, and sailed down the beautiful estuary of SouthamptonWater: passing the Isle of Wight and the rocks known as the Needles, they entered the English Channel.
They were no sooner launched upon the fretful waters of this confined strait than their disasters began. The captain of the Speedwell, who had engaged to remain a year abroad with the vessel, actuated either by cowardice or by dissatisfaction with the enterprise, declared that his ship was leaky, and that she could not proceed to sea. Dartmouth Harbor offered an opportunity for effecting the necessary repairs, and here a week was spent: the Speedwell was then pronounced quite sound by the carpenters and surveyors. They again set sail; but the captain of the Speedwell soon profited by the vicinity of Plymouth to assert a second time that he was ready to founder. He ran into port, and the Mayflower followed. No special cause was discovered for the apprehensions of the captain; but it was decided that the Speedwell should be sent back to London as unseaworthy, with such of her passengers as were disheartened, the remainder being transferred to the larger ship. One hundred and one persons—some of them aged and infirm, and several of them women soon to become mothers—were thus imprisoned, as it were, in a vessel much too small to accommodate them; while the delays resulting from the treachery or stratagem practised by the captain of the Speedwell had already proved so serious, that it was the 6th of September before the Mayflower, with her crowd of suffering passengers, could continue the voyage thus inauspiciously commenced.
The wind was east by north, blowing, according to the journal, "a fine small gale," when the Mayflower started from Plymouth upon her lonely way. The solitude of the ocean—in this latitude almost a trackless waste—lay stretched out before them. The prosperous gale soon gave way to the equinoctial storm, and a terrible head-wind from the northwest compelled the little bark to struggle anxiously with waves which threatened to engulf her. She was soon sorely shattered: her upper workswere strained, and one of the main beams amidships was bent and cracked. A consultation was held between the seamen and passengers, and the question was seriously debated whether it would not be better to put back. It was fortunately discovered, however, that one of the Dutch pilgrims had accidentally brought on board a large iron screw, and this served to rivet the defective beam. The ship proceeded on her course, struggling with westerly gales and tempestuous seas. For whole days together she was compelled to lie to, or to scud with bare poles. "Methinks," says Everett, "I see the adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass; and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel." Only one death occurred during this terrible voyage,—a loss in numbers which was made good by the birth of a boy, to whom was given the name of Oceanus Hopkins.
Sixty-four days had passed, and the 9th of November had dawned. Upon this date the tempest-tossed pilgrims obtained their first view of the American coast. "To the storm-ridden voyager," writes one of their descendants, "exhausted by confinement and suffering, the sight of any shore, however wild, thearomatic fragrance that blows from the land, are inexpressibly sweet and refreshing:
Lovely seems any object that shall sweepAway the vast—salt—dread—eternal deep!
And thus we find that the low sand-hills of Cape Cod, covered with scrubby woods that descended to the margin of the sea, seemed, at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the eyes of these poor sea-beaten wanderers."
The orator and statesman from whom we have already quoted thus eloquently alludes to the providential circumstances attending the arrival of the Mayflower upon the American shore:—"Let us go up in imagination to yonder hill and look out upon the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible through the perspective glass on the waste of waters, is the fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown Harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver and gold,—for of them she has none,—but of courage, of patience, of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagination on this scene,—when I consider the condition of the Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through another gale,—when I survey the terrible front presented by our coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season,—I dare not call it a mere piece of good fortune that the general north and south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the destinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the sea-board, I feelmy spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones: they rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bulwark, around the Heaven-directed vessel. Yes! the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power in substantial manifestations, and gathers the meek company of his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand."
"I see the pilgrims," he continues, "escaped from their perils, landed at last, after a two months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage,—without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, or disease, or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk—that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?"
The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the home of the women and children during the severe winter of 1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage,—though she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th ofFebruary, her want of ballast—unladen as she was—rendering her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the calamities which had overtaken them,—for they had buried half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Winthrop's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very uncertain; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim celebrity from others of obscurer fame.
THE COD.
THE COD.
THE COD.