102 “Ghelijck als t’selfde, uyt de beschrijvinghe ofte t’verbael des voorseyden Willem Barentsz. ghenoechsaem (met lief overcomende) verthoont sal worden, tot welckes ick my refereere.”—Voyagie, etc., fol. 18 verso. ↑
111 Al hoe wel dat die van Plancius opinie zijn, in haer Tractaet te verstaen gheven, dat ick da sake breeder aenghedient hadde, als sy in effect was, t’welck ick den discreten leser t’oordeelen gheve.— Voyagie, fol. 24. ↑
114 The expressions vlyboot and yacht seem to have been used, like “cutter” and “clipper” in modern times, to designate quick-sailing vessels. ↑
140 Lütke says (p. 34) that it was signed by all except Barents. But it [cxx]will be seen that his signature stands in its proper rank, the third, among the others. Lütke’s mistake appears to have arisen from his having followed Adelung, who copied from the Recueil de Voyages au Nord, where, in the list of names, that of Barents is certainly omitted, though from what cause except inadvertency cannot be imagined. ↑
157 De Bry, India Orientalis, part ix, p. 51. In Scoresby’s Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 80, the spot reached by Rijp is called “the Bay of Birds”, De Bry being referred to as the authority. But that writer’s words are—“Sub gr. 80 circa Volucrium Promontorium, a quo postmodum animo ad Guilhelmum redeundi discessit.”
Just as this sheet was going to press, we have found that the article in De Bry, from which the above extract is taken, is a translation of the following work:—“Histoire du Pays nommé Spitsberghe. Comme il a esté descouvert, sa situation et de ses Animauls. Avec le Discours des empeschemens que les Navires esquippes pour la peche des Baleines tant Basques, Hollandois, que Flamens, ont soufferts de la part des Anglois, en l’Année presente 1613. Escript par H. G. A. Et une Protestation contre les Anglois, & annullation de tous leurs frivolz argumens, par lesquelz ils pensent avoir droit de se faire seuls Maistres du dit Pays. A Amsterdam, chez Hessel Gerard A. a l’ensiegne de la Carte Nautiq. MD.C.XIII.”
This appears to be the work to which Purchas (vol. iii, p. 464) makes the following allusion:—“I have by me a French Storie of Spitsbergh, published 1613 by a Dutchman, which writeth against this English allegation, &c., but hotter arguments then I am willing to answer.” It gives an account of the voyage of Rijp and Barents, [cxxxii]which, though agreeing generally with that of De Veer, differs from it in some important particulars. What is most remarkable is, that it is said to have been written by Barents himself:—“Mais pour sçavoir deuvement ce qu’ils ont trouvé en ceste descouvrāce, i’ay trouvé bon de mettre icy un petit extraict du Journal, escrit de la main propre de Guillaume Bernard”.
Want of time and space prevents us from giving the subject any lengthened consideration. But from what we have been able to make out, our impression decidedly is, that it was never written by Barents, but was attributed to him solely for the purpose of giving to it an authority which it might otherwise not have possessed. For, in the first place, Barents never returned to Holland subsequently to the discovery of Spitzbergen, but died off the coast of Novaya Zemlya, on the 20th of June, 1597; so that, even assuming him to have written a journal with his own hand, that journal must have passed into the possession of Gerrit de Veer, the historian of the voyage, and would assuredly have formed the basis of his narrative; and hence the discrepancies which exist between the two could never have arisen. And, in the second place, this journal states, under date of the 24th of June, 1596, “la terre (au lōg du quel prenions nostre route) estoit la plus part rompue, bien hault, et non autre que monts et montaignes agues, parquoy l’appellions Spitzbergen”. Yet, so far was Barents from having given this name to the newly-discovered country, that we find it expressly stated by De Veer (p. 82), under date of the 22nd of June, that they “esteemed this land to be Greene-land”. And not merely so, but after the latter’s return to Holland, where he had the opportunity of consulting with Plantius and other geographers, he still retained that opinion; for in the dedication to his work, which is dated “Amsterdam, April 29th, 1598”, he says that “the eastern part of Greenland (as we call it) in 80°, is now ascertained, where it was formerly thought there was only water and no land”; clearly proving that even at that time there was no idea of calling the newly-discovered country by the name of Spitzbergen, or of considering it anything but “the eastern part of Greenland”.
But, not long afterwards, the western coast of Spitzbergen having been visited by the vessels of other nations, and its importance as a station for the whale fishery having been ascertained, the Dutch were naturally anxious to establish their claim to its first discovery. This was the object of Hessel Gerard’s tract: a most legitimate one in itself, though, unfortunately, carried out in a very unscrupulous manner. [cxxxiii]For, not only did he attribute the authorship of this journal to Barents, and in it make him first use the name of Spitzbergen; but as, from the then prevailing ignorance respecting the geography of that country, it was not possible to trace that navigator’s true course along its eastern coast, round about its northern end, and so down the western coast, he did not scruple to falsify Barents’s track, and make him sail from Bear Island on the 13th of June sixteen Dutch miles west-north-west and fifteen miles north-west, where De Veer (p. 76) has sixteen miles north and somewhat easterly; and then again on the 14th, twenty-two miles north by west, where De Veer (p. 77) has twenty miles north and north and by east, and on the 16th thirty miles north and by east. By thus altering the direction of Barents’ course, Gerard certainly brought him to the western coast of Spitzbergen; but he thereby rendered the remaining portion of the voyage, which was westward along the northern side of the land, an impossible course in the sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland! The fact of Gerard’s tract having been republished in De Bry’s Collection, which work is well known to literary men, while De Veer’s original journal has rarely, if ever, been consulted by them, is doubtless the reason why the circumnavigation of Spitzbergen by Barents and Rijp has hitherto remained unknown. ↑
197 This observation of Robert le Canu is anything but ingenuous. De Veer’s work, the body of which is in German characters, contains several other portions printed with Roman letters, for the sake of distinction on account of their importance; such as the Dedication, the story of the barnacles, etc. ↑
198 This sacristan was not quite so flexible as the “Clerke of the Bow bell”, immortalized in Stow’s Survey of London (edit. 1633, p. 269). His duty it was to ring the curfew-bell nightly at nine o’clock; and “this Bel being usually rung somewhat late, as seemed to the young [cxlix]men Prentises, and other in Cheape, they made and set up a rime against the Clerke, as followeth:
“Clarke of the Bow-Bell,
with the yellow locks,
For thy late ringing,
thy head shall have knockes.
“Whereunto the Clerke replying, wrote:
“Children of Cheape,
hold you all still,
For you shall have the
Bow-bell rung at your will.”