While His Ship Lay Up Frozen, Chanceller Proceeded To Moscow,
Where He Obtained From The Czar Privileges For The English Merchants, And
Letters To King Edward:
As the Czar was at this period engaged in the
Livonian war, which greatly interrupted and embarrassed the trade of the
Baltic, he was the more disposed to encourage the English to trade to the
White Sea.
We have already remarked, in giving an account of the voyage of
Ohter, in King Alfred's time, that he had penetrated as far as the White
Sea. This part of Europe, however, seems afterwards to have been entirely
lost sight of, till the voyage of Chanceller; for in a map of the most
northern parts of Europe, given in Munster's Geographia, which was printed
in 1540, Greenland is laid down as joined to the north part of Lapland;
and, consequently, the northern ocean appears merely as a great bay,
enclosed by these countries. Three years afterwards, the English reached
the coasts of Nova Zembla, and heard of, if they did not arrive at, the
Straits of Waygats. The next attempts were made by the Dutch, who were
desirous of reaching India by a route, in the course of which they would
not be liable to meet with the Spaniards or Portuguese. They accordingly
made four attempts between 1594 and 1596, but unsuccessfully. In the last
voyage they reached Spitzbergen; but after striving in vain to penetrate to
the north-east, they were obliged to winter on the north coast of Nova
Zembla, in 76 deg.
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