DOCSLIB.ORG

Negotiating Arctic Waters: John Davis’S the Worldes Hydrographical Discription

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Negotiating Arctic Waters: John Davis’S the Worldes Hydrographical Discription CHAPTER 13 Negotiating Arctic Waters: John Davis’s The Worldes Hydrographical Discription Franziska Hilfiker In the winter of 1592, at the end of the year, William Sanderson (1547/8–1638) gave a small reception at his London house at Newington-Butts. No less a figure than Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) was expected as a special guest. Sanderson, a wealthy merchant well acquainted with privy councillors and instrument makers as well as explorers, had a very distinct reason for throwing this party: He wanted to solemnly and proudly present the Queen with the recently fin- ished first pair of English globes—manufactured by the mathematician and instrument maker Emery Molyneux (d. ca. 1599) at his workshop in Lambeth, and largely financed by Sanderson himself.1 A few months earlier, Elizabeth had had a first opportunity to see the terres- trial globe (then still under construction) when she received Emery Molyneux at Greenwich Palace. This scene is reported by an eyewitness, Petruccio Ubaldini (ca. 1524–ca. 1600), who seemed deeply impressed by the event dur- ing which the globe was wheeled in, ‘covered by a taffeta curtain in the form of a dome encompassing it down to the ground and fixed all the way round by means of an ornament’.2 After the taffeta veil was lifted, Elizabeth carefully inspected the globe, which was dedicated to her, and—as Ubaldini remarked with special emphasis—the Queen was now able to ‘see at a glance how much of the seas she could control’.3 On Molyneux’s globe the seas, especially the 1 The pair of globes is composed of a terrestrial and a celestial one, each measuring 62 cm in diameter. See, for instance, Wallis H.M., “The First English Globe: A Recent Discovery”, The Geographical Journal 117 (1951) 275–290; Wallis H.M., “ ‘Opera Mundi’: Emery Molyneux, Jodocus Hondius and the First English Globes”, in Croiset van Uchelen T. – Horst K. van der – Schilder G. (eds.), Theatrum Orbis Librorum: Liber Amicorum Presented to Nico Israel on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Utrecht: 1989) 94–104. 2 Petruccio Ubaldini’s statement, which he made in a letter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, is quoted in Wallis, “Opera Mundi” 100. The eyewitness Petruccio Ubaldini, a descendant of an ancient Florentine family, settled in England in 1562 and was well known at the court of Elizabeth I. See Wallis, “Opera Mundi” 98–100. 3 In Ubaldini’s report, the whole passage of the scene reads: ‘It must be remembered that the Dedication to the Queen has to be printed with the royal arms and its wording suggests that © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�5760_0�5 354 Hilfiker northern seas and certain sites in the northwest Arctic region, were indeed depicted with highlighted accuracy. The globe’s address to the reader mentions: In drawing the northern areas of this globe we have copied with the greatest faithfulness and diligence the geographical descriptions, which have an excellent reputation, of a number of outstanding Englishmen.4 A waterway known as ‘Fretum Davis’, extending between the 50° and 75° north- ern latitudes, is shown in great detail. Toponyms such as ‘Mont Ralegh’, ‘C[ape] Walsingham’, and ‘London Cost’ flank this waterway, marking England’s pres- ence as well as its appropriation claims to this region. The Arctic waters mattered. They mattered because they were the site where cosmographers and the financial backers of English maritime explora- tions hoped to find the Northwest Passage—an imaginary strait that would lead English trading ships directly and quickly from the Atlantic, via the top of North America, into the Pacific Ocean, and thereby to the diverse riches of the so-called land of Cathay, as well as to the precious spices of the Molucca Ilands. The strait in the Arctic Ocean—if it existed—promised wealth and seemed to be worth the financial investment needed to find it. Straits: Hinges in an Emerging Mode of Global Thinking In the course of early European maritime expansion, certain sites in the world’s oceans gained particular significance, as they were highly desirable and intensely negotiated in and through different media. The competitive impe- rial situation led to the configuration of such maritime spaces as ‘contested locations of knowledge’5—where the term knowledge comprises a whole he [Molyneux] gave her the globe to let her see at a glance how much of the seas she could control by means of her naval forces. This is a fact well worth knowing’. Quoted in Wallis, “Opera Mundi” 100. 4 The original address on the globe is in Latin: ‘Nec non et Anglicorum aliquot hominum excel- lentium probatissimas geographicas descriptiones in Septentrionalibus huius globi delin- eandis partibus summa cum fide, diligentia summaque cura incitati sumus’. The English translation quoted in the main text above is from Schilder G., Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612) and Petrus Kaerius (1571–c. 1646) (Alphen aan den Rijn: 2007) 41. 5 Figueroa M.F., “Contested Locations of Knowledge: The Malaspina Expedition Along the Eastern Coast of Patagonia (1789)”, in Kontler L. – Romano A. – Sebastiani S. – Török B.Z. (eds.), Negotiating Knowledge in Early Modern Empires: A Decentered View (Basingstoke: 2014) 129–152..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Longitude of the Mediterranean Throughout History: Facts, Myths and Surprises Luis Robles Macías
    The longitude of the Mediterranean throughout history: facts, myths and surprises Luis Robles Macías To cite this version: Luis Robles Macías. The longitude of the Mediterranean throughout history: facts, myths and sur- prises. E-Perimetron, National Centre for Maps and Cartographic Heritage, 2014, 9 (1), pp.1-29. hal-01528114 HAL Id: hal-01528114 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01528114 Submitted on 27 May 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. e-Perimetron, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014 [1-29] www.e-perimetron.org | ISSN 1790-3769 Luis A. Robles Macías* The longitude of the Mediterranean throughout history: facts, myths and surprises Keywords: History of longitude; cartographic errors; comparative studies of maps; tables of geographical coordinates; old maps of the Mediterranean Summary: Our survey of pre-1750 cartographic works reveals a rich and complex evolution of the longitude of the Mediterranean (LongMed). While confirming several previously docu- mented trends − e.g. the adoption of erroneous Ptolemaic longitudes by 15th and 16th-century European cartographers, or the striking accuracy of Arabic-language tables of coordinates−, we have observed accurate LongMed values largely unnoticed by historians in 16th-century maps and noted that widely diverging LongMed values coexisted up to 1750, sometimes even within the works of one same author.
    [Show full text]
  • England's Search for the Northern Passages in the Sixteenth And
    - ARCTIC VOL. 37, NO. 4 (DECEMBER 1984) P. 453472 England’s Search for the Northern Passages in the Sixteenth and. Early Seventeenth Centuries HELEN WALLIS* For persistence of effort in the. face of adversity no enterprise this waie .is of so grete.avantage over the other navigations in in thehistory of exploration wasmore remarkable than shorting of half the waie, for the other must.saileby grete cir- England’s search for the northern passages to the Far East. .cuites and compasses and .thes shal saile by streit wais and The inspiration for the search was the hope of sharing in the lines” (Taylor, 1932:182). The dangerous part of the.naviga- riches of oriental commerce. In the tropical.regions of the Far tion was reckoned.to .be the last 300 leagues .before reaching East were situated, Roger Barlow wrote in 1541, “the most the Pole and 300 leagues beyond it (Taylor, 1932:181). Once richest londes and ilondes in the the worlde, for all the golde, over the Polethe expedition would choose whetherto sail east- spices, aromatikes and pretiose stones” (Barlow, 1541: ward to the Orient by way of Tartary or westward “on the f”107-8; Taylor, 1932:182). England’s choice of route was backside ofall the new faund land” [NorthAmerica]. limited, however, by the prior discoveries of .Spain and Por- Thorne’s confident .opinion that“there is no lande inhabitable tugal, who by the Treatyof Tordesillas in 1494 had divided the [i.e. uninhabitable€, nor Sea innavigable” (in Hakluyt, 1582: world between them. With the “waie ofthe orient” and ‘The sig.DP) was a maxim (as Professor.Walter Raleigh (19O5:22) waie of the occydent” barred, it seemed that Providence had commented) “fit to be inscribed as a head-line on the charter especially reserved for England.
    [Show full text]
  • The Elizabethan Court Day by Day--1591
    1591 1591 At RICHMOND PALACE, Surrey. Jan 1,Fri New Year gifts; play, by the Queen’s Men.T Jan 1: Esther Inglis, under the name Esther Langlois, dedicated to the Queen: ‘Discours de la Foy’, written at Edinburgh. Dedication in French, with French and Latin verses to the Queen. Esther (c.1570-1624), a French refugee settled in Scotland, was a noted calligrapher and used various different scripts. She presented several works to the Queen. Her portrait, 1595, and a self- portrait, 1602, are in Elizabeth I & her People, ed. Tarnya Cooper, 178-179. January 1-March: Sir John Norris was special Ambassador to the Low Countries. Jan 3,Sun play, by the Queen’s Men.T Court news. Jan 4, Coldharbour [London], Thomas Kerry to the Earl of Shrewsbury: ‘This Christmas...Sir Michael Blount was knighted, without any fellows’. Lieutenant of the Tower. [LPL 3200/104]. Jan 5: Stationers entered: ‘A rare and due commendation of the singular virtues and government of the Queen’s most excellent Majesty, with the happy and blessed state of England, and how God hath blessed her Highness, from time to time’. Jan 6,Wed play, by the Queen’s Men. For ‘setting up of the organs’ at Richmond John Chappington was paid £13.2s8d.T Jan 10,Sun new appointment: Dr Julius Caesar, Judge of the Admiralty, ‘was sworn one of the Masters of Requests Extraordinary’.APC Jan 13: Funeral, St Peter and St Paul Church, Sheffield, of George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury (died 18 Nov 1590). Sheffield Burgesses ‘Paid to the Coroner for the fee of three persons that were slain with the fall of two trees that were burned down at my Lord’s funeral, the 13th of January’, 8s.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF Download Oxford School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
    OXFORD SCHOOL SHAKESPEARE: ROMEO AND JULIET Author: William Shakespeare Number of Pages: 176 pages Published Date: 01 Apr 2009 Publisher: Oxford University Press Publication Country: Oxford, United Kingdom Language: English ISBN: 9780198321668 DOWNLOAD: OXFORD SCHOOL SHAKESPEARE: ROMEO AND JULIET Oxford School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet PDF Book Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 2Africa's Media Image in the 21st Century is the first book in over twenty years to examine the international media's coverage of sub-Saharan Africa. Activities and exercises are suggested for each chapter, and information is included on professional associations and societies across the globe. Flight Identification of European SeabirdsBeatrice Ojakangas, an authority on convection cooking and author of more than two dozen previous cookbooks, explains how to use your convection oven to achieve perfect results in dramatically less time than with a conventional oven. The Milady Standard Cosmetology 2012 textbook takes advantage of the most sophisticated methods for relaying information, stimulating thought, aiding comprehension, and enhancing retention. Topics in Disability and Social Work Education: Practice and Policy Issues include: model curriculum on disabilities that incorporates diverse perspectives of social work practice with individuals who have physical, cognitive, and psychiatric disabilities protecting the legal rights of children and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) empowering disabled individuals
    [Show full text]
  • 6 • Globes in Renaissance Europe Elly Dekker
    6 • Globes in Renaissance Europe Elly Dekker Introduction Abbreviations used in this chapter include: Globes at Greenwich for In 1533 Hans Holbein the Younger, the foremost painter Elly Dekker et al., Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and then in London, made the portrait now known as The Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Ox- Ambassadors (fig. 6.1).1 One of the remarkable features ford:OxfordUniversityPressandtheNationalMaritimeMuseum,1999). 1. The best study of the painting and its provenance still is the book of this painting is the abundance of scientific instru- by Mary Frederica Sophia Hervey, Holbein’s “Ambassadors”: The Pic- ments depicted in it. On the top shelf there is a celestial ture and the Men (London: Bell and Sons, 1900). See also Susan Fois- globe, a pillar dial, an equinoctial dial (in two parts), ter, Ashok Roy, and Martin Wyld, Holbein’s Ambassadors (London: a horary quadrant, a polyhedral dial, and, on top of a National Gallery Publications, 1997), esp. 30 – 43; the information book, an astronomical instrument known as a tor- about the globes and the instruments provided in this catalog should be considered with some care. quetum. On the lower shelf there is a terrestrial globe, a 2. The book on arithmetic is that by Peter Apian, titled Eyn newe und book on arithmetic, a set square and a pair of dividers, wolgegründete underweisunge aller Kauffmans Rechnung (Ingolstadt, a lute with broken strings, a case of flutes, and a hymn- 1527), and the hymn book is by Johann Walther [Walter], Geystliche book.2 The objects displayed between the two men are gesangk Buchleyn (Wittenberg, 1525).
    [Show full text]
  • Brief History of Cartography and Intro to IRI Map and Climate Data Library • Dr
    Brief history of Cartography and intro to IRI map and climate data library • Dr. Michael J Passow • Earth2Class • 4 April 2020 Very first maps ? • It’s probable that the very first maps were stick-drawn images in mud to show fellow hunters and gatherers where kill sites or berries were located. • This may have led to development of compass points: N—S—E—W. As societies settled, people developed maps to orient themselves with respect to others mago Mundi Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th century BCE Babylonia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#Babylonian_I mago_Mundi_(ca._6th_c._BCE) Gradually, awareness of distant lands and seas developed • Anaximander (died c. 546 BCE) is credited with having created one of the first maps of the world, which was circular in form and showed the known lands of the world grouped around the Aegean Sea at the center. This was all surrounded by the ocean. • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Anaximander_world_map-en.svg From an early age, we learn to identify shapes and positions of places wer may never have actually seen or been to, and assume they are real. Map Projections • In cartography, a map projection is a way to flatten a globe's surface into a plane in order to make a map. • This requires a systematic transformation of the latitudes and longitudes of locations from the surface of the globe into locations on a plane. • All projections of a sphere on a plane necessarily distort the surface in some way and to some extent.
    [Show full text]
  • Combined Bibliography
    Combined Bibliography Abbreviations DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); online edition edited by Lawrence Goldman, 2006–2008. DSB Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. by Charles Coulston Gillispie (New York: Scribner, 1970–1990). Primary Sources Agricola, Georgius. 1556. De Re Metallica. Basel: H. Frobenium et N. Episcopium. ———. 1950. De Re Metallica. ed. and trans. Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover. New York: Dover Publications. Alberti, Leon Battista. 1485. De Re Aedificatoria (1452). Florence: Nicolai Laurentii. ———. 1988. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Apianus, Peter. 1533a. Cosmographicum liber. Antwerp: Arnoldum Birckman. ———. 1533b. Instrument Buch. Ingolstadt: P. Apianus. Aristotle. 1936. Minor Works. ed. and trans. Walter Stanley Hett. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ausonio, Ettore. 1968. Theorica speculi concavi sphaerici. In Le Opere di Galileo Galilei,ed. Galileo Galilei, Vol. volume 3. Florence: Speculi Concavi Sphaerici. Bacon, Francis. 1627. The New Atlantis. London: J.H. for William Lee. Bacon, Roger. 1659. Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae ed de nullitate magiae. In Frier Bacon his discovery of the miracles of art, nature, and magick. Faithfully translated out of Dr Dees own copy, by T. M. and never before in English. London. Baldi, Bernardino. 1616. Heronis Ctesibii Belopoeeca, hoc est Telifactiva. Augsburg: Davidis Franci. Barlow, William. 1597. The Navigator’s Supply Conteining many things of Principall importance. London: G. Bishop, R. Newberry and R. Barker. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 183 L.B. Cormack et al. (eds.), Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 45, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49430-2 184 Combined Bibliography Beeckman, Isaac.
    [Show full text]
  • Terrestrial and Celestial Globes
    Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/terrestrialceles02stev_0 TERRESTRIAL AND CELESTIAL GLOBES nsnnhprs. 1 Phi Pemhranrlt’s TERRESTRIAL AND CELESTIAL GLOBES THEIR HISTORY AND CONSTRUCTION INCLUDING A CONSIDERATION OF THEIR VALUE AS AIDS IN THE STUDY OF GEOGRAPHY AND ASTRONOMY BY Edward Luther Stevenson, Ph.D., LL.D. MEMBER OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA VOLUME II NEW HAVEN: PUBLISHED FOR THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON. HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXXI COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA — Table of Contents PAGE List of Illustrations vii Chapter X: Globes and Globe Makers of the Early Seventeenth Century. The Dutch Scientific Masters and Their Preeminent Leadership . l The shifting of globe making interest to the northwest of Europe at the close of the sixteenth century.—The Van Langrens as leaders.-—Jodocus Hondius and his son Henricus.—Willem Jansz. Blaeu and his sons, John and Cornelius.—The Ferreri armillary sphere.—Globes of Peter Plancius.—Isaac Habrecht. Globes of Mattheus Greuter and their reproduction by Rossi. Manfredus Settala.—Abraham Goos.—Adam Heroldt. Chapter XI : Globes of the Second Half of the Seven- teenth Century 72 Certain striking tendencies exhibited in the matter of globe mak- ing in this period.—The Gottorp globes.—Weigel’s globes. Carlo Renci.—Amantius Moroncelli.—Castlemaine’s immovable globe.—The armillary of Treffler.—Armillary sphere of Gian Battista Alberti.—The numerous globes of P. Vincenzo Coro- nelli.—Certain anonymous globes of the period.—Johannes Maccarius.—Jos. Antonius Volpes.—Vitale Giordani.—George Christopher Eimmart.—Giuseppe Scarabelli.—Giovanni Battista.
    [Show full text]
  • Commercial Cartography and Map Production in the Low Countries, 1500 – Ca
    44 • Commercial Cartography and Map Production in the Low Countries, 1500 – ca. 1672 Cornelis Koeman, Günter Schilder, Marco van Egmond, and Peter van der Krogt Louvain: Center of Learning tion in De orbis situ in which a simplified rendering of the globe in two hemispheres was printed on the title page The center for commercial cartography in the sixteenth- (see fig. 10.2).5 Although it is small, it is nevertheless im- century Low Countries was Antwerp, a city of printers, booksellers, engravers, and artists. But Louvain was the Abbreviations used in this chapter include: Abraham Ortelius for center of learning and the meeting place of scholars and M. P. R. van den Broecke, Peter van der Krogt, and Peter H. Meurer, students at the university. Like the circles in Vienna- eds., Abraham Ortelius and the First Atlas: Essays Commemorating the Klosterneuburg (in the first half of the fifteenth century), Quadricentennial of His Death, 1598–1998 (’t Goy-Houten: HES, Saint-Dié in the Vosges (ca. 1490 –1520), and Basel 1998); Gerardus Mercator Rupelmundanus for Marcel Watelet, ed., (where Sebastian Münster worked from 1520 to 1579), Gerardus Mercator Rupelmundanus (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1994); GN for Peter van der Krogt, Globi Neerlandici: The Production of Louvain became a center for the exchange of ideas and Globes in the Low Countries (Utrecht: HES, 1993); KAN for Peter van education and had an important effect on cartography. der Krogt, Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici (’t Goy-Houten: HES, Mathematics, globemaking, and instrumentmaking 1997–); and MCN for Günter Schilder, Monumenta cartographica were practiced in and around the University of Leuven Neerlandica (Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto, 1986 –).
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    A Journal of the MAp o GEOGRAPHY Rou 0 TABLE OF THE AMERIC LIBRARY Asso LATlO 0.9 1993 TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURES Worlds Apart: ative American World Views in the Age of Discovery 5 by LOllis DeVorsey, Jr. Columbus Considered: A Selected Bibliography of Recently Published Materials About Christopher Columbus 27 by Jame A. Coomb Map of the Columbian Encounter and its Aftermath, and their Projections 37 by Norman }. W. Thrower BOOK REVIEWS Map Collections in Australia: A Directory 45 David A. Cobb The History of Cartography. Vol. 2, Bk. 1. Cartography in the Traditional and South Asian Societies 46 Donald C. Johll on Maps born the Mind: Readings in Psychogeography 49 Fred Plaut DEPARTME TS Carte blanche 1 51 by David Woodward Carto acts 61 Awards 49 Exhibits 53 Collections 59 Biographies of Author 55 Final Word 62 by fenny John 011 ETCETERA Index to Advertisers 4 Information for Contributors 63 Corrections 64 ~ MERlDI 9 ADVERTIS G Meridian accepts advertising of product or ervice as it improves communicati n between vendor and buyer. Meridiall will adhere to all La ·tudes & ethical and commonly accepted advertising practices and reserves the right to r ject any advertisement Longitudes to the deemed not relevant r con i tent with the goal f the Map and Geography Round Tabl . Enquiri nth Degree should be addr d t Da id A. Cobb, Ad erti ing Manager, Harvard ap Unk, the worlds most comprehensive mop Map Collection, Harvard College distributor, invites you to explore the planet. Library, Cambridge, MA 02138, Phone (617) 495-2417, Fax (617) 496­ Map Unk stocks maps from every corner of the 9802, e-mail ~~ warld and represents every mapmoker lorge and small.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Zouche's the Dove
    A Periegetical Poem from Jacobean New College: Richard Zouche’s The Dove (1613) In 1613 there appeared in duodecimo a long, unusual poem called The Dove, or Passages of Cosmography, by Richard Zouche, who identified himself on the title-page of the work as a ‘Ciuilian, of New Colledge in OXFORD’. Now a ‘Civilian’ is a student of Roman law (‘civil’, as opposed to the English ‘common’ law), and Zouche was to become one of the most famous civil lawyers of the seventeenth century, the man more responsible than any in contemporary England for codifying civil law into textbooks, and for championing its relevance in an age displaying considerable metropolitan bias against the bookish law of the universities. The Dove, however, is a poem unblemished by its author’s legal trajectory, and is rather a homage to its Greek literary model, the Oikoumenes periegesis or ‘Description of the World’ by Dionysius Periegetes, a poet who had lived most probably at Alexandria in the time of the emperor Hadrian, in the early second century AD. Zouche, when he published his Dove fifteen centuries later, was in his mid-twenties, having arrived in the college in 1607. The normal route through the academe was to take the bachelor of arts degree, four years after matriculation, and then the master of arts three years after that. Those set on law, however, pursued a parallel degree structure, that of the bachelor and doctor of civil law (‘BCL’ and ‘DCL’), and accordingly Zouche took his BCL in 1614 and his DCL three years later. This poem is therefore the work of an undergraduate, and Zouche dedicated this, his first book to his in-law Edward, Baron Zouche, soon to be appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to John Davis the Navigator
    THE V O Y A G E S A N D W O R K S OF J OH N D AV IS THE NAVIGATOR. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, BY ALBERT HASTINGS MARKHAM, CAPTAIN R.N., F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF “ A WHALING CRUISE IN BAFFIN’S BAY ”, “ THE GREAT FROZEN SEA ”, AND “ NORTHWARD HO ! ” “And Davis three times forth that for the north-west made, Still striving by that course t’enrich the English trade; And as he well deserved, to his eternal fame, There, by a mighty sea, immortalized his name.” D RAYTON’S Polyolbion. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. MDCCCLXXX [ F A CSI M I L E ] INTRODUCTION Markham, Albert Hastings. Introduction to The Voyages and Works of John Davis, the Navigator. The Hakluyt Society, No. LIX, London, 1880: i– lxxxiv. AMONG the distinguished English seamen of the six- teenth century, John Davis of Sandridge stands out conspicuously as the one who, more than any other, united the qualities of a daring adventurer with those of a skilful pilot an d a scientific navigator. Several were his equals in steady perseverance and desperate gallantry. Som e, such as Richard Haw- kins and William Baffin, resembled him in their devotion to the scientific branches of his noble profession. But as a seaman c ombining scientific knowledge and skilled pilotage with the qualities of a fearless and determined explorer, John Davis stands foremost among the navigators of the great Q u een . He had ot her q u alit ies w hic h are n eeded to complete the character of a perfect sea captain.
    [Show full text]