VOYAGES IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

by Richard Hakluyt




INTRODUCTION.



Thirty-five years ago I made a voyage to the Arctic Seas in what
Chaucer calls


A little bote
No bigger than a manne's thought;


it was a Phantom Ship that made some voyages to different parts of
the world which were recorded in early numbers of Charles Dickens's
"Household Words." As preface to Richard Hakluyt's records of the
first endeavour of our bold Elizabethan mariners to find North-West
Passage to the East, let me repeat here that old voyage of mine from
No. 55 of "Household Words," dated the 12th of April, 1851: The
Phantom is fitted out for Arctic exploration, with instructions to
find her way, by the north-west, to Behring Straits, and take the
South Pole on her passage home. Just now we steer due north, and
yonder is the coast of Norway. From that coast parted Hugh
Willoughby, three hundred years ago; the first of our countrymen who