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C a98
4 VOYAGE TOWARDS THE NORTH POLE, UNDERTAKEN BY HIS MAFESTYS
COMMAND, 1773, BY CONSTANTINE FOHN PHIPPS.
INTRODUCTION.
THE idea of a paflage to the Eaft Indies by the North Pole was fuggefted as early as
the year 1527, by Robert Thorne, merchant, of Briftol, as appears from two papers
preferved by Hackluit: the one addreffed to King Henry VIII. ; the other to Dr. Ley,
the king’s ambafflador to Charles V._ Inthat addrefled to the king he fays, ‘<I know it
to be my bounden duty to manifeft this fecret to your Grace, which hitherto, ! fuppofe,
has been hid.”? This fecret appears to be the honour and advantage which would be
derived from the difcovery of a paflage by the North Pole. He reprefents in the ftrongeft
terms the glory which the kings of Spain and Portugal had obtained by their difcoveries
eaft and weit, and exhorts the king to emulate their fame by undertaking difcoveries
towards the north. He ftates in a very matterly {tyle the reputation that muft attend
the attempt, and the great benefits, fhould it be crowned with fuccefs, likely to accrue
to the fubjects of this country, from their advantageous fituation ; which, he obferves,
feems to make the exploring this, the only hitherto undifcovered part, the king’s pecu-
liar duty.
To remove any objection to the undertaking which might be drawn from the fuppofed
danger, he infilts pon ** the great advantages of conitant day- light in feas that, men
fay, “without great danger, difficulty, and peril, yea rather, it is impoflible to pafs; for
they being pait this little way which they named fo dangerous (which may be two or
three leagues before they come to the pole, and as much more after they pafs the pole),
it is clear from thenceforth the feas and lands are as temperate as in thele parts.”
In the paper addrefled to Dr. Ley he enters more minutely into the advantages and
practicability of the undertaking. Amongft many other arguments to prove the value
of the difcovery, he urges, that by failing northward and pajfling the pole, the navigation
from England to the Spice Iflands would be fhorter, by more than two thoufand leagues,
than either from Spain by the Straits of Magellan, or Portugal by the Cape of Good
Hope ; and to fhew the likelihood of fuccefs in the enterprize he fays, it is as probable
that the cofmographers fhould be miftaken in the opinion they entertain of the polar
regions being impaflable from extreme cold, as it has been found they were, in fuppofing
the countries under the Line to be uninhabitable from exceflive heat. With all the {pirit
of a man convinced of the glory to be gained, and the probability of fuccefs in the un-
dertaking, he adds, ¢* God knoweth, that though by it I fhould have no great intereft,
yet I have had, and ftill have, no little mind of this bufinefs ; ; fo that if I had taculty to
my will, it fhould be the firtt thing that I would underftand, even to attempt, if our feas
northward be navigable to the pole or no.” Notwith{tanding the many good argu-
ments, with which he fupported his propofition, and the offer of his own fervices, it does
not appear that he prevailed fo far as to procure an attempt to be made.
Borne, in his Regiment of the Sea, written about the year 1577, mentions this as one:
of the five ways to Cathay, and dwells chiefly on the miidnefs of climate which he ima-_
gines mult be found near the Pole, from the conftant prefence of the fun during the
fummer. ‘Thefe arguments, however, were foon after controverted by Blundeville, in
his treatife on Univerfal Maps.
In 1578, George Belt, a gentleman who had been with Sir Martin Frobifher in all
his voyages for the difcovery of a north-weft paflage, wrote a very ingenious difcourfe,
to prove all parts of the world habitable.
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