VOYAGES FOR THE MUSCOVY COMPANY

The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery by Richard Hakluyt is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. VOYAGES FOR THE MUSCOVY COMPANY

VOYAGES FOR THE MUSCOVY COMPANY

The arrival back at London of Chancellor’s company in the autumn of 1554 was greeted with much rejoicing, while the tales that they told of the strange sights they had seen and the great things they had accomplished filled the merchant adventurers with admiration. Uneasiness over the fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby and the men of the two lost ships tempered their enthusiasm; but their hope and belief were strong that the missing ones would ultimately be safely found, and immediate steps were taken toward a search for them.

Acting upon Chancellor’s wondrous reports and the letters he brought, the English sovereign, now Mary, with her consort Philip of Spain, in February, 1555, granted a charter to the promoters under the name of the Merchant Adventurers of England, and constituted Sebastian Cabot governor of the corporation for life, in consideration that he had been the “chiefest setter forth” of the first voyage. Thus was established the great Muscovy Company with a monopoly of the new Russian trade, and empowered further to promote discoveries in unknown regions—"lands, territories, isles, dominions, and seigniories"—north, northeast, and northwest.

In the following May (1555) the newly organized company despatched Chancellor on a second voyage to the White Sea again with the “Edward Bonaventure” and a companion ship, the “Philip and Mary,” both freighted with English goods to be bartered for Russian furs and other commodities. Accompanying him were three factors, or agents, of the company, and he carried letters of amity from Mary to Ivan, written in Greek, Polish, and Italian. While this second voyage was essentially a commercial one, Chancellor was to continue his efforts to discover a Northeast passage, being instructed to “use all wayes and meanes possible to learne howe men may passe from Russia either by land or sea to Cathaia.” He was also to make diligent enquiry among mariners and other “travelled persons” for tidings of Willoughby’s party.

This expedition arrived at “Wardhouse” by midsummer, and Moscow was reached in November. As flattering courtesies as before were exchanged between the emperor and Chancellor, and the factors were freely accorded the privileges asked for. Chancellor remained in Moscow through the following winter and spring, and then prepared for his return voyage, Ivan having appointed an ambassador to go back with him personally to convey to the English court tokens of the emperor’s good will and readiness to enter into mutual bonds of friendship. Chancellor had made no further Northeastern discoveries, but the fate of Willoughby and his companions had been ascertained, and their two ships had been brought from the tragic Lapland haven to St. Nicholas and added to Chancellor’s fleet there.

The return voyage was begun from St. Nicholas in July (1556), the four ships—the “Edward Bonaventure,” the “Philip and Mary,” and the restored “Bona Esperanza” and “Bona Confidentia”—making a goodly show as they put to sea. On board of the “Bonaventure” with Chancellor was the ambassador, Osep Napea by name, with most of his suite, a brilliant company of “Russes” and numerous servants, the remainder of his train, Russian merchants among them, being passengers on the other ships. The ambassador was well supplied with handsome trappings with which to dazzle his hosts, and he carried letters “tenderly conceived” from Ivan to the English sovereign. All of the ships were heavy laden with Russian goods for the English trade, parts of the cargoes being taken out by the Russians; while on the “Bonaventure” were a quantity of presents from the emperor to Philip and Mary—costly furs, rich skins, and “four living sables with chains and collars.”

For a time the four ships kept gallant company. Then high winds and storms arose and they were separated not to come together again. The “Philip and Mary,” the “Bona Esperanza,” and the “Bona Confidentia,” were all driven on the coast of Norway into “Drenton” waters. The fated ships in which Willoughby and his associates perished, were both lost with their passengers and crews. The “Confidentia” was seen to “perish on a rock.” The “Philip and Mary,” finding a snug harbour, was saved to make her way back to England nearly a year later. The “Bonaventure” continued alone on the voyage buffeted by much foul weather. At length, after four long months at sea, she also met her fate. At the close of a bleak November day she was driven by “outrageous tempests” on the north coast of Scotland, and was wrecked off Pitsligo, in Aberdeen Bay. Chancellor bent all his energies to saving the ambassador. Taking him with seven of his “Russes” into the ships’ boat he made for the shore. But it was now night-time, dark and tempestuous, and all of the boat’s company were lost save the ambassador and a few of the sailors. So the brave Chancellor perished at the height of his fame and usefulness as a navigator.

The ambassador thus barely escaping a watery grave was compensated with a magnificent reception. He was provided with fine raiment of silk and velvet, and other furnishings in place of those lost in the wreck (which, by the way, was looted by “rude and ravenous” people of the neighbourhood), and a band of titled Englishmen escorted him from Scotland to London. His formal entry into the city was made on a Saturday, the last day of February. It was a great spectacle, the court and the Muscovy Company combining for to outshine Ivan’s receptions of Chancellor. Hakluyt describes it under the caption, “A discourse of the honourable receiving into England of the first ambassador from the Empire of Russia in the year of Christ 1556” (1556/7).

Met at the outskirts by the “merchants adventuring for Russia to the number of one hundred and fortie persons, and so many or more servants in one [uniform] liverie,” he was conducted toward the city, being shown on the way a fox hunt, and “such like” English sport. Near the north line he was met and embraced by “the right honourable Viscount Montague, sent by her grace [the queen] for his entertainment.” Thence, accompanied by “divers lustie knights, esquiers, gentlemen, and yeomen to the number of three hundred horses,” he was led to the north parts of the city where four “notable merchants richly apparelled” presented him a “right faire and large gelding richly trapped, together with a foot-cloth of Orient crimson velvet enriched with gold laces all finished in most glorious fashion.” Mounting the beautiful horse he continued in formal procession on to “Smithfield barres the first limites of the liberties of the citie of London.” Here the Lord Mayor and all of the aldermen, in blazing scarlet, were lined up to receive and join him. Thence the gay pageant passed through the city: the ambassador riding between the Lord Mayor and Viscount Montague, “a great number of notable personages riding before, and a large troupe of servants and apprentices following,” throngs of curious people “running plentifully on all sides.” The procession brought up at the lodgings which had been provided for the guest, the chambers being “richly hanged and decked over and above the gallant furniture.”

The ambassador remained in London till early May, the recipient of a continuous round of courtesies. He was feasted and banquetted “right friendly” at the houses of the mayor and of “divers worshipful men;” was royally entertained by Philip and Mary at Westminster when he presented the emperor’s letters; and was given a farewell supper, “notably garnished with musicke, enterludes, and bankets,” by the whole Muscovy Company at the hall of the Drapers’ Guild. Meanwhile the trade alliance was cemented by a league confirmed under the great seal of England, and by letters “very tenderly and friendly written” from Philip and Mary to Ivan. When at length he took his departure from London to return to Russia, a grand company of aldermen and merchants escorted him to Gravesend where a fine fleet of four “tall ships,” the “Primrose,” the “John Evangelist,” the “Anne,” and the “Trinitie,” provided by the Muscovy Company for his conveyance, lay in waiting. The leave-takings on both sides were most fervent, with “many embracements and divers farewells not without expressing of teares.”

This fleet, sailing on the twelfth of May, 1557, carried cargoes of English merchandise “apt for Russia,” besides quantities of goods taken out by the ambassador and his retinue, together with return presents from the queen to the emperor, including rare silks and velvets, and “two live lions”: so that compliment and business were profitably mixed in the voyage. As commander of the fleet was Anthony Jenkinson, gentleman, already favourably known among English merchants as a daring traveller in the Levant in the interest of commerce, and now, through a succession of wonderful travels, to extend the Merchant Adventurers’ field of operations into Central Asia. St. Nicholas was duly reached in July, where the ambassador and his train disembarked to take other craft for Kholmogro, on the Northern Dwina, southwest of Archangel. The fleet went no further, and after discharging cargoes and relading with Russian stuffs, turned back for England, leaving Jenkinson behind to see the ambassador safely arrived at Moscow and then to start on his new travels into Asia.

The story of Jenkinson’s adventures and their results was related in two narratives, both of which Hakluyt preserves. The one covers, as its title runs, “The voyage wherein Osep Napea the Muscovite Ambassadour returned home into his Countrey with his entertainment at his arrival at Colmogro [Kholmogro], and a large description of the maners of the Countrey.” The other is entitled, “The voyage of Master Anthony Jenkinson made from the citie of Mosco in Russia to the citie of Boghar [Bokhara] in Bactria, in the yeere 1558, written by himself to the Marchants of London of the Muscovie Companie.”

At Moscow he was as graciously received as his predecessors had been, and while there he farther advanced the interests of the Merchant Adventurers. He remained in the Russian capital for longer periods than Chancellor, and had larger opportunities for observation. Hence his delineations supplied richer colour. Thus the emperor’s “lodging” is pictured:

“The Emperors lodging is in a faire and large castle, walled foure square of bricke, high and thicke, situated upon a hill, 2 miles about, and the river on the Southwest side of it, and it hath 16 gates in the walles & as many bulwarks. His palace is separated from the rest of the Castle by a long wall going north and south to the river side. In his palace are Churches, some of stone and some of wood with round towers finely gilded. In the Church doores and within the Churches are images of golde: the chiefe markets for all things are within the sayd Castle, and for sundry things sundry markets, and every science by it selfe. And in the winter there is a great market without the castle, upon the river being frozen, and there is sold corne, earthen pots, tubs, sleds, &c.”

Thus, the costume of the “Russe,” presumably of the higher orders:

“The Russe is apparalled in this maner: his upper garment is of cloth of golde, silke, or cloth, long, downe to the foot, and buttoned with great buttons of silver, or els [else] laces of silke, set on with brooches, the sleeves thereof very long, which he weareth on his arme, ruffed up. Under that he hath another long garment, buttoned with silke buttons, with a high coller standing up of some colour, and that garment is made straight. Then his shirt is very fine, and wrought with red silke, or some gold with a coller of pearle. Under his shirt he hath linnen breeches upon his legs, a paire of hose without feete, and his bootes of red or yellow leather. On his head he weareth a white Colepecke, with buttons of silver, gold, pearle, or stone, and under it a blacke Foxe cap, turned up very broad.”

His equipages:

“The Russe, if he be a man of any abilitie, never goeth out of his house in the winter but upon his sled, and in summer upon his horse: and in his sled he sits upon a carpet, or a white Beares skinne: the sled is drawen with a horse well decked, with many Foxes and Woolves tails at his necke, & is conducted by a little boy upon his backe: his servants stand upon the taile of the sled.”

The trappings of the saddle-horse:

“They use sadles made of wood & sinewes, with the tree gilded with damaske worke, & the seat covered with cloth, sometimes of golde, and the rest Saphian leather well stitched. They use little drummes at their sadle bowes, by the sound whereof their horses use to runne more swiftly.”

Ways of travelling:

“In the winter time the people travell with sleds, in towne and countrey, the way being hard, and smooth with snow: the waters and rivers are all frozen and one horse with a sled will draw a man upon it 400 miles in three daies: but in the Summer time the way is deepe with mire, and travelling is very ill.”

Jenkinson started on his eastern travels from Moscow 133in late April, 1558, well furnished with letters from the emperor, directed to all kings and princes through whose dominions he might pass, soliciting safe conduct for him. He was accompanied by two others of the Muscovy Company’s men—Richard and Robert Johnson—and a Tartar guide. His ultimate aim was a passage to “Cathay” from Russia by way of the Caspian Sea, and “Boghar” (Bokhara) overland. He sailed from Moscow on the Moskva River in a small but staunch vessel and carried along with him “divers parcels of wares” for barter and trade as he travelled. At Nijni-Novgorod, at the junction of the Oka and the great Volga rivers, he joined the train of a captain, or governor, who had been sent out by the emperor to rule at Astrakhan, and who had under his command “500 great boates,” some laden with soldiers and army supplies, others with merchandise. Astrakhan was reached in the middle of July. Thence, in early August, Jenkinson and his comrades proceeded alone, and entered the Caspian Sea, the first of Englishmen to plow its waters. Here as they sailed they displayed in their flags the “redde crosse of S. George” for “honour of the Christians.” After weeks of coasting along the shores, and much difficult navigation, they landed, early in September, “overthwart Manguslave”—Mangishlak, in long after times known as Fort Novo-Alexandrovsk. Here they joined a caravan of a “thousand camels” and entered upon a long overland journey, full of adventure and not without peril, by way of Khiva to Bokhara. For twenty days they travelled in a “wilderness from the seaside without seeing town or habitation.” At one time they were driven by necessity to eat one of their camels and a horse. During the twenty days they found no water but such as they drew out of “old deep wells which was very brackish and salt.” Far along on their way they encountered bands of “rovers” (highwaymen), one of forty men under a banished prince, and had some sharp fighting.

Bokhara was at length reached two days before Christmas. Presenting the emperor’s letters to the ruler here, Jenkinson was favourably received. Soldiers were sent out after the banished prince’s rovers, and four being captured they were hanged at the palace gate “because they were gentlemen.” Jenkinson remained in the city for more than two months, keenly observant of men and things. He saw merchants and caravans from various countries, Persia, India, and others, and heard much about routes to “Cathay.” He would have pressed on to Persia, but was prevented by wars.

He finally left to return to Russia near mid-March, and in the nick of time, for ten days after his departure Bokhara was besieged. He took back with him, committed to his charge, two ambassadors sent by two kings to the Russian emperor. Along the way four more Tartar ambassadors were added to his train; and later he took on twenty-five “Russes” who had been for a long time slaves in Tartary. He was back at Astrakhan by the last of May. Several small boats were here prepared, constituting quite a little fleet, to go up against the stream of the Volga, and in June the last stage of the journey was begun under the protection of one hundred gunners provided by the emperor. Moscow was reached in early September and Jenkinson’s charges safely delivered, for which he was accorded the honours of a hero. He now tarried in Moscow till February, 1560, in the interest of the Muscovy Company. Then he left for Vologhda, and thence went to Kholmogro to take passage for home and report upon his journeyings, by which the entering wedge for English trade with Central Asia had been made. As soon as navigation opened he sailed with Stephen Borough, the master of the “Edward Bonaventure” on the first voyage, then returning from his third voyage to the White Sea.

Stephen Borough was the navigator sailing next after Chancellor for the Muscovy Company. In May, 1556, a year after Chancellor’s departure on his second and last voyage, Borough was sent out at the head of an expedition to discover the harbours in the North coast from Norway to “Wardhouse,” and to renew the search for the Northeast Passage. His ships comprised a pinnace called the “Searchthrift” and a smaller vessel. The little company consisted of himself, his brother William Borough, and eight others. In this adventure, discovery being the paramount object, Sebastian Cabot was especially interested, and “the good old gentleman” was the central figure in the farewell scenes at the sailing. When the “Searchthrift” was lying off Gravesend prepared to depart, he came aboard with “divers gentlemen and gentlewomen” to wish her Godspeed. After his party had inspected the ship and “tasted of such cheere” as her company could provide, they went ashore distributing as they left “right liberal rewards” among the sailors. On shore Cabot with a generous hand bestowed alms on the poor, asking them to pray for good fortune to the expedition. The day finished with a merry dinner and dance at “the signe of the Christopher,” in which Cabot’s party and the ship’s company joined. At these parting festivities Borough pleasantly pictures the fine veteran seaman, “for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery,” entering into the dance himself “amongst the rest of the young and lusty company.” But when they were over, “hee and his friends departed most gently, commending us to the governance of almighty God.”

This was the last public appearance of Cabot, or the last of which mention is made in the chronicles, although he lived for a year longer. His death occurred probably in London in 1557, sixty-one years after the first commission issued to the Cabots, John and his sons, from Henry the seventh. As in the case of his father, neither the exact date of his death nor the place of his burial is known, and Englishmen and Americans alike much regret that no monument marks the graves of these discoverers of our continent of North America.

SEBASTIAN CABOT AT ABOUT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE.

Reproduced from the engraving of Seyer’s “History of Bristol,” published in 1823. The original painting was attributed to Holbein and destroyed by fire in 1845.

The record of Borough’s voyage is his own account, which Hakluyt gives under the title, “The navigation and discoverie toward the river of Ob [Obi] made by Master Steven Burrough, master of the Pinnesse called the Searchthrift with divers things worth the noting, passed in the yere 1556.” The outcome of it was the discovery of the strait between Nova Zembla and the island of Waigats leading to the Kara Sea, which entrance was given the discoverer’s name as Burrough’s Strait. While Borough did not get to the Obi, adverse winds and the lateness of the season preventing (off Waigats snow was being shovelled from the “Searchthrift” in August), he was the first Western European to reach the southern extremity of Nova Zembla, and the first to put “Vaigats” on the map. Turning at the new-found strait he worked his way back to the White Sea and wintered at Kholmogro. In the following May he set sail again to seek the three missing ships which had left St. Nicholas with Chancellor and the Russian ambassador the year before. After a search of the coast of Lapland, and a call at “Wardhouse” without result, he was returning to Kholmogro, when calling at Fisher Island, or Ribachi, off Point Kegor, in Russian Finland, he learned their fate from Dutch traders there.

Of this supplementary voyage Borough also wrote a detailed account, with mention of other “divers things” worth noting. Hakluyt reproduces this account as “The voyage of the foresaid M. Stephen Burrough, An. 1557, from Colmogro to Wardhouse, which was sent to seeke the Bona Esperanza, the Bona Confidentia, and the Philip and Mary, which were not heard of the yeere before.” Constantly observant, Borough made various practical business notes along the way. At Fisher Island he found Dutchmen with Norwegian ships trading prosperously with the Lapps, giving “mighty strong” beer in exchange for stock-fish. Upon which he shrewdly comments: “I am certaine that our English double beere would not be liked by the Kerils and Lappians as long as that would last.” He arrived back in England in the summer of 1557.

The next year Borough visited Spain, where he received much attention for his part in the discovery of “Moscovie,” as Hakluyt related in the “Epistle Dedicatorie” of his Divers Voyages: “Master Steven Borrows, now one of the foure masters of the Queens nauie, tolde me that, newely after his returne from the discouerie of Moscovie by the North in Queene Maries [Mary’s] daies, the Spaniards having intelligence that he was master in that discouerie tooke him into their contractation house [in Seville] at their making and admitting of masters and pilots giving him great honour, and presented him with a payre [pair] of perfumed gloves woorth five or six Ducates.”

His third voyage, of 1560, on the return of which he brought Anthony Jenkinson home, was the seventh despatched by the Muscovy Company, and was purely commercial. It was made with a fleet of three “good ships”—the “Swallow,” the “Philip and Mary,” and the “Jesus”—freighted with English goods, bound for St. Nicholas. Of the “Swallow’s” cargo were pipes of “secker” (sherry), one of which, marked with “2 round compasses upon the bung,” was intended as a present for the emperor, “for it” was “special good.” This voyage was successful throughout, and it was remarked as the first of the seven for the Muscovy Company which got safely back to the home port “without loss, or shipwreck, or dead freight.” Such was the hazard of seafaring with the rude ships of that day in the cruel Northern seas.

In May of the next year, 1561, Borough again sailed with the “Swallow” and two other ships for St. Nicholas, this time taking out Jenkinson as ambassador to Persia, under the patronage of the queen—now Elizabeth—and also still representing the Muscovy Company, to make another expedition into the Transcaspian region, and to establish commercial relations with Persia. This is supposed to have been Borough’s last voyage to Russia. At the opening of 1563 he was appointed chief pilot and one of the four masters of the queen’s navy, which post he was holding, as we have seen, when Hakluyt published the Divers Voyages. He died in his sixtieth year, in 1584.

Anthony Jenkinson’s second Transcaspian expedition was in some respects more wonderful than his previous travels, and his account of it, given in “A compendious and briefe declaration” to the Muscovy Company fills several of the large pages of the Principal Navigations. A summary, however, appears in a subsequent paper, rehearsing all of his travels from his first voyage out of England in 1546. The salient points are to be gathered from the two. Starting from Moscow in March, 1562, some months after his arrival out, having been detained there by one cause and another, he passed over his former route to the Caspian Sea; sailed the Caspian to Derbent, or Derbend, then an Armenian city belonging to Persia, on the western shore; thence travelled overland through Media, Pathia, Hercania, into Persia, finally bringing up at the court of the “Great Sophy called Shaw Tamossa,” where he remained for eight months. Along the way he generously scattered presents with which he had been provided for distribution among the “kings, princes, and governors” whom he might meet; and at the great shah’s court he delivered a letter he bore from the queen to the shah, a flattering missive explaining his mission as solely commercial. At length, after much manœuvering, he obtained from “Obdolowcan, king of Hircania”—Abdullah Khan, king of Shirvan—the sought-for trade privileges, which led to the opening of the rich trade centering in Persia to the English merchants. After encountering varied perils and congratulating himself upon getting away alive, in the disturbed relations then existing between Persia and Turkey, he arrived safely back at Moscow in August, 1563. There he remained through the following winter, preparing for a second expedition to Persia for trading purposes, meanwhile sending one of his companions, Edward Clarke, overland to England with letters reporting the result of his mission. In May, 1564, the second expedition was started off under 141three of his associates, employees of the Muscovy Company, while he himself returned to England, reaching London in September.

In the spring of 1565 Jenkinson is found in association with Humphrey Gilbert presenting to Queen Elizabeth a memorial on the subject of the Northeast Passage, and offering to take charge of an expedition to attempt its discovery. Nothing, however, came of this petition, the queen finding other service for both petitioners. Jenkinson was appointed to the command of her ship “Aid” the following September, with instructions to cruise on the coast of Scotland to prevent a landing of the Earl of Bothwell, and to clear the sea of pirates.

In 1566 the Muscovy Company, in consequence of encroachments by various traders upon their monopoly, were reincorporated by the queen’s act and under a new name—the “Fellowship of English Merchants”—with authority to continue the “discovery of new trades.” Then Jenkinson made another voyage to Russia and secured the monopoly of the White Sea trade for the reorganized company. Trade voyages also followed annually to Persia by various navigators for the company. In the summer of 1571 Jenkinson, again as the queen’s ambassador, was in Russia, having been sent to appease the emperor, who, incensed at the failure of overtures made by him for an alliance with England by which each would assist the other in its wars, had annulled the Fellowship’s privileges and confiscated their property. Although upon his arrival at St. Nicholas being told that Ivan had threatened to take his head if he should venture into the country, he boldly sought the irate czar, and finally succeeded in bringing him round to a renewal of the privileges.

This was Jenkinson’s last voyage. He had accomplished much in enlarging the geographical knowledge of his time. He next appears as an associate in new ventures for discovery to the Westward, attention now being again directed to the Northwest Passage and to the North American continent.

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