George Weymouth

George Weymouth († after 1607 ) was an English explorer .

Life

The year of birth of Weymouth (also Waymouth ) from Cockington ( Devon ) has not been passed down. It appeared for the first time in 1601 in a letter to the British East India Company , in which he suggested looking for a sea route to India in a westerly direction ( Northwest Passage ). The then eastern route around the Cape of Good Hope was on the one hand very long, on the other hand the merchant ships were often attacked by Portuguese ships. The East India Company therefore consented. For the discovery of the Northwest Passage he should receive 500 pounds, if it fails he should get nothing. It was agreed that the expedition should search for the passage for at least a year.

Arctic expedition

On May 2, 1602, Weymouth set sail with the ships Discovery (70 tons ) and Godspeed (60 tons) and a crew of 35 from London . There were supplies on board for 18 months. Weymouth also carried a letter from Elizabeth I to the Emperor of China , which was written in English, Latin, Spanish and Italian.

On June 18, the first iceberg was sighted off the south coast of Greenland . On June 28, they went ashore at 62 ° 30 ′ north on Baffin Island . Weymouth found two of the four possible entrances to the Northwest Passage reported by Davis: Frobisher Bay and Hudson Strait . However, thick fog and ice made further exploration impossible, so Weymouth set sails north. On July 8th, he sighted Baffin Island again at 63 ° 53 'N, but this time was unable to reach the coast due to thick pack ice . Weymouth then decided to look further north for the Northwest Passage, which, however , caused great resentment in his crew, including the clergyman John Cartwright . The team was of the opinion that they were not prepared for wintering and could just as easily return to England to set off again next spring. On July 19, north of 58 ° 35 ′, Weymouth was locked in his sleep in his cabin, the mutineers turned the ships off and sailed south. The next day, an agreement was made with Weymouth that if he did not set a course north, he would be in command again. On July 24th, the ships were at 61 ° 40 'N, and Weymouth explored the Hudson Strait, which due to favorable conditions he could sail about 400 miles deep, and then examined it for the entrance to the Northwest Passage. Then he sailed along the coast of the Labrador Peninsula up to 55 ° N, and explored another narrow bay at 56 °. On August 20, he finally ordered the return trip. The ships entered Dartmouth on September 5th .

On November 24th, he had to defend himself before a court of the East India Company, as the expedition had returned after a few months. He and the captain of Godspeed , John Drew , accused Pastor Cartwright of leading the mutiny, which the latter denied.

However, the East India Company found the Weymouth report of having found the entrance to the Northwest Passage in Hudson Street promising. Over several months, plans were made for another expedition under Weymouth the following year, but for unknown reasons this never took place. Instead, John Knight led an expedition off the Labrador Coast in 1606.

Expedition off Massachusetts and Maine

On his return he wrote The Jewell of Artes , a book dedicated to King James I , which deals with the topics of navigation, shipbuilding and fortress construction.

In 1605 he was employed as leader of an expedition funded by Ferdinando Gorges , Henry Wriothesley and Thomas Arundell , which was to explore the areas of Massachusetts Bay explored by Bartholomew Gosnold .

After the ship Archangel had left the port of London with a crew of 29 men on March 5, 1605 , it reached Nantucket on May 6, 1605 , from where the Massachusetts Bay area should be approached. But this expedition was driven to the north, so that they went ashore on May 16, 1605 on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine . Thus, the expedition was limited to the exploration and mapping of the Maine coast between Penobscot Bay and the mouth of the Kennebec River . After exchanging various goods for furs with the indigenous people, five indigenous people were captured and returned to England on July 18, 1605.

On October 27, 1607, the English king awarded him a pension of 3 shillings and 3 pence .

Weymouth Inlet, a side bay of Ungava Bay at the entrance to Hudson Street, is named after George Weymouth.

Sources and web links

• William J. Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2003, pp. 694f., ISBN 978-1576074220 .
• Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• James Rosier: True Relation of Waymouth's Voyage, 1605. From: Henry Burrage (Ed.): Early English and French Voyages, Chiefly from Hakluyt, 1534-1608. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1906. ( online )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The letter has survived and is now in the Lancashire County Record Office, Preston, England.
2. ↑ Now owned by the Yale University Library ( online )