CAPTAIN GEORGE WAYMOUTH

Summary

This adventure was carried into effect under the sole patronage and direction, and at the entire charge of the “Wor^ll Fellowship of the M^rchñts of London trading into the East Indies”. Yet from the date of the undertaking to the present day, the worshipful association have not only been denied the credit of this “honorable acẽon”; but the merit of the enterprise has been attributed to other parties: to the Muscovia and Turkey Companies, who had not the slightest connexion with the matter. This act of injustice originated with Captain Waymouth, by whom the voyage was made. Purchas printed, without note or comment, Waymouth's Journal, in which the mis-statement is made. This was in 1624. Fox, in 1634, copied the error. Anderson, who had no means of ascertaining the truth, adopted the error in 1774; and Barrow, under the same circumstances as Anderson, revived it in 1818. There would be little advantage in speculating on the motives which induced Captain Waymouth to give publicity to the mis-statement: though, it may be observed, the act can scarcely be attributed to inadvertence, or to want of knowledge of the truth. This, it is considered, will be evident from the following detail of circumstances in refutation of this antiquated error: which in the lapse of time, and by the mistakes of authors, has been invested with the characteristics of a venerable fact.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS

The project was brought to the notice of the Fellowship on the 24th of July, 1601. On that day “a lrẽ written by one George Waymouth, a navigat^r, touching an attempte to be made for the discovery of the North-west passage to the Est Indies”, was submitted for consideration in a General Court; and it was determined to refer the matter till another meeting.