Note 93 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It is not, however, to be imagined that the Netherlanders—we can scarcely speak of the “Dutch” at the earliest period to which we are now adverting—had no previous connexion with the northern coasts of Russia, though it is true that that connexion was then but of recent date. For, as is stated by Edge, the English Russia Company having “made their first discoverie in the yeere 1553, there was neuer heard of any Netherlander that frequented those seas vntil the yeere 1578. At which time they first began to come to Cola, and within a yeere or two after, one Iohn de Whale [de Walle], a Netherlander, came to the Bay of Saint Nicholas, being drawne thither by the perswasion of some English, for their better meane of interloping; which was the first man of that nation that euer was seene there.”93 It was this same John de Walle, who was afterwards present at the coronation of the Emperor Fedor Ivanovich, at Moscow, on the 10th of June, 1584, when he had a dispute with Jerome Horsey, the English ambassador, as to precedency, which was decided by the emperor in favour of the latter. He is described by Horsey as “a famous merchant of Netherland, being newly come to Mosco, who gaue himselfe out to be the king of Spaines subiect.”94