Note 98 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This movement on the part of the merchants of Middelburg and Enkhuysen had the effect of inducing those of Amsterdam to desire to participate in the enterprise, or, it should rather be said, to undertake one on their own account, having the same general object in view, but adopting a somewhat different mode of carrying it out. Instead of attempting a way to China by passing between Novaya Zemlya and the Russian continent, the Amsterdammers, at the instance of the celebrated cosmographer and astronomer, Peter Plancius, decided on sending their vessel round to the north of Novaya Zemlya, as offering a far easier and preferable route. This difference of opinion between the promoters of the two parts of the first expedition must be borne in mind, as explaining several circumstances which, in the course of our subsequent narrative, will have to be adverted to. A third vessel was accordingly fitted out by the merchants of Amsterdam, aided by the court of admiralty there. It was of the same size and character as the other two, and like Tetgales’s vessel was named the Mercury (Mercurius);98 its command being entrusted to William Barents,99 who took with him also a fishing-boat belonging to Ter Schelling.100