Note 612 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

The 13 of June it was faire weather; then the maister and the carpenters went to the ship, and there made the scute and the boate ready, so that there rested nothing as then but onely to bring it downe to the water side. The maister and those that were with him, seeing that it was open water and a good west wind, came back to the house againe, and there he spake vnto William Barents (that had bin long sicke), and shewed him that he thought it good (seeing it was a fit time) to goe from thence, and so willed the company612 to driue613 the boate and the scute downe to the water side, and in the name of God to begin our voiage to saile from Noua Zembla. Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a muskets charge614 and hanged it vp in the chimney, shewing how we615 came out of Holland to saile to the kingdome of China, and what had happened vnto vs being there on land, with all our crosses, that if any man chanced to come thither, they might know what had happened vnto vs [how we had fared], and how we had bin forced in our extremity to make that house, and had dwelt 10 mounthes therein. And for that we were [now forced] to put to sea in two small open boates and to vndertake a dangerous and aduenterous voiage in hand, the maister [also] wrote two letters, which most of vs subscribed vnto, signifying how we had stayed there vpon the land in great trouble and miserie, in hope that our ship would be freed from the ice and that we should saile away with it againe, and how it fell out to the contrary, and that the ship lay fast in the ice; so that in the end, the time passing away and our victuals beginning to faile vs, we were forced, for the sauing of our owne liues, to leaue616 the ship and to saile away in our open boates, and so to commit our selues into the hands of God. Which done, he put into each of our scutes a letter,617 yt if we chanced to loose one another or yt by stormes or any other misaduenture we hapened to be cast away, that then by the scute that escaped men might know how we left each other. And so, hauing finished all things as we determined, we drew the boate618 to the water side and left a man in it, and went and fetcht the scute,619 and after that eleuen sleads with goods, as victuals and some wine that yet remained, and the marchants goods which we preserued as wel as we could,620 viz., 6 packs with [the] fine[st] wollen cloth, a chest with linnen, two packets wt ueluet, two smal chests with mony, two drifats621 with the mens clothes [such as shirts], and other things, 13 barrels of bread, a barrell of cheese,622 a fletch of bacon, two runlets of oyle, 6 small runlets of wine, two runlets of vinegar, with other packs [and clothes] belonging to ye sailers [and many other things]; so that when they lay altogether upon a heape, a man would haue iudged that they would not haue gone into the scutes. Which being all put into them, we went to the house, and first drew William Barents vpon a slead to the place where our scutes lay, and after that we fetcht Claes Adrianson,623 both of them hauing bin long sicke. And so we [being] entred into the scutes and deuided our selues into each of them alike, and put into either of them a sicke man, then the maister caused both the scutes to ly close one by the other, and there we subscribed to the letters which he had written [as is above mentioned], the coppie whereof hereafter ensueth. And so committing our selues to the will and mercie of God, with a west north-west wind and an endifferent open water, we set saile and put to sea.