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William Baffin
English Navigator & Explorer
 Although Baffin was most probably a native of
London, nothing is known of his early life.The earliest mention of him is in 1612, as pilot of the Patience, fitted
out at Hull by James Hall, for a voyage of discovery to Greenland. Hall
was a Yorkshireman, as was Andrew Barker, master of the Patience's
consort. the Heartsease; but four merchants of London - Sir Thomas
Smythe (most commonly misspelt Smith), Sir James Lancaster, Sir William
Cockayne, and Mr. Ball - had a large and principal share in the
adventure and it is conjectured that Baffin may have been appointed at
their instance. The expedition left the Humber on 22 April, and examined
the west coast of Greenland, as far as 67° N.; but, Hall having been
killed in an affray with the natives, the ships returned to England
under the command of Barker. The account of the voyage was written by
Baffin, part of which only, as published by Purchas, has been preserved;
another account, written by John Gatonby, one of the quartermasters, is
in Churchill's ‘Collection of Voyages,’ vi. 241.On his return from Greenland, Baffin entered the service of the Muscovy
Company, which had for some years past sent their ships to catch whales
near Spitzbergen. They had just obtained a charter, pretending to give
them the exclusive right of this fishery; and authorized by it had, in
1612, been sufficiently strong to drive away all foreigners. In 1613
they again sent out a fleet of seven ships, under the command of Captain
Benjamin Joseph, in the Tiger, with William Baffin as chief pilot. They
found seventeen foreign ships, Dutchmen, Dunkirkers, and Biscayans,
already on the Spitzbergen coast; these all submitted to the English
claim without resistance; most of them were ordered away, a few only
being allowed to fish on payment of half their take to the English
ships, which returned safely in September with full cargoes. The
narrative of this voyage, written by Baffin, has been preserved in
Purchas; another account, by Robert Fotherby, one of the party, is
printed from the original manuscript in ‘Transactions and Collections of
the American Antiquarian Society’ (1860), iv, 285. The following year,
1614, Baffin served again in the Spitzbergen fishery with Captain
Joseph, and in company with Fotherby, whose narrative of the voyage is
given by Purchas.The two, leaving their ship, provisioned two boats and persistently
pushed along the north coast to the eastward, as far as Hinlopen Strait;
but the year was very unfavourable, the ice coming close down to the
coast during the greater part of the season. Baffin returned to London
on 4 Oct., and the next year took service with the company for the
discovery of a north-west passage, the directors of which were Sir
Thomas Smythe, Sir Dudley Digges, and John Wolstenholme; he was
appointed pilot of the Discovery, commanded by Captain Robert Bylot. The
account of this voyage, written by Baffin was printed very incorrectly
by Purchas; the original manuscript, with map, is in the British Museum
(Add.MSS. 12,206), and was edited for the Hakluyt Society in l849 (RUNDALL,
Narratives of Voyages towards the North-west). As pilot of the Discovery
in 1615, Baffin carefully examined Hudson Strait and the eastern coast
of Southampton Island, with such accuracy that his latitudes and his
notes on the tides are in remarkable agreement with the more rigid
observations of the present century.They passed up Fox Channel, beyond Cape Comfort but finding the land
heading them, and, he says, ‘very thick pestered with ice, and the
further we proceeded the more ice and shoaler water, with small show of
any tide, we soon resolved there could be no passage in this place, and
presently we bore up the helm and turned the ship's head to the
southward (13 July). The land which we saw bear north and north-east was
about nine or ten leagues from us; and, surely, without any question,
this is the bottom of the bay on the west side; but how far it runneth
more eastward is yet uncertain.' In August 1821, Captain Parry, with
better fortune, repeated Baffin’s observations; he confirmed the remark
as to the 'small show of any tide,' and he saw also the land to the
north-east; but he found this to be an island, to which he gave the
appropriate name of Baffin’s Island, and succeeded in passing away
beyond (Voyages of Fury and Heela, 1824, p. 33). The Discovery anchored
in Plymouth Sound on 8 Sept.; and Baffin, summing up the results of the
voyage, says that 'doubtless there is a passage; but within this strait,
which is called Hudson’s Strait, I am doubtful, supposing the contrary …
and my judgment is if any passage within Resolution Island, it is but
some creek or inlet, but the main will be up Fretum Davis.’ Acting on
this opinion in the next year, 1616, also in the Discovery, with Captain
Bylot, he passed up Davis Strait, and pushing to the north as far as 78°
N., discovered and named Smith's Sound (in which the false spelling has
become a geographical fact), Lancaster Sound, Jones Sound, Wolstenholme
Sound, Sir Dudley Digges Cape, with many others, and charted the whole
in a manner which we have warrant to suppose was fairly accurate
according to the nautical science of the day. Unfortunately, the map and
the journal, as well as the narrative, were handed over to Purchas who
published the narrative alone, and that probably in a garbled and
imperfect form, considering the reproduction of the chart and of the
journal too costly an undertaking. And, so far as is known, neither the
one nor the other has ever been seen since, though Mr. Markham offers
the very plausible conjecture that the map published by Luke Foxe in
l635 (North-West Fox, &c) may have been in this part, copied from the
lost map of Baffin. It does not mark all Baffin’s names, but it does
represent the bay as something like the reality, and closed, as it is
described by Baffin. Baffin’s conclusion, stated in his report to Sir
John Wolstenholme is briefly: 'There is no passage, nor hope of passage,
in the north of Davis Strait, we having coasted all or nearly all the
circumference thereof, and find it to be no other than a great bay.' The
want of the original map, however, permitted very wild statements as to
the shape and size of Baffin’s Bay to grow up, so that in course of time
it came to be doubted whether the whole story was not a fable; and in
later maps the distorted representation of Baffin’s most important
discoveries was omitted altogether as a mere fancy, till, in 1818,
Captain Ross rediscovered them, and without difficulty identified the
localities which Baffin had described and named (Voyages in H.M. ships
Isabel1a and Alexander (4to, 1819), 140,146).Baffin had expressed an opinion against the existence of a north-west
passage; but his imagination would not be convinced, and suggested that
better fortune might attend an expedition on the other side, starting
from the neighborhood of Japan. In some such hope, though quite
indefinite, he obtained an appointment as master’s mate in the Anne
Royal, a large ship belonging to the East India Company and commanded by
Captain Andrew Shilling. This was one of the fleet which sailed from the
Downs on 5 March 1616-7, and arrived at Surat in the following
September. Captain Shilling was then directed to proceed into the Red
Sea for settling an English trade in those parts; and arrived off Mocha
on 13 April 1618. The Anne Royal remained in the Red Sea for about four
months, during which time Baffin was busily employed in surveying and in
charting his observations; and so also, when, later in the year the ship
went into the Persian Gulf. In February the Anne Royal left India
homeward bound, and arrived in the Thames in September 1619. A minute of
the court of directors, dated l Oct., orders 'William Baffin, a masters
mate in the Anne, to have a gratuity for his pains and good art in
drawing out certain plots of the coast of Persia and the Red Sea, which
are judged to have been very well and artificially performed; some to be
drawn out by Adam Bowen, for the benefit of such as shall be employed in
those parts' (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, East Indies, 1617-21,
257).Early the next year Captain Shilling, in the London, a new ship, again
sailed for the East Indies in command of a company's fleet of four
ships, and Baffin accompanied him as master. They arrived at Surat on 9
Nov. 1620, and having learned that a combined force of two Portuguese
and two Dutch ships, making common cause against the English, were
waiting at the entrance of the Persian Gulf to attack such of their
ships as came that way, they sailed at once to look and anticipate them.
On 16 Dec. the two fleets, equal in point of numbers, met and engaged.
They fought for nine hours, and separated to repair damages. Twelve days
later they met again, Captain Swan, of the English ship Roebuck, whose
journal is given by Purchas (the original manuscript of which is in the
India Office) says: 'Our broadsides were brought up, and the good
ordnance from our whole fleet played so fast upon them that, doubtless,
if the knowledge in our people had been less answerable to their willing
minds and ready resolutions not one of the galleons1 unless their sides
were impenetrable, had escaped us.’ It was, perhaps, not only the want
of knowledge but the imperfections of the guns, of the powder and of the
shot, that rendered it possible for ships to fire at each other all day
without any decided result. On this occasion, however, some damage was
done, and towards evening the enemy towed their ships off, and were not
pursued. Captain Shilling was mortally wounded, and died on 6 Jan.
1620-1; Captain Blyth succeeded to the command, but the change made no
difference to Baffin, who continued master of the London, and the fleet
presently returned to Surat. In the following year the English in India
agreed to assist the Shah of Persia in driving the Portuguese out of
Ormuz, a place which, in former ages, had been the emporium of the East,
the wonder and admiration of the world; and though in the hands of the
Portuguese, and since the opening of the route round the Cape of Good
Hope, its wealth and importance had declined, it was still extremely
rich. The Shah had long regarded the Portuguese possession with
jealousy, and had coveted the accumulated treasures, greater in repute
than in fact, and now hoped, with the help of the English, to achieve
his desire. The attack began with the reduction of Kishm, an adjacent
island, on which Ormuz as largely dependent for water; and here, on 23
Jan.1621-2, Baffin whilst taking the angles of the castle wall, in order
to measure its height and distance, received his death-wound. According
to the account given by Purchas, ‘he received a shot from the castle
into his belly, wherewith he gave three leaps, and died immediately.’
His death made little difference to the result of the siege; Kishm
surrendered on 1 Feb., and Ormuz also, after a stout defense on 23 April
1622. Baffin appears to have left no surviving children; but his widow
preferred a claim for some money which she asserted belonged to her
husband, in compensation for which she eventually received 500l. She is
described as then, in 1628, a woman advanced in years and deaf, and as
having married again. Amongst early navigators Baffin takes a high place
as one of the first who endeavored to determine longitude at sea by
astronomical observations. In his first recorded voyage to Greenland (8
July 1612) he describes his attempt to determine the longitude by
observing the time of the moon's culmination; and in his voyage to
Hudson’s Bay (21 June 1615) he has recorded by the lunar distance of the
sun. The measurements were of necessity too rude to give results even
approximately correct, but that was the fault of the instruments; and
though the observation led to no immediate improvement, the date is
noteworthy as that of the first lunar observation taken at sea.
A great deal of the information on this page came from "The Voyages
of William Baffin, 1612-22", edited, with notes and an introduction, by
Clements R Markham, C.B., F.R.S. (1881), for the Hakluyt Society.Mr Markham’s Introduction embodies the result of much laborious
research, and it is scarcely to be hoped that any further evidence as to
Baffin’s origin and early life can now be discovered. |
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