ABSTRACT
All impediments in nature and circumstances of former practises duly considered. The Northerly passage to China seme very improbable. For first it is a matter very doubtfull whether there bee any such passage or no, sith it hath beene so often attempted and never performed, as by historical relation appeareth, whereby wee may fully persuade our selves that America and Asia, or some other continent are so conjoyned togeather as that it is impossible for any such passage to be, the certaintie whereof is substantially proved unto us by the experience of Sebastian Gabota, 1 an expert Pylot, and a man reported of especiall judgement, who being that wayes imployed returned without successe. Jasper Corteriallis, 2 a man of no meane practise, did likewise put the same in execution, with divers others, all which in the best parte have concluded ignorance. If not a full consent of such matter. And therefore sith practise hath reproved the same, there is no reason why men 196should dote upon so great an incertayntie, but if a passage may bee prooved and that the contenentes are disjoyned whereof there is small hope, yet the impedimentes of the clymate (wherein the same is supposed to lie) are such, and so offensive as that all hope is thereby likewise utterly secluded, for with the frozen zone no reasonable creature will deny, but that the extremitie of colde is of such forceable action (being the list in the fulness of his owne nature without mitigation) as that it is impossible for any mortall creature to indure the same, by the vertue of whose working power those Northerly Seas are wholly congealed, making but one mas or contenent of yse, which is the more credible, because the ordenary experience of our fishermen geveth us sufficient notice thereof, by reason of the great quantitie of yse which they find to be brought upon the cost of newefound land from those Northerne regions. By the aboundance whereof they are so noysomly pestred, as that in many weekes they have not beene able to recover the shore, yea and many times recover it not untill the season of fishing bee over passed. This then being so in the Septentrionall latitude of 46, 47, and 48 degrees, which by natures benefit are latitudes of better temperature than ours of England, what hope should there remayne for a navegable passing to be by the norwest, in the altitude of 60, 70, or 80 degres, as it may bee more Northerly, when in these temperate partes of the world the shod 1 of that frozen sea breadeth such noysome pester, as the pore fishermen doe continually sustain. And therefore it seemeth to be more then ignorance that men should attempt Navigation in desperate clymates and through seas congeled that never dissolve, where the stiffnes of the colde maketh the ayre palpably grosse without certainty that the landes are disjoyned.
