‘Accidentall Restraints' 1

The continent of America, growing in bulk and extent as sixteenth-century exploration and mapping filled in its contours, presented a perplexing obstacle to English trading and expansionary interests. ² The Strait of Magellan had been known since 1520, but presented daunting difficulties for the English, because of the ferocious weather and the dangers of sailing through Spanish-dominated waters. Beyond that barrier beckoned the tantalizing treasures of the Moluccas, Cathay, and Japan: ‘golde, silver, precious stones, cloth of gold, silkes, all maner of spices, [and] grocery wares’. ³ All these might be exchanged for English commodities, especially cloth, bringing wealth and employment back home. ⁴ If neither the Strait of Magellan, nor the long and difficult journey around the Cape of Good Hope, through Portuguese-controlled waters, offered ready access to Eastern markets for English shipping, then perhaps passages to the north, whether to the northwest round the continent of America, or to the northeast atop Muscovy, might offer alternatives, more suited to England’s northerly position. The rhetoric of many of those engaged in the quest for straits and passages to the fabled East suggests, however, that more was at stake than a narrowly self-interested search for personal or national wealth. Successful passage through the obscure and dangerous straits to the north or south of America offered the possibility not only of wealth through the exchange of goods, but also the creation of a global circulation of knowledge and religious truth. At work in writings about a Northwest Passage are ideas of east-to-west ocean flows and currents temporarily blocked and diverted by narrows and straits, the ‘accidentall restraints’ of my title. By understanding this natural westward flow and discovering and navigating its passages, English shipping would enable the providential work of bringing civility and the Protestant faith to regions previously isolated from such blessings. In this essay I shall discuss some of the more visionary aspects of writing promoting northwest discoveries and passages through straits to the extreme north and south of America before going on to consider their implications for the rhetoric of the voyage narratives themselves.