This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
616
VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES, 1485-1603.
[1567.

upon the rocks during a heavy gale. Chancellor, the experienced pilot and gallant seaman, perished in an attempt to reach the shore in a boat.

Then, from 1557 to 1572, followed the voyages of Anthony Jenkinson, an able negotiator and intrepid traveller. Jenkinson was the first Englishman to navigate the Caspian Sea. He penetrated as far as Kazvin and Bokhara, and obtained a new charter from the Tsar, for the Russia Company, in 1567.

There are reasons for paying special attention to the careers of Stephen and William Borough. They are the first in the long roll of illustrious seamen who commenced life in the merchant service, became distinguished as explorers, and ended as valuable officers of the Royal Navy. They began the establishment of the proof, which the experience of three centuries since their day has now completely demonstrated, that voyages of discovery are the best training-grounds for naval officers. They were the first to perceive that the only point in which English seamen were then inferior to Spaniards or Portuguese was in scientific knowledge; and the elder Borough was the first to seek a remedy.

Stephen and William Borough were born at Borough in the parish of Northam, near Bideford. After Stephen returned from the White Sea in 1557, he induced Richard Eden to translate the 'Arte de Navegar,' of Martin Cortes, the navigation text-book of the Spaniards, into English. He thus secured the means whereby our seamen could obtain instruction. In 1563 he received the appointment of Chief Pilot in the Medway, and assumed the duty of instructing and examining seamen in the art of navigation. This meritorious officer died in July, 1584, in his sixtieth year, and was buried at Chatham. His brother William's services were of the same character. He was ten years younger than Stephen, and he continued to serve the Russia Company in voyages to the White Sea. In 1570 he commanded a fleet bound for Narva in the Baltic. The brothers had been attentive in observing the variation of the compass during the voyage of 1556, and in 1581 William Borough published his 'Discourse of Variation of the Compass.' In 1583 he became Comptroller of the Navy, and two years afterwards he commanded the fleet which conveyed the Earl of Leicester from Harwich to Flushing. He constructed charts and prepared sailing directions, besides serving with Drake at Cadiz, and under Lord Howard against the Spanish Armada. Such were the services of