In the year 1553, "the Mystery and Company of English merchants adventurers for the discovery of regions, dominions, islands, and places unknown"--at the head of whom was Sebastian Cabot--fitted out an expedition of three vessels, and gave the chief command to Sir Hugh Willoughby, "by reason of his goodly personage, as also for his singular skill in the services of war." King Edward VI. confirmed the appointment in "a license to discover strange countries." The fleet consisted of the Buona Speranza, of one hundred and seventy tons, commanded by Sir Hugh, with thirty-eight men, the Edward Buonaventura, of one hundred and sixty tons, commanded by Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of the expedition, with fifty-four men, and the Buona Confidentia, of ninety tons, with twenty-four men. The ships were victualled for fifteen months. On board of them were eighteen merchants interested in the discovery of a northeast passage to India,--a route, therefore, attempted by the English previous to that by the northwest, as the voyage of Sebastian Cabot can hardly be considered a serious effort. A council of twelve, in whom was vested the general direction of the voyage, was composed of the admiral, pilot-major, and other officers. The squadron sailed from Deptford on the 10th of May, 1553, and fell in with the Norwegian coast on the 14th of July. On the 30th, while near Wardhus, the most easterly station of the Danes in Finmark, Chancellor's vessel was driven off in a storm, and was not seen again by the two others. The latter appear to have been tossed about in the North Sea for two months, in the course of which they landed at some spot on the western coast of Nova Zembla, being the first Europeans to visit that uninhabited waste. On the 18th of September they entered a harbor in Lapland formed by the mouth of the river Arzina. Here they remained a week, seeing seals, deer, bears, foxes, "with divers strange beasts, such as ellans and others, which were to us unknown and also wonderful." It was now the 1st of October, and the Arctic winter was far advanced. They resolved to winter there, first sending out parties in search of inhabitants. Three men went three days' journey to the south-southwest, but returned without having seen a human being. Others who went to the west and the southeast returned equally unsuccessful. This is the last positive intelligence we have of the fate of these hardy and unfortunate explorers. A will, however, alleged to have been made by one Gabriel Willoughby, and signed by Sir Hugh, bearing the date of January, 1554, shows, if authentic, that at least two of the party were alive at that period. Purchas, one of the oldest authorities upon navigation and travels extant, says that the Buona Speranza was discovered in the following spring by a party of Russians, who found all the crew frozen to death. In 1557, a Drontheim skipper told an Englishman, at Kegor, that he had bought the sails of the Buona