After Munk’s disastrous voyage there was a pause for a dozen years, and then Luke Foxe, with his diligent research, whole-hearted enthusiasm, and quaint humour engages our attention. Foxe was a Yorkshireman and almost certainly from Hull. He tells us that he was sea bred from a boy and had been in voyages to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. He had evidently received a good education and was well read. He had an excellent opinion of himself, and was very young when he applied to Captain Knight to take him as his mate. He was reminded of his youth and he afterwards admitted that he had been rather presumptuous. Foxe was much with John Tappe, a bookseller with a shop on Tower Hill, who published the _Maryner’s Book_, and a translation of the _Arte de Navegar_ by Martin Cortes. This friend enabled him to study Arctic history. Foxe also had the great advantage of securing the friendship of Henry Briggs, the famous mathematician, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, who introduced the practical use of logarithms. When Foxe resolved to get command of an Arctic expedition, it was through Briggs that he obtained the patronage of Sir Thomas Roe, the ambassador, who had returned from India. In 1631, with the help of the Trinity House, Luke Foxe, full of intense eagerness, secured his heart’s desire. He was allowed to have H.M.S. _Charles_, an old gunboat of 70 or 80 tons, which had seen much service, and had been ordered to be sold. The Master, whose name is never given, and the mate Yourin or Hurin, were not of his choosing, having been appointed by the Trinity House. Of the Master, Foxe says he was “the most arrogant bull calf that ever went or came as Master and the most faint-heartedest man.” The crew consisted of 20 men and 3 boys, and the ship was provisioned for 18 months. Foxe was against the use of tobacco as “a thing good for nothing,” but all the men smoked. The _Charles_ sailed from Deptford on the 5th of May, 1631, going north about, instead of down channel. Another expedition had sailed from Bristol nearly at the same time and with the same object, under the command of Captain James. He sighted Greenland encompassed about with ice, and worked continually to keep clear of it. Passing down Hudson Strait and between Nottingham Island and Cape Digges, Captain James, as we shall see, met the _Charles_ in Hudson’s Bay on the 29th August. Foxe first came to Lumley Inlet on the west coast of Davis Strait, really Frobisher Strait, which Davis did not realise. Davis named it after Lord Lumley who had “built the pier of that distressful poor fisher town Hartlepool at a cost of £2000, and was a great favourer of Davis.” In Hudson Strait the progress of the _Charles_ was much impeded by ice from the 23rd June to the 4th July. Foxe describes the ice and also mentions the use of log and line for registering the ship’s run[93]. [Illustration: Captain Thomas James.]