The three voyages undertaken by the Dutch, towards the close of the sixteenth century, with a view to the discovery of a north-east passage to China, are deservedly placed among the most remarkable exploits of that enterprising nation; while the ten months’ residence of the adventurous seamen at the furthest extremity of the inhospitable region of Novaya Zemlya, within little more than fourteen degrees of the North Pole, and their homeward voyage of upwards of seventeen hundred geographical miles in two small open boats, are events full of romantic interest. The republication by the Hakluyt Society of the narrative of these three voyages, is most appropriate at this particular juncture, when public attention is so painfully absorbed by apprehensions as to the fate of Franklin and his companions. At all times would this work be read with interest, as giving in plain and simple language, which vouches for its truth, the first account of a forced winter residence in the Arctic Regions, patiently and resolutely endured and successfully terminated; but at the present moment it acquires a far deeper importance from its representation—faint, perhaps, and wholly inadequate to the reality—of the hardships which must have been undergone by our missing countrymen; happy if some of them shall have survived, like Gerrit de Veer, to tell the tale of their sufferings and of their final deliverance from their long captivity. In adverting to the causes which led to these three expeditions, it would be quite superfluous to enter upon the general history of Arctic discovery. All that is requisite for the proper elucidation of the present subject, is an investigation of the actual state of our knowledge respecting the precise field of the labours of our Dutch navigators, previously to the date of their adventurous undertaking. Three centuries have now elapsed since the first attempt was made to discover a north-east passage to China and India. The circumstances under which this took place, cannot be better detailed than in the words of Clement Adams, in his account of “the newe Nauigation and discouerie of the kingdome of Muscouia, by the north-east, in the yeere 1553”, which is printed by Hakluyt in the first volume of his Principal Navigations.