A true reporte of the laste voyage… by Capteine Frobisher (1577) was the first published account of Martin Frobisher’s expeditions to Canada’s Arctic, and the first report printed in England of an English voyage of discovery. It was written by Dionyse Settle, a sailor aboard the ship. Settle recounts the second of Frobisher’s three trips to southern Baffin Island. It is written in Early Modern English, in which s’s often looked like f’s, among other differences in spelling. For example, Settle writes, “The day following, being the 19 of Iulie, oure Capteine returned to the fhippe, with good newes of great riches.” In today’s English, this would read, “The day following, being the 19th of July, our Captain returned to the ship, with good news of great riches.” Frobisher believed these “riches” to be gold ore; in reality they were worthless rock. The text also includes descriptions of the landscape and detailed accounts of the crew’s encounters with local Inuit. An image of one of the book’s opening pages is included below. The Canadian Encyclopedia includes this primary source as part of a partnership with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network's Canadiana collections. For the work in its entirety, please visit their website.
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Page 13 of sailor Dionyse Settle's account of Martin Frobisher's second journey to Canada's Arctic.
(by Dionyse Settle, courtesy Canadiana)