Wednesday, April 19, 2017

An Arctic Summer: April 19, 1773

A quick note: my name is Mike Romero, and I'm a Historic Interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg.  The postings I make on this site are my own personal opinions and research, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Colonial Williamsburg.  With that said, enjoy the read!


Anyone who has spent a summer in the tidewater of Virginia can tell you that it gets hot and sticky down here.  Interpreters throughout Colonial Williamsburg have their own tricks for beating the summer heat.  Me, I'm trying a variant of 'mind over mater,' pretending I'm somewhere a bit cooler.  To that end, this is the first in a series of posts I'll be making throughout the summer chronicling the attempt of two Royal Navy vessels to sail to the North Pole in the summer of 1773.  I'll be posting entries from the journal on particularly noteworthy days with some interesting background information, as well as weather data recorded that day during the expedition and comparing it to what the Weather Channel app says about CW, just for fun.

Constantine John Phipps,
Second Baron Mulgrave
The notion of a passage to the East Indies via the North Pole was suggested as early as 1527.  In a letter to King Henry VIII, Robert Thorne suggests that as Spain and Portugal had profited greatly from nautical discoveries to the east and west, and that it was only natural that England should profit from discoveries to the north...in fact, Thorne apparently suggests that it is the King's particular duty to further England's reputation and glory by promoting such explorations.  In another letter written to Henry's ambassador to Charles V, THorne hypothesizes that during the summer, it shouldn't be prohibitively cold at the Pole due to the abundance of daylight; he suggests that the notion that encountering excessive cold at the Pole to the point of death will prove as equally as fallacious as the old notion of dying from extreme heat as one approached the equator.  Several known northern reaches experiencing fairly temperate climates year round tended to support his hypothesis.

Despite the writings of Thorne and several other prominent thinkers, no exploration of the circumpolar seas appear to have taken place until Henry Hudson attempted to find a northern passage to Japan and China in 1607.  Hudson and several other explorers in the years between 1607 and 1613 attempt to pass the North Pole by sea, none getting farther north than 82 degrees latitude before encountering impassible ice.  No other voyages were known to be attempted until 1773, when the Royal Society encouraged King George III to order and sponsor another expedition.  Constantine Phipps was already an accomplished naval officer, and a veteran of the Seven Years War.  In 1765, he served as a lieutenant aboard HMS Niger during an exploration and survey of Newfoundland, where he becomes friends with the soon to be prominent natuaralist Joseph Banks.  When Phipps hears of the expedition being planned, he quickly volunteers, and is selected to command the expedition consisting of the converted bomb ketches Racehorse and Carcass.

Knowing that the expedition will face many difficulties from the cold, likely harder than normal labor, and most likely encounter large amounts of dangerous ice, the two vessels are fitted out appropriately.  The bomb ketches (a type of vessel whose primary armament are a series of heavy mortars, ideal for shore bombardment) already boast a strong construction due to the nature of their original mission, but their hulls are further reinforced to better punch through loose pack ice without risk of damage.  The usual stock of provisions described in 'Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty's Service at Sea' are adjusted to include additional supplies of spirits as an added constitutional and incentive for the men, a more extensive variety of cold weather clothing is added to the slop chests, an apparatus for distilling drinkable water from the sea is put aboard, and the crews are chosen specifically to be of high experience (substituting additional Able Seamen for the usual number of boys), officers hand-picked for their reliability, etc.  Various instruments for a variety of scientific purposes are included, along with several members of the Royal Society to make many valuable scientific observations of opportunity during the voyage.

From Phipps' Journal:
"April 19th, 1773, I received my commission for the Racehorse, with an order to get her fitted with the greatest dispatch for a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole, and to proceed to the Nore for further orders."

No weather data until we get out to sea.  Join me throughout the summer to see how the voyage unfolds!

Source:
Phipps, Constantine John.  A Voyage Towards the North Pole Undertaken at His Majesty's Command. (J. Nourse, 1773.)

No comments:

Post a Comment