...g a north-eastern route. A double expedition was therefore sent forth on discovery; two flyboats vainly tried to pass through the straits of Veigatz, while, in a large ship, William Barentsen, whom Grotius honored as the peer of Columbus, coasted Nova Zembla to the seventy-seventh degree, without finding a passage. Netherlanders in the service of Portugal had visited India, Malacca, China, and eve...