Baffin, WILLIAM

Baffin, WILLIAM, navigator and discoverer, is believed to have been born in London about 1584; but the earliest known fact regarding him is that he sailed in 1612 as pilot of the Patience from Hull, on a voyage of discovery to Greenland. In 1613-14 he served in the Spitzbergen whale-fishery, and he wrote an account of this and his previous voyage. In 1615 he took service with a company as pilot of the Discovery in search of a North-west Passage, and made a careful examination of Hudson Strait; his recorded latitudes and notes of the tides are in remarkable agreement with those of a later date. In the following year, with Captain Bylot, he discovered, charted, and named Smith's Sound, and several others, and explored the large inlet now associated with his name. Later investigation has confirmed his descriptions. His latest voyages, 1617-21, were to the East. At the siege of Ormuz, which the English were helping the Shah of Persia to recover from the Portuguese, he was killed by a shot, 23d January 1622. See Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-22, edited by C. R. Markham (1880).