David Melgueiro : biography
David Melgueiro (Porto, ? – Porto, 1673?) was a Portuguese navigator and explorer. According to some sources, he discovered the Northeast Passage in 1660, travelling between Japan and Portugal through the Arctic Ocean.Brazão 1965.
According to the story of a diplomat and French spy in Portugal, the Seigneur de La Madelène (or Madelleine), Captain David Melgueiro, at the command of the Dutch ship Pai Eterno (Perpetual Father), left Kagoshima, Japan on March 14, 1660, sailed north and entered the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait (known at the time as Strait of Aniam). The expedition reached 84° N and upon sighting Svalbard headed south, towards Scotland and Ireland, and finally arrived at Porto, Portugal, in 1662.DN 2009. According to La Madelène, Melgueiro was murdered in Porto in 1673 when he was preparing to leave the country, reportedly to reveal the new route.DN 2009. In 1754, Buache in his memories trace the route that Melgueiro took on a map of 1649 of the Portuguese Teixeira, that Buache found in the French Navy archives.Brazão 1965, vol. II, pp. 68-69 from the Portuguese version. How the French Navy acquired this map that at time would be a Portuguese state secret is still elusive, but the involvement of Seigneur de La Madelène is to be suspected. Recent analysis by dendrochronology shows that 1660 and the immediately preceding years were the warmest in almost two centuries, putting the temperatures above those experienced by Nordenskiöld.From blog: Watts Up With That?, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/13/was-the-northeast-passage-first-navigated-in-1660/
If true, the voyage of Melgueiro would have preceded the 1878 feat of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld by more than two centuries.
