L'Hermite, Jacques (died 1624), Dutch Admiral, was sent out in 1623 by the States-General in command of eleven vessels (the Nassau fleet, so named after Prince Maurice of Nassau) to attack Peru. The expedition did not meet with much success, and L'Hermite himself died at Callao. He appears to have previously served under the Dutch East India Company.
Marcgrav, George (1610-44), German physician and traveller, accompanied Piso (q.v.) and the Prince of Nassau to Brazil in 1636, where he travelled for six years. The results of his discoveries are embodied with those of Piso in the "Historia naturalis Brasiliæ" (1648). He afterwards went to the coast of Guinea and there died.
Maskelyne, Nevil, F.R.S. (1732-1811), was sent by the Royal Society to St. Helena to observe the transit of Venus in 1761, but the phenomenon was obscured by clouds. He was afterwards Astronomer-Royal (1765); and to him we owe the "Nautical Almanac," the publication of which he superintended for forty-five years. In 1769 he observed the transit of Venus from Greenwich. Later, in 1784, Maskelyne strongly supported Dr. Charles Hutton against Sir Joseph Banks, then President, during the dissensions in the Royal Society (see p. xxx.)
M'Bride, David (1726-78), medical writer, advocated the use of fresh wort or infusion of malt as a preventive of scurvy at sea, a specific adopted by Banks on this voyage. It was, however, soon after superseded by Lind's lemon juice.
Narbrough, Admiral Sir John (1640-88), was sent out to the South Seas in 1669. Passing through the Straits of Magellan, he sailed as far as Valdivia and then returned home. He was present at the battle of Solebay (1672), and after some years of service, died at Saint Domingo, whither he had gone, at the instance of the Government, to search for treasure.
Nassau Fleet. See L'Hermite.
Oldenland, Henry Bernhard, Dutch naturalist, author of "Catalogi duo plantarum Africanarum" in the "Thesaurus Zeylanicus" (1737).
Osbeck, Pehr (1723-1805), Swedish naturalist and traveller. He studied natural history, and on the recommendation of Linnæus was appointed chaplain to a vessel of the Swedish East India Company, in which he visited China, and, on the return voyage, Ascension. Osbeck published his observations under the title of "Journal of a voyage to the East Indies, 1750-52, with observations on the natural history, language, manners, and domestic economy of foreign peoples" (1757).
