No stigma had attached to Chancellor on his return to London in the summer of 1554, despite King Edward having died and his successor Mary having executed Northumberland for attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne.

The Muscovy Company, as the association of London merchants is now called, has sent Chancellor again to the White Sea.

He has learned on this voyage what had happened to Willoughby, recovered his papers, and found out about the discovery of Novaya Zemlya.

Chancellor spends the summer of 1555 dealing with the Tsar, organizing trade, and trying to learn how China might be reached by the northern route.

The successful negotiations by English navigator Richard Chancellor with Russian Tsar Ivan IV in 1554 result in the formation of the Muscovy Company, founded in 1555 by celebrated cartographer, navigator, and explorer Sebastian Cabot and various London merchants; the elderly Cabot is appointed governor for life.

The joint-stock company’s objective is to exploit the contacts, as well as to continue the search for the Northeast Passage.

The company in October dispatches Chancellor on a second trading mission to Moscow.

English navigator Stephen Borough, a thirty-one-year-old veteran of the Willoughby expedition, sails as commander of the Searchthrift for the Muscovy Company in 1556.

In his attempt to reach the Ob River, he sails as far as the island of Novaya Zemlya, unmapped but probably known to Norse sailors and Novgorod hunters since the eleventh century.

Probably the first Englishman to sail this far east, he is turned back at the entrance to the Kara Sea by ice storms and fog.

Chancellor’s fleet tries in October/November 1556 to winter in Trondheim.

The Bona Esperanza sinks, the Bona Confidentia appears to have entered the fjord but is never heard of again, and the Phillip and Mary successfully winters in Trondheim to arrive in London next April the 18th.

The Edward does not attempt to enter, instead reaching the Scottish coast and being wrecked at Pitlago on the seventh of November.

Chancellor drowns but Osep Nepeya, the Russian envoy, manages to reach the coast, where he is taken hostage by the Scots for a few months before being able to travel on to London.

Perching ducks, Cairina moschata, had been domesticated by various Native American cultures in the New World when Columbus arrived.

A few are first brought to Europe by the European explorers, probably Spaniards, at least by the 1500s.

The Muscovy Company, also called the Muscovite Company, a trading company chartered in 1555, begins shipping the ducks to Europe.

It is believed that the ducks came to be interchangeably called Muscovite ducks, or Muscovy ducks in keeping with the common practice of attaching the importer's name to the products they sold.

Over the years, Muscovy will become more colloquial than Muscovite.

Russia under Ivan IV has established trade contacts with the Dutch and French as well as the English.

Two British ventures, The Company of Merchant Adventurers (established 1551), which had become the Muscovy Company in 1555, and the East India Company also known as "John Company", (established 1600) have been desperately attempting to find routes to the East Indies and the spice trade, (as is the Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, organized in 1602).

The East India Company had initially struggled in the spice trade due to the competition from the already well established Dutch.

The Company had opened a factory in Bantam on the first voyage, however, and imports of pepper from Java are to be an important part of the Company's trade for twenty years.

Captain Best and his ships sail on October 10, to Suvali, a small town about twelve miles north of Surat.

This may have been because the Governor (Sardar Khan?) is battling a Rajput rebellion at a fort situated in the town.

Amid negotiations between October 17 and 21, Best manages to obtain a treaty with the Governor allowing trading privileges, subject to ratification by the Emperor.

Best is on November 27 advised by his men on shore that a squadron of four Portuguese ships is sailing up to attack him.

The Portuguese ships (four great galleons and some twenty-six oared barks) arrive on the 28th, and anchor outside the roadstead placing the English vessels between themselves and the town.

A skirmish takes place between the two navies on the 29th without much damage to either side.

Best, in Dragon, sails at daylight on the 30th through the four larger Portuguese ships, running three of them aground, and is joined by Hosiander on the other side.

The Portuguese manage to get the three galleons refloated.

At nine PM this evening, in an attempt to set the English ships alight, a bark is sent towards them as a fire ship, but the English watch is alert, and the bark is sunk by cannon fire with the loss of eight lives.

A standoff remains until ...

...Best sails on the 5th of December for the port of Diu.

This event sufficiently impresses the Sardar (Governor) of Gujarat, who reports it to the Emperor.

The Emperor will hereafter be more favorable towards the English than the Portuguese.

Another factor that may have influenced him is that the Portuguese are very anti-Islam, and often harass Mecca-bound pilgrim ships along the West coast of India.

This relatively small naval engagement, known as the Battle of Swally, is historically important as it marks the beginning of the end of Portugal's commercial monopoly over India, and the beginning of the ascent of the British East India Company's presence in India.

This battle also persuades the British East India Company to establish a small navy to safeguard their commercial interests from other European powers and also from pirates.

This small beginning is regarded as the root of the modern Indian Navy.