VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 51 



What is now for the first time authentically laid 

 before the public, with regard to the discoveries made 

 by the Hudson's Bay Company, was well known to 

 the noble lord who presided at the Board of Ad- 

 miralty, when this voyage was undertaken ; and the 

 intimate connection of those discoveries with the 

 plan of the voyage, of course regulated the instruc- 

 tions given to Captain Cook. 



And now, may we not take it upon us to appeal to 

 every candid and capable inquirer, whether that part 

 of the instructions which directed the captain not to 

 lose time, in exploring rivers or inlets, or upon any 

 other account, till he got into the latitude of 6\5, was 

 not framed judiciously: as there were such indubit- 

 able proofs that no passage existed so far to the south 

 as any part of Hudson's Bay, and that if a passage 

 could be effected at all, part of it at least must be 

 traversed by the ships as far to the northward as the 

 latitude 72, where Mr. Hearne arrived at the sea? 



We may add as a farther consideration, in support 

 of this article of the instructions, that Beering's 

 Asiatic discoveries, in 1728, having traced that con- 

 tinent to the latitude of 67 , Captain Cook's approach 

 toward that latitude was to be wished for, that he 



cows had left their wives, which was not far off, it being then day- 

 break, these Indian women immediately began to examine her 

 bundle ; and having there found the child, took it from her and 

 killed it immediately. The relation of this shocking scene only 

 served the savages of my gang for laughter. Her country is so far 

 to the Westward, that she says she never saw any iron, or other 

 kind of metal, till taken prisoner; those of her tribe making their 

 hatchets and chisels of deers' horns, and knives of stone and bone ; 

 their arrows are shod with a kind of slate, bones, and deers' horns ; 

 and their instruments, to make their wood work, are nothing but 

 beavers' teeth. They have frequently heard of the useful materials 

 the nations to the east of them are supplied with from the English ; 

 but, instead of drawing nearer to be in the way of trading for iron 

 work, &c. are obliged to retreat farther back, to avoid the Aratha- 

 pescow Indians, as they make surprising slaughter amongst them 

 every year, both winter and summer. Hearne's MS. Journal. 



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