CHAP. VI.] POLAR EXPEDITIONS. 365 



various ineffectual attempts that have been made 

 by different commanders in modem days, to 

 fill up the small blank on the northern charts, 

 between the bottom or south part of Regent's 

 Inlet and Point Turnagain. Parry's and Frank- 

 lin's achievements are too well known to require 

 observation or eulogium from me ; yet the 

 former could not penetrate through Fury and 

 Hecla Strait, and the latter found it imprac- 

 ticable, from the damaged condition of his 

 canoes, the want of provision, and the advanced 

 state of the season, to proceed beyond Point 

 Turnagain. Of Sir John Ross's eventful expe- 

 dition all have heard. My own, in search of 

 him, is also before the public. Captain Lyon, in 

 trying to reach Repulse Bay by the Welcome, 

 was baffled by a succession of bad weather and 

 heavy gales ; and now again, I, acting upon the 

 united experience of most of the distinguished 

 names just mentioned, under circumstances con- 

 sidered favourable, after getting nearly within 

 sight of my port, am stopped by drift ice, at 

 what is generally the very best period for navi- 

 gating the Polar Seas — am frozen fast, in Octo- 

 ber 1836, at the entrance of Frozen Strait — and 

 now, Junel6th, am carried into Hudson's Strait, 

 on some of the very same ice that originally 

 begirt the ship, without having had it once in 

 my power either to advance or retreat. In 



