244 DISCOVERIES OF 1631. 



well on the 9th of June, and on the 17th saw the 

 island of Resolution, not, however, hefore he had 

 many fields and islands of mountainous ice to 

 encounter, with a black looking sea, a continual 

 mist or fog, which is described as thick, heavy and 

 stinking ; and the air so piercing as to affect the 

 compass and cause a sluggish and impeded motion 

 in the magnetic needle. In endeavouring to push 

 through Hudson's Strait, the ship was almost con- 

 tinually beset with ice, and sometimes driven about 

 at the mercy of the tides and currents. To add to 

 their distress in this situation, the sails were frozen 

 stiff and the rigging hanging with ice. If Fox 

 , was conceited in consequence of the knowledge he 

 had acquired from studying the voyages of his pre- 

 decessors, James seems to have been more culpably 

 conceited in his total ignorance of all that had 

 been done before him; he not only appears to 

 have been wholly unacquainted with the narratives 

 of preceding voyagers, but purposely, as he tells 

 us, refused to take with him any person who had 

 previously been employed in a voyage of northern 

 discovery, or on the Spitzbergen fishery ; the con- 

 sequence of which was, that as soon as they found 

 themselves surrounded with ice, they were wholly 

 ignorant how to manage the ship, and their want 

 of experience not only alarmed them, but had 

 nearly proved fatal to the ship and all on board; 

 for, in endeavouring to avoid the ice, the ship 

 settled upon a sharp rock, and the tide, then ebb- 



