1791. CHARLES DUNCAN. 347 



rymple was so urgent for following up the dis- 

 covery, that he was prevailed on to take the com- 

 mand of a strong well-built ship of eighty-four 

 tons, called the Beaver, fitted to his mind, and 

 stored with eighteen months' provisions. He left 

 the Thames on the 2d May, 1791, met with much 

 ice on entering Hudson's Strait, and was so 

 hampered with it among the straits and islands, 

 that he did not reach the height of Charles's 

 Island, which is only in latitude 63% till the 

 2d August; and on the 5th September entered 

 Churchill River, when all hope of being able to 

 accomplish any thing for that year was at an end. 

 It has been observed, as something very remark- 

 able, " that our early adventurers, at a time when the 

 art of navigation was in its infancy, the science 

 but little understood, the instruments few and 

 imperfect, in barks of twenty-five or thirty tons 

 burden, ill-constructed, ill-found, and apparently 

 ill-suited to brave the mountains of ice between 

 which they had to force their way, and the dark 

 and dismal storms which beset them — that these 

 men should have succeeded in running through the 

 straits to high latitudes, and home again, in less 

 time than Mr. Duncan required to reach one of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company's establishments, the 

 route to which was then as well known as that to 

 the Shetland Islands."* Mr. Duncan's delay was 



* Quarterly Review, No. XXXI, p. l66. 



