1631. ( 9.^^ ) 



LUKE FOX. 1631. 



The last voyage of Baffin and Bylot in 16 16, 

 which, from its uninterrupted northern progress, 

 might have been expected to raise the hopes of the 

 adventurers and of the nation, for a successful 

 issue of the oft-attempted passage, would seem, 

 on the contrary, to have cast a damp over the 

 minds of its most sanguine advocates ; with the 

 exception of one attempt, under the direction of 

 a person of the name of Hawkridge, who sailed 

 Avith Sir Thomas Button, the project seems to have 

 been entirely given up. It is scarcely known 

 under whose employ, in what ship, or even in 

 what year, Captain Hawkridge sailed on this ex- 

 pedition. From the meagre fragment of the 

 voyage as given by Fox,^ which, he says, he 

 procured ^' in manuscript or by relation," it is 

 evident at least that he added nothing to former 

 discoveries in the north-west. 



The revival of an attempt to discover a north- 

 west passage is unquestionably owing to Captain 

 Luke Fox, who, by his own account, had con- 

 tinued with unabated zeal to urge a new expedition, 

 for exploring the arctic seas ; which, he says, " he 

 had been itching after ever since I6O6, when he 

 wished to have gone as mate to John Knight. '* 



•* North-west Fox, p. 166. 



