IGSI. LUKE FOX. 243 



disappointed those who had been instrumental in 

 promoting it. He, however, maintiiins stoutly the 

 probability of a north-west passage, and that it will 

 be found in Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome,* where 

 the tide was observed to come from the north- 

 ward, and to rise higher than in any other part of 

 Hudson's Bay ; he also observed a great number 

 of whales about this part, which he conceives to 

 indicate its proximity to the great sea. It is rather 

 surprizing that Fox," who v/as evidently a man of 

 great sagacity, should not have persisted, on his 

 first arrival on the coast of America, in tracking 

 the current to the northward, from whence he 

 observed it to flow, instead of following it to the 

 southward. On his second arrival in the Welcome 

 the season was too far advanced to prosecute the 

 discovery to the northward. 



THOMAS JAMES. 1631. 



Captain James was furnished with sunilar cre- 

 dentials from Charles I. to those which wxre given 

 to Fox. He left Bristol in the Maria, of seventy 

 tons, on the 3d of May, 1631, passed Cape Fare- 



* The name of Welcome was first given by Fox to an island ; 

 but has since been applied indiscriminately to the north-eastern 

 coast of America, and to the strait lying between that coast and 

 Southampton Island ; but more generally to the latter. 



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