.jf>4 DISCOVERIES OF ROSS, 1818. 



JOHN ROSS, DAVID BUCHAX, WILLIAM EDWARD 

 PARRY AND JOHN FRANKLIN. 1818. 



Ix the whole series of expeditions for the dis- 

 coverv of a northern communication between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, none have been fitted 

 out on so extensive a scale, or so completely 

 equipped in every respect, as the two which left 

 England this present year. From the numerous 

 attempts that have been made from the earliest 

 periods of British navigation to the end of the 

 eighteenth century, it is sufficiently evident that 

 the discovery of a north-west passage to India and 

 China has always been considered as an object 

 peculiarly British. It engaged the attention and 

 procured the encouragement of the first literary 

 characters of the age, and the most respectable of 

 the mercantile class. It has received the patro- 

 nage of sovereigns, and the promise of rewards 

 from different parliaments. It never failed to 

 excite a most lively interest among all conditions 

 of men. The principal maritime nations of Eu- 

 rope have at different times been engaged in the 

 same enterprize ; and even Russia, as we have 

 seen, nay, a private individual of Russia, has 

 recently fitted out a ship at his owm cost, for the 

 discovery of a communication between the two 

 oceans by a passage round North America. 



It would therefore have been something worse 



