Chap. II. COMMANDER JOHN ROSS. 47 



up at the bottom of Regent's Inlet ; and, with great 

 fatigue and difficulty, succeeded in getting back to 

 Lancaster Sound, and had the good luck to be picked 

 up, in this " dangerous inlet" by a whaler — the 

 very identical Isabella which he once commanded. 



The unsatisfactory manner in which he hastened 

 out of Sir James Lancaster's Sound, and ran past the 

 Alexander, without the least communication with 

 Lieutenant Parry, seems to have drawn from him a 

 strange sort of something that he probably con- 

 ceived to be a justification of his proceedings : — 



11 As I have given a particular chart of the bay or inlet 

 which was explored between the 29th of August and the 

 1st of September, by the expedition under my command, 

 and as there will be found on the preceding pages copies of 

 the meteorological logs of the two ships, which were sup- 

 plied and corrected by the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, 

 from the official documents which were lodged in his office, 

 on the arrival of the ships, it must be unnecessary for me 

 to recapitulate the facts which I have already stated, as, by 

 referring to these authenticated documents, they will be 

 seen by inspection. But it may not be amiss to point out 

 the parts in my official Instructions, which are printed in 

 the beginning of this work, wherein I am directed to pay 

 particular attention to the currents, and to be guided by 

 them ; and also to the part which recommends me to look 

 for the north-east point of America, or, in other words, the 

 north-west passage, about the seventy-second degree of lati- 

 tude. As it was fully proved that no current existed in 

 this inlet, which we had just explored, or to the northward 

 of it, it naturally followed that I should have supposed 

 myself still to the northward of the current, which had been 



