Chap. II. COMMANDER JOHN ROSS. 25 



avoidably and so provokingly creates ; but as it 

 constitutes the first link in the chain of the inte- 

 resting publications in question, it could not with 

 propriety have been omitted, though it can afford 

 little pleasure to pass censure where there is every 

 desire to praise: in matters of fact, however, like the 

 present, the truth must be spoken ; and it may be 

 proper and only due justice to state at once, that no 

 blame can possibly attach to any individual in the 

 two ships, for any misstatements, negligence, or lack 

 of information which may occur in the original 

 narrative ; that all appear to have been anxious to 

 effect whatever could be accomplished, to meet the 

 views of Government, as far as the few opportuni- 

 ties given to them would allow. At the same time, 

 it is possible that some of the omissions may have 

 happened from a misconception of what was re- 

 quired of the commander, and from the novelty of 

 the service, in the nature and peculiar duties of 

 which he had now, obviously for the first time, been 

 engaged; and it is so far due to him to admit 

 further, that the appointment was not of his own 

 seeking, but was voluntarily offered to him by one 

 who, it would seem, was as little acquainted with 

 the peculiar service as was Mr. Ross himself. 



On the 18th of April the ships left the river, 

 arrived at Lerwick on the 30th, and on the 1st of 

 June were somewhere on the eastern side of Davis's 

 Strait; proceeded slowly between the ice and the 



