Chap. II. COMMANDED JOHN ROSS. 23 



about the close of 1817 he wrote to a friend, de- 

 tailing his views on the subject ; and just as he had 

 finished his letter, a paragraph in a newspaper, 

 alluding to the attempt about to be made for the 

 discovery of a north-west passage, caught his eye, 

 and he added a postscript, referring to this, and 

 said " he was ready for hot or for cold," — Africa or 

 the Polar regions. His friend took this letter to 

 the Secretary of the Admiralty,* which Parry says 

 he had reason to believe was the immediate cause of 

 his appointment to that expedition, then preparing 

 for the latter object. 



Lieutenant Parry, it may safely be said, did not dis- 

 appoint the expectations of those who recommended 

 him; but he was himself grievously disappointed at 

 the manner in which the voyage in question was 

 conducted, and at the total want of facilities given 

 for collecting such a body of observations, on various 

 subjects of scientific inquiry, of geographical infor- 

 mation, and, above all, at the careless manner in 

 which every attempt, or rather want of attempt, 

 was slurred over, to fulfil the instructions of Govern- 

 ment. Owing to this, instead of being able, on their 

 return to England, to produce any results worthy of 

 the liberality with which the expedition had been 



* Mr. Barrow, who was so much pleased by the letter, and 

 the little treatise which accompanied it, that he at once sub- 

 mitted to Lord Melville his opinion, that he was just the man 

 for such an appointment. 



