232 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. VII. 



bergen seas. But however fit a ship may be to 

 encounter those seas, it certainly is not fitting, when 

 employed on peculiar service, that any ship should 

 be sent into them alone. The smallness of her size 

 is no objection. Our old navigators were content 

 with barks of ten, fifteen, up to fifty tons' burden ; 

 but then, as before stated, they were rarely if ever 

 sent alone; two or three, and frequently more, formed 

 their expeditions of discovery, and the reason is ob- 

 vious : a single ship wrecked in those seas, whose 

 coasts are uninhabited by human beings, must entail 

 certain destruction on the life of every creature on 

 board. There yet remains to be told, in the course 

 of this narrative, another instance of the miraculous 

 escape of a single ship, sent nearly into the same 

 quarter, and for a similar purpose — an oversight 

 which, it is to be earnestly hoped, may never again 

 be repeated. The people of England know the value 

 of their seamen, and never grudge the expense which 

 is fairly and honestly bestowed on her navy, the 

 soul of which is her seamen, whose lives, were 

 it only out of mere policy, ought not heedlessly, or 

 from a mistaken frugality, to be endangered. 



