Chap. X. FRANKLIN AND RICHARDSON'S JOURNEY. 335 



welcoming our absent companion, Mr. Back. His 

 return to our society was hailed with sincere plea- 

 sure by every one, and removed a weight of anxiety 

 from my mind. It appears he had come down to 

 the beach at Caistor, just as the ships were passing 

 by, and had applied to some boatmen to convey him 

 on board, but discovering the emergency of his case, 

 they demanded an exorbitant reward, which he was 

 not at the instant prepared to satisfy ; and in con- 

 sequence, they positively refused to assist him. 

 Though he had travelled nine successive days, al- 

 most without rest, he could not be prevailed upon 

 to withdraw from the agreeable scene of a ball-room, 

 in which he joined us, until a late hour." " This un- 

 toward circumstance," as Franklin called it at the 

 time, afforded a sample of his eagerness and energy, 

 and gave to Back himself a gentle specimen of what 

 he was doomed thereafter to undergo with infinitely 

 more severity. 



The incidents of the voyage require not to be 

 related ; pleasant enough until they approached 

 that dangerous and by all abhorred island, Resolu- 

 tion, in the mouth of Hudson's Strait, near the 

 rocky shores of which, usually, beset with heavy 

 ice, fogs, and irregular currents, the vessel nar- 

 rowly escaped shipwreck. Passing this, however, 

 they arrived in safely at York Factory, in Hudson's 

 Bay, on the 30th of August. Here they were cor- 

 dially received by the Governor and servants of the 



