18 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 



and direction of the service, the execution of 

 which is narrated in the following pages, it will 

 be proper to mention here, that exactly one year 

 after our departure from Canada, by a despatch 

 which had been forwarded with the most praise- 

 worthy diligence by the Hudson's Bay Company *, 

 I received the happy intelligence of Captain 

 Ross's providential return, communicated in 

 the following letter from Sir Charles Ogle, Ba- 

 ronet : — 



" Arctic Land Expedition. 



" 21. Regent Street, 

 22d Oct. 1833. 



" Sir, 



" I have much pleasure in acquainting you, on 

 the part of the Committee for managing your 

 expedition, that Captain Ross and the survivors 

 of his party returned to England a few days 

 ago, in a whaler, which picked them up in 

 Barrow Straits ; and that thus one object of 

 your expedition is happily attained. 



" In concert, therefore, with his Majesty's 

 Government (though the signature of the Se- 

 cretary of State for the Colonies cannot be 



* The extraordinary expedition with which this despatch 

 was transmitted is worthy of being recorded ; and I have, 

 therefore, in the Appendix, given a few particulars which 

 will be interesting to the reader. 



