2 INTRODUCTION. 



zeal and perseverance, and attended with a result, 

 if not successful, at least honourable to the 

 nation, should be handed down to posterity with 

 the records of others of a similar kind ; and 

 that we ought to avoid the imputation which 

 Hakluyt has deservedly cast upon some of our 

 early writers, who, he says, " should have used 

 more care in preserving the memoires of the 

 worthy actes of our nation."* 



Moreover, the public will naturally feel a 

 desire to have the series of Northern Voyages 

 complete. These voyages, which have redounded 

 to the nation's honour, and which are now, un- 

 happily, discontinued, have all, at various times, 

 been published, with the exception of the one 

 now presented to the public; of which no au- 

 thentic account has ever appeared, beyond a few 

 remarks which I offered in explanation of a pano- 

 rama of the Polar ice, taken from views which I 

 presented to Mr. Barker, on the return of the 

 expedition in 1818. 



It is much to be regretted that Captain 

 Buchan, on his return, should have abstained 

 from publishing his own journal, from a feel- 

 ing that the matter it contained was not of 

 sufficient interest to engage the attention of the 

 general reader, as the importance of the narra- 



* Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 129. 



