slii INTRODUCTION. 



enabled to make, induced him to change his opinion ; and, 

 on his return to England, he made an unfavourable report^. 

 Mr. Dobbs, the patron of the enterprize, did not acquiefce 

 in this J and, fortified in his original idea of the pradicabi- 

 lity of the pafTage, by the teftimony of fome of Middleton's 

 officers, he appealed to the Public, accufing him of having 

 mifreprefented fa6ls, and of having, from interefted mo- 

 tives, in concert with the Hudfon's Bay Company, decided 

 againil the pradicability of the paffage, though the difco- 

 veries of his own voyage had put it within his reach. 



He had, between the latitude of 6f and 66°, found a very 

 confiderable inlet running Wefiward, into which he entered 

 ■with his fhips ; and, " after repeated trials of the tides, and 

 ^ endeavours to difcover the nature and courfe of the open- 

 *' ing, for three weeks fuccefiively, he found the flood con- 

 ** ftantly to come from the Eaftward, and that it was a large 

 «' river he had got into,*' to which he gave the name of 

 Wager River *. 



The accuracy, or rather the fidelity of this report was de- 

 nied by Mr. Dobbs, v\rho contended that this opening is a 

 Strait, and not a frej]:t ivater river, and that Middleton, if he 

 had examined it properly, would have found a paffage 

 through it to the Weflern American Ocean. The failure 

 of this voyage, therefore, only ferved to furnifli our zeal- 

 ous advocate for the difcovery, with new arguments for at- 

 tempting it once more ; and he had the good fortune, after 

 getting the rev/ard of twenty thoufand pounds eftabliflied 

 by a^ of parliament, to prevail upon a fociety of gentle- 

 men and merchants to fit out the Dobbs and California 5 



* See the Abftraa of his Journal, publiflied by Mr. Dobbs. 



which 



