cxxxii BIOGRAPHY OF THE VICTORY'S CREW. 



Petersburg, as first mate of the Abnira ; after which he joined an uncle as mate, who was 

 master and owner of a schooner, but was wrecked soon after on Flamborough Head. When 

 he joined the Victory as first mate, he had been eighteen years at sea, and had become 

 an excellent seaman, of which he gave several remarkable proofs. I may mention that on 

 the morning of the 12th of August, when his pre.<^ence of mind and decision saved the 

 ship from being thrown into the breakers of a heavy pack of ice. His education having 

 been neglected in his youth, he attended very diligently to instructions given him on the 

 voyage, and became an excellent navigator. Having been before a shipmate of Com- 

 mander Ross, he naturally attached himself to him, and from whom he received much 

 instruction. Although he was the spokesman on most of the occasions of discontent, 

 particularly on the march from Victoria harbour to Fury beach, I do not blame him so 

 much as those at whose instigation he committed the act of insubordination, and I had 

 no hesitation in giving him my strongest recommendation to A. Chapman, Esq., M.P., 

 who appointed him mate of one of his ships, which led to his obtaining the command of 

 a merchant ship, and which all along seemed to be the sole object of his ambition. 



MR. THOMAS ABERNETHY, Second Mate. 



I\Ir. Abernethy was born at Peterhead, in Scotland, in the year 1802, and was nearly 

 six feet high, straight, and well made ; had a florid complexion, dark eyes and hair, an 

 aquiline nose, and was decidedly the best-looking man in the ship. He went to sea at 

 the early age of ten, and served an apprenticeship of four years in the Friends, of 

 Peterhead, in which he went one voyage to the West Indies, and two to Greenland ; 

 afterwards he went three voyages to Davis's straits, in the Hannibal ; and after which he 

 entered and continued in the coasting. Oporto, and American trade. In 1824 he joined 

 the Fury, Captain Hoppner, and was wrecked in Prince Regent's inlet, sharing the 

 hardships of that unfortunate voyage. After making a voyage in a merchant ship, he 

 volunteered his services in the Polar ExpecUtion of 1827, and was one of the most 

 meritorious of Captain Sir Edward Parry's crew : for this, after serving the necessary time 

 on board a ship of the Hne, he was promoted to the Blossom sloop of war, as gunner, and 

 married the daughter of Mr. Fiddis, the carpenter who was with me and Sir E. Parry on 

 all the previous voyages to the Arctic Regions. When he volunteered with me in the 

 Victory, he had been seventeen years at sea, and was in my opinion the most steady and 



