PHIPPS AND BUCIIAN’S VOYAGES. 497 
will be the pleasing task of this closing chapter to follow these 
noble mariners in their adventurous course; and, to avoid con- 
fusion, I shall begin with a short history of Arctic discovery up 
to the present day, and afterwards treat of the efforts made to 
extend our knowledge towards the South Pole. In spite of the 
unsuccessful efforts of a Frobisher, a Davis, a Hudson, and a 
Baffin, England had never given up the hope of discovering a 
northern passage to India, either direct across the Pole, or round 
the north coast of America, It had been one of the chief ob- 
jects of Cook’s third voyage to find a sea-path from Behring’s 
Straits to Baffin’s or Hudson’s Bay; and some years before, 
while the illustrious navigator was busy exploring the Southern 
Pacific, we see Captain Phipps renewing the old attempt to sail 
direct to the Pole (1773). But, like his predecessor Hudson, 
he reached no farther than the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, 
where his vessel, surrounded by mighty ice-blocks, would have 
perished but for a timely change of wind. This repulse damped 
for a time the spirit of discovery; but hope revived again when 
1t became known that Scoresby, on a whaling expedition in the 
Greenland seas (1806), had attained 81° N. lat. and thus ap- 
proached the Pole to within 540 miles. No one before him had 
ever reached so far to the north, and an open sea tempted him 
mightily to proceed, but as the object of his voyage was strictly 
commercial, and he himself answerable to the owners of his 
vessel, Scoresby felt obliged to sacrifice his inclinations to his 
duty and to steer again to the south. 
During the continental war, England indeed had little leisure 
to prosecute discoveries in the Arctic Ocean ; but not long after 
the conclusion of peace (1818) two expeditions were sent out 
for that purpose. 
Captain Buchan, with the ships “ Dorothea” and “ Trent,” 
sailed with instructions to proceed in a directionas due north as 
might be practicable through the Spitzbergen Sea; but, having 
_after much difficulty gained lat. 80° 34’ north in that polar archi- 
pelago, he was obliged speedily to withdraw and try his fortune 
off the western edge of the pack. Jere however a tremendous 
gale, threatening every moment to crush the ships between the 
large ice-blocks heaving and sinking in the roaring billows, 
induced the bold experiment of dashing right into the body of 
