4 INTRODUCTION'. 



if not of complete success, yet of })enetrating 

 farther to the North and East than he had done 

 the year before. Cook's third voyage may be 

 considered as the last attempt made in the eigh- 

 teenth century to solve the celebrated problem ; 

 for the object of Captain Vancouver's voyage was 

 not to look for a Northern Passage, as the title of 

 his work might lead one to suppose, but to under- 

 take an accurate examination of the whole coast 

 of America, from the 30th degree of latitude to 

 Cook's Inlet. If, during this examination, any 

 connection had been found between some deep 

 inlet, and Baffin's or Hudson's Bay, it would of 

 course have been explored by Vancouver. But 

 it was more than probable that no such connection 

 would be found to the South of Cook's Inlet; 

 for, at the time Cook was sent out, it had been 

 recognised that a connection, if it does exist, is 

 not to be found to the south of 65°; the accurate 

 researches of Captain Middleton, and of Captains 

 Smith and Moore, having proved that a connection 

 with the South Sea from Hudson's Bay was im- 

 possible. The extremely careful survey of the 

 west coast of America, by Vancouver, proved that 

 those who drew up Cook's instructions had good 

 grounds for assuming that the passage must be 

 sought to the north of the 65th degree. 



Only a few^ years after the termination of Cook's 

 voyage, a state of things commenced in Europe, 

 w^hich was highly unfavourable to such under- 

 takings. The French revolution brouolit such a 



