AECT1C VOYAGES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 153 



north of their territory, and on the banks of a navigable river, there was a rich mine 

 of native copper. Knight was so impressed with the value of this information, that, 

 after much trouble, he induced the Company to send out an expedition for the purpose 

 of investigating the matter. Knight himself, nearly eighty years of age, had a general 

 charge of the expedition, the vessels of which were commanded by Captains Barlow 

 and Vaughan. The expedition left in the spring of 1719, and never returned; it was 

 not till forty-eight years afterwards that any information was gleaned concerning the 

 melancholy fate of the whole party. In the year 1767 some of the Company's men 

 employed in whaling near Marble Island stood in close to the shore, where in a 

 harbour they discovered the remains of a house, the hulls of two ships under water, and 

 guns, anchors, cables, an anvil, and other heavy articles, which had not been removed by 

 the natives. The following, from a work by Samuel Hearne,* sufficiently indicates the 

 misery to which the party had been reduced, before death terminated their sufferings. 

 It was obtained through the medium of an Esquimaux interpreter from the natives. 



When the vessels arrived at Marble Island it was very late in the fall, and in 

 getting them into the harbour the largest received much damage, but on being fairly in 

 the English began to build the house; their number at that time seeming to be about 

 fifty. As soon as the ice permitted in the following summer (1720), the Esquimaux paid 

 them, another visit, by which time the number of the English was very greatly reduced, 

 and those that were living seemed very unhealthy. According to the account given by 

 the Esquimaux, they were then very busily employed, but about what they could not 

 easily describe, probably in lengthening the long boat, for at a little distance from the 

 house there was now lying a great quantity of oak chips, which had been made most 

 assuredly by carpenters. 



A sickness and famine occasioned such havoc among the English that by the setting 

 in of the second winter their number was reduced to twenty. That winter (1720) some of 

 the Esquimaux took up their abode on the opposite side of the harbour to that on which 

 the English had built their houses, and frequently supplied them with such provisions as they 

 had, which chiefly consisted of whale's blubber, seal's flesh, and train oil. When the 

 spring advanced the Esquimaux went to the continent, and on their visiting Marble 

 Island again, in the summer of 1721, they only found five of the English alive, and 

 those were in such distress for provisions that they eagerly ate the seal's flesh and whale's 

 blubber quite raw as they purchased it from the natives. This disordered them so much that 

 three of them died in a few days, and the other two, though very weak, made a shift to 

 bury them. Those two survived many days after the rest, and frequently went to the 

 top of an adjacent rock and earnestly looked to the south and east, as if in expec- 

 tation of some vessels coming to their relief. After continuing there a considerable 

 time together, and nothing appearing in sight, they sat down close together and wept 

 bitterly. At length one of the two died, and the other's strength was so far exhausted 

 that he fell down and died also in attempting to dig a grave for his companion. 



In 1741 Captain Middleton made a northern voyage of little importance, and on his 



* " Journey from Prince of Wales'a Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean." 



100 



