HISTORICAL SUMMARY 85 



the Company started a whale fishery at Marble island, and one 

 of the boats engaged in the fishery accidently discovered a har- 

 bour near the east end of the island ; at its head guns, anchors, 

 cables and many other articles were found. The wrecks of the 

 ships lay in five fathoms of water, and the remains of the house 

 were still in existence, with two skulls on the ground near by. 

 Hearne learned from the Eskimos that the ships arrived late in 

 the summer, that the larger one received much damage entering 

 the harbour, that soon after arriving the house was built and 

 that the white men numbered about fifty. When the natives 

 again visited them, during the following summer, their number 

 was greatly reduced, and the remainder were unhealthy. The 

 carpenters were then at work on a boat. By the beginning of 

 winter the number was reduced to twenty, and in the following 

 summer only five remained alive, all of whom died within a 

 few days after the arrival of the natives. That such a disaster 

 could occur within two hundred and fifty miles of Churchill is 

 astonishing at the present day, when so much more is known 

 of the comparative ease with which long journeys may be made 

 over the snow and ice in the springtime. 



After this disastrous termination of their first expedition by 

 sea, the Company was not eager to undertake another, but they 

 were practically forced to do so by Arthur Dobbs, a zealous and 

 enthusiastic advocate of the northwest passage. On his insist- 

 ence, two sloops w y ere sent northward from Churchill, in 1737, 

 to open trade with the natives, and to look for a northern pas- 

 sage to the westward; the latter seems never to have been 

 seriously undertaken, and did not at all satisfy Dobbs. 



In 1741, Captain Middleton, who had been long in the service 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company, was selected by the Admiralty 

 to conduct an expedition of discovery up the Welcome. He 

 sailed with two small vessels, and wintered at Churchill. The 

 following summer he proceeded northward, and discovered 

 Wager inlet and Repulse bay, the south headland of which he 



