46 INTRODUCTION 



voyage ; but the ship not returning to England that year, 

 as was expected, it was judged that she had wintered in 

 Hudson's Bay ; and having on board a good stock of pro- 

 visions, a house in frame, together with all necessary mecha- 

 nics, and a great assortment of trading goods, little or no 

 thoughts were entertained of their not being in safety ; but 

 as neither ship nor sloop returned to England in the following 

 year, (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), the Company 

 were much alarmed for their welfare ; and, by their ship which 

 went to Churchill in the year one thousand seven hundred and 

 twenty-one, they sent orders for a sloop called the Whale-Bone^ 

 John Scroggs Master, to go in search of them ; but the ship 

 not arriving in Churchill till late in the year, those orders 

 could not be put in execution till the Summer following (one 

 thousand seven hundred and twenty- two). 



The North West coast of Hudson's Bay being little 

 known in those days, and Mr. Scroggs finding himself greatly 

 embarrassed with shoals and rocks, returned to Prince of 

 Wales's Fort without making any certain discovery respecting 

 the above ship or sloop ; for all the marks he saw among the 

 Esquimaux at Whale Cove scarcely [xxviii] amounted to the 

 spoils which might have been made from a trifling accident, 

 and consequently could not be considered as signs of a total 

 shipwreck. 



The strong opinion which then prevailed in Europe 

 respecting the probability of a North West passage by the 

 way of Hudson's Bay, made many conjecture that Messrs. 

 Knight and Barlow had found that passage, and had gone 

 through it into the South Sea, by the way of California. 

 Many years elapsed without any other convincing proof 

 occurring to the contrary, except that Middleton, Ellis, Bean, 

 Christopher, and Johnston, had not been able to find any such 

 passage. And notwithstanding a sloop was annually sent to 

 the Northward on discovery, and to trade with the Esquimaux, 

 it was the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and sixty- 



