16 16.] Hudson's bay and Baffin's bay discovered. 97 



and warlike population ; and, upon the strength of the assertions of 

 this worthy, the lake and river, as described by him, were laid down 

 on many of the maps of that time. North-west America was, 

 indeed, during the period here mentioned, the terra incognitissima, 

 the favorite scene of extraordinary adventures and Utopian ro- 

 mances. Bacon there placed his Atlantis ; and Brobdignag, agree- 

 ably to the very precise description of its locality furnished by its 

 discoverer, the accomplished and veracious Captain Lemuel Gulli- 

 ver, must have been situated near the Strait of Fuca. 



The Atlantic Ocean, and its American coasts, and the South 

 Pacific, were, however, not neglected by the Europeans during the 

 seventeenth century. Soon after the termination of Vizcaino's 

 labors, settlements were made, in many places on the Atlantic, 

 between the Gulfs of Mexico and of St. Lawrence, by the English, 

 the French, and the Dutch, generally under the protection of charters 

 from the governments of those nations, in which the territories of 

 the several colonies were declared to extend from the Atlantic 

 westward to the Pacific ; and some of the most valuable of the 

 West India Islands had fallen into the possession of the same 

 powers. 



Many discoveries were likewise effected, within this period, on 

 the coasts of the New World, and in the adjoining seas, some 

 of which were of great and immediate importance, while the others 

 served to strengthen the expectation that a north-west passage, or 

 navigable channel of communication between the A tlantic and the 

 Pacific, north of America, would be speedily found. Thus, in 

 1608, Henry Hudson discovered, or rediscovered, the strait, and 

 the bay connected by it with the Atlantic, to both of which his 

 name is now attached ; and, eight years afterwards, the adventu- 

 rous William Baffin penetrated, through the arm of that ocean 

 now called Baffin's Bay, separating Greenland from America, into a 

 passage extending westward, under the 74th parallel of latitude, 

 where his ship was arrested by ice. 



The results of the voyages of Baffin, and other navigators, who 

 followed the same course, were not calculated to increase the hope 

 that the desired passage to the Pacific would be found opening 

 into Baffin's Bay. Strong grounds were, however, afforded for the 

 expectation that it might be discovered in one of the arms of 

 Hudson's Bay which had not been completely explored ; and, in 

 consequence, the whole region surrounding the latter sea was, in 

 1669, granted, by King Charles II., to an association of merchants 

 13 



