[ » ] 



complimed his paffage from the Pacifick Ocean, when he would 

 probably have returned to England by Davis's (traits. 



This plan feems to have been very well laid, but that per- 

 fevering navigator was delayed at the Cape by Captain Clark's 

 fhip not arriving till a confiderable time after his own reaching 

 that place of rendezvous, and in the further progrefs of his 

 voyage by adverfe winds, which drove him to the Friendly Iflands 

 inftead of Otaheitee, fo that he did not make his attempt of a 

 paffage till i 777. 



Captain Pickerfgill did not leave Scilly till the 10th of June, 

 1766, and confequently whatever obstructions he met with from 

 floating or packing ice, might be reafonably expected when he 

 reached the coaft of Weft Groenland. It appears, however, by 

 what I fhall copy from the conclusion of his journal on the 31ft 

 of Auguft, that he did not find thefe to be confiderable, and that 

 after the trial his hopes of a paffage were very fanguine. 



" I mail conclude with a few obfervations on this part of the 

 " world (fc. Greenland) and fo terribly reprefented by people, 

 " who, in order to raife their own merit, make dangers and dif- 

 44 Acuities of common occurrences, merely becaufe the places are 

 44 unknown, and there is little or no probability of their being 

 44 ever contradided. I do not mean this as a perfonal reflexion ; 

 44 but having difcourfed with many of the mafters of Greenland 

 " veffels as well as their employers, and heard fuch dreadful 

 r< ftories of thofe countries, ! cannot help remarking it as tending 

 44 to miflead thofe who from a laudable principle, would be 

 44 benefactors to their country, but are deterred from it by thefe 

 " mifreprefentations. I fhall communicate obfervations on the 

 44 ice, the atmofphere, the land of Forbimer, and the probability 

 w of a N. W. pajjage, in a port time b ." 



b Ph. Tranf. for 1773, Part II. p. 1063. 



This, 



