12 



HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. 



ed Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome, which appeared now to 

 afford almost tlie only hope of a passage ; hut he slopped 

 short at a point which he termed 'Fo\'s farthest.' Un- 

 der Charles the Second, a company was formed for the 

 purpose of settlement and commerce in Hudson's Ba}', and 

 engaged to make the most strenuous exertions to discover 

 a western passage ; but it is believed, that the only e.ter- 

 tions really made by the Company tended to prevent any 

 - such discovery. INIiddleton, an otlicer in their service, 

 was sent out in 1741, sailed up tlie Welcon\e, and believed 

 himself to have discovered, that the head of that channel 

 was completely closed. He was strongly charged with hav- 

 ing received a high bribe from the Hudson's Bay Company 

 to stifle the discovery, and Moor and Smith were sent out 

 in the following year with the most sanguine hopes ; but 

 when they returned without having efl'ected any thing, 

 the public e.xpectations were greatly abated. It became 

 the general impression, that America, on this side, formed 

 a mass of unbroken land, and that the long sought pas- 

 sage had no existence. 



New views of the extent and form of the northern ex- 

 tremities of America were opened by the discoveries of 

 Cook, corroborated by those of some other English navi- 

 gators in the Northern Pacific. It appeared that America 

 there stretched away to the northwest, till it reached a 

 breadth equal to one fourth part of the circumference of 

 the globe. Cook penetrated, indeed, through the strait 

 which bounds the continent and separates it from Asia ; 

 but the coast appeared there extending indefinitely north ; 

 and it became a general impression, that America formed 

 a huge unbroken mass of land approaching the Pole, and 

 perhaps reaching that ultimate point of tlie globe. This 

 belief received a sudden shock from Hearne's voyage 

 down the Copper Mine River, and his discovery of the sea 

 into which it fell, in a latitude not higher than that of the 

 north of Hudson's Bay. Soon after, Sir Alexander Mac- 

 kenzie traced also to the sea another river twenty degrees 

 further west. There was now a strong presumption, that 

 a sea bounded the whole of America to the north, and that 

 there really was such a passage as had been so long sought, 

 and might be found, were it not too closely barred by ice 

 and tempest. The British administration, animated with 

 an active and laudable zeal in the cause of discovery, de- 

 termined that no possible effort should be omitted by which 

 this important and long agitated question might be brought 

 to a final decision. 



A seriep of exploratory voyages was now begun. Cap- 

 tain Ross, in 1818, made the circuit of Baffin's Bay, and 

 returned with the belief, that no opening existed ; Lieuten- 



ant Parry, second in command, formed a different judg 

 ment, and, having satisfied the Admiralty as to his grounds 

 of belief, was sent out with the command of a new expedi- 

 tion. In this memorable voyage. Captain Parry penetrat- 

 ed through Lancaster Sound, which he found to widen 

 gradually, until it opened into the expanse of the Polar 

 Sea. He did not touch on any part of the American coast, 

 but found parallel to it a cliain of large islands; and his 

 progress through these was arrested, not by land, but by 

 straits and channels encumbered with ice. In considera 

 tion of these obstacles, his next attempt was made through 

 Hudson's Bay, by the yet imperfectly explored channel of 

 the Welcome. Struggling through various obstacles, he 

 reached at length a point considerably beyond that where 

 Middleton had stopped, and found a strait opening from 

 Hudson's Bay into the Polar Sea. This strait was, how- 

 ever, so narrow, and so completely blocked with ice, that 

 there appeared no room to hope, that it would ever afford 

 an open passage. Captain Parry was therefore again sent 

 out in his first direction ; but he made no material addition 

 to his former discoveries. Meantime a land journey, un- 

 der Captain Franklin, following in the footsteps of Hearne, 

 reached the sea, and discovered a considerable extent of the 

 hitherto unknown northern coast of the American con- 

 tinent. A tolerably clear glimpse was thus obtained of its 

 e.xtent and boundaries ; and the zealous efforts of govern- 

 ment were employed to verify the whole by actual survey. 

 A second expedition under Captain Franklin extended 

 this survey over three fourths of tliis boundary coast, and 

 reached beyond the 149th degree of longitude. Meantime 

 an expedition, under Captain Beechy, sent to meet Cap- 

 tain Franklin from the westward, passed the icy Cape of 

 Cook, and arrived at nearly 156° W. longitude ; between 

 which point and Captain Franklin's furthest limit there 

 intervened only 7*^, or 150 miles. 



The belief was hence entertained, that the whole coast 

 extended in a line not varying much from the 7flth degree 

 of latitude ; but the important expedition which Captain 

 Ross has just achieved through so many difficulties, proves 

 the existence of a large peninsula, extending as far north 

 as 74° N latitude. It remains still probable, that a naval 

 passage may exist further north, in the line of Captain 

 Parry's first voyage. But the encumbering ice is so thick, 

 and so wedged into various straits and channels, that prob- 

 ably no vessel will ever be able even once to work its way 

 through ; and certainly a ship could never set out with 

 any assurance of thus finding its way from the Atlantic 

 into the Pacific 



