592 



APPENDIX. 



"Philadelphia, Nov. 15. Sunday last arrived here the schooner Argo, Captain 

 Charles Swaine, who sailed from this port last spring on the discovery of the N.W. 

 passage. She fell in with the ice off Farewell; left the eastern ice, and fell in with 

 the western ice, in lat. 58, and cruized to the northward to lat. 63 to clear it, but 

 could not, it then extending to the eastward. On her return to the southward she 

 met with two Danish ships bound to Bull river and Disco, up Davis's streights, who 

 had been in the ice fourteen days, off Farewell, and had then stood to westward ; 

 and assured the commander that the ice was fast to the shore all above Hudson's 

 streights to the distance of 40 leagues out ; and that there had not been such a se- 

 vere winter as the last these 24 years that they had used that trade : they had been 

 nine weeks from Copenhagen. The Argo, finding she could not get round the ice, 

 pressed through it, and got into the streight's mouth the 26th of June [sic], and 

 made the island Kesolution ; but was forced out by vast quantities of driving ice, and 

 got into a clear sea the 1st of July [sic]. On the 14th, cruizing the ice for an open- 

 ing to get in again, she met four sail of Hudson's Bay ships endeavoring to get in, 

 and continued with them 'till the 19th, when they parted in thick weather, in lat. 

 62 and a half, which thick weather continued to the 7th of August ; the Hudson's 

 Bay men supposed themselves 40 leagues from the western land. The Argo ran 

 down the ice from 63 to 57. 30, and after repeated attempts to enter the streights in 

 vain, as the season for discovery on the western side of the Bay was over, she went 

 in with the Labrador coast, and discover'd it perfectly from 56 to 65 ; finding no less 

 than six inlets, to the heads of all which they went, and of which they have made a 

 very good chart, and have a better account of the country, its soil, produce, &c, 

 than has hitherto been publish'd. The captain says 'tis much like Norw ay ; and 

 that there is no communication with Hudson's Bay through Labrador, where one 

 has been imagined ; a high ridge of mountains running N. and S., about 51 leagues 

 within the coast. In one of the harbours they found a deserted wooden house with 

 a brick chimney, which had been built by some English, as appeared by sundry things 

 they left behind ; and afterwards, in another harbour, they met with captain Goff, in 

 a snow from London, who informed [sic] that the same snow had been there last 

 year, and landed some of the Moravian brethren, who had built that house ; but the 

 natives having decoyed the then captain of the snow, and five or six of his hands, in 

 their boat, round a point of land at a distance from the snow, under pretence of trade, 

 carried them all off (they having gone imprudently without arms) ; the snow, after 

 waiting sixteen days without hearing of them, went home, and was obliged to take 

 the Moravians to help to work the vessel. Part of her business this year was to in- 

 quire after those men. Captain Swaine discovered a fine fishing bank, which lies 

 but six leagues off the coast, and extends from lat. 57 to 54, supposed to be the 

 same hinted at in Captain Davis's second voyage." 



P. 577, [under date] " Tuesday, 31s£ Dec, 1754. * * * The schooner Argo, 

 Captain Swaine, is arrived at Philadelphia, after a second unsuccessful attempt to 

 discover a northwest passage. {See an account of the 1st voyage, p. 46. See also 

 page 542.)" 



[On that page, 542, there is merely a list of all voyages to discover a northwest 

 passage, etc., previous to that of the Argo. — Hall] 



Macpherson ("The Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Naviga- 

 tion," in 4 vols., London, 1805 ; vol. iii.) says : 



"This summer [Sept., 1772. — H.] some gentlemen in Virginia subscribed for the 

 equipment of a vessel to be sent upon an attempt for a northwest passage. Under 

 their auspices, Captain Wilder sailed in the brig Diligence to the lat. 69° 11', in a 

 large bay which he supposed hitherto unknown. He reported that, from the course 

 of the tides, he thought it very probable that there is a passage, but that it is seldom 

 free of ice, and therefore impassable.* But an impassable passage (if such language 

 may be allowed) is no passage for ships. But the impossibility of finding such a pas- 

 sage, in any navigable sea, was, at the same time, further demonstrated by the return 

 in this summer of Mr. Hearne, a naval officer then in service of the Hudson Bay 

 Company," etc., etc. 



[Following this is matter that refers to the information the Indians gave Hearne. 

 —Hall.] 



* This Virginia voyage of discovery had escaped the diligence of Dr. Forster, the historian of voy- 

 ages and discoveries in the North. 



