ALBERT LAND. 
209 
the 26 th, Captain Penny was on board the Advance, 
in company with some of the officers of the Sophia, 
Mr. Manson perhaps among the rest ; and it is enough 
for me to say that, among the many interesting pieces 
of information which we derived from that honest and 
communicative seaman, the crowning fact of such a 
discovery by his mate was not included. For the rest, 
the journals I have already quoted show that no one 
on board the Sophia could that day have made any 
distant discovery at all. 
I pass gladly to other topics. The nobility of char- 
acter and feeling that distinguished our British friends 
of Union Bay, and the weighty obligations I am un- 
der to the generous men who preside in the depart- 
ments of the British Admiralty, especially the hydro- 
graphic, have made this discussion a most unwelcome 
one. My recollections as a subordinate, and my much 
more limited experience as a superior, have taught me 
that the principal should not always be held answer- 
able for that which bears the sanction of his name ; 
and I am, besides, old enough to know, that the chari- 
ty I extend to the erroneous opinions of others, may 
often be invoked more properly for errors of my own. 
O 
