INTRODUCTION. 
His Majesty’s Government having determined on the equipment 
of an Expedition to attempt the Discovery of a North-West Pas- 
sage into the Pacific, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty were 
pleased to honour me with the command ; and my Commission for His 
Majesty’s ship the Hecla, was dated the 16th of January, 1819. I 
arrived in London on the 20th, and commissioned the Hecla at 
Deptford on the following day. The second vessel appointed for this 
service was the Griper, gun-brig ; she was commissioned by Lieute- 
nant Matthew Liddon, who was directed to put himself under my 
orders, on the 29th of January. 
The Hecla was a bomb, of three hundred and seventy-five tons, 
built in a merchant’s yard at Hull, in the year 1815, of large scant- 
ling, and having a capacious hold, which made her peculiarly fit for 
this service. The Griper was originally a gun-brig, of one hundred 
and eighty tons ; and it was proposed by the Navy Board to raise upon 
her a deck of six feet, so as to increase her stowage as much as pos- 
sible. Both ships had been taken into dock about the middle of 
December, in order to undergo a thorough repair, and to receive 
every strengthening which the nature of the service demanded. 
