Xl] 
THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE ACHIEVED. 
69 
related, their hopes were grimly disappointed. Sir Hugh and all 
his men perished as pioneers of England’s navigation and of 
voyages to the ice-encumbered sea which bounds Europe and Asia 
on the north. Innumerable other marine expeditions have since 
then trodden the same path, always without success, and generally 
with the sacrifice of the vessel and of the life and health of 
many brave seamen. How for the first time, after the lapse of 
336 years, and when most men experienced in sea matters had 
declared the undertaking impossible, was the North-East Passage 
at last achieved. This has taken place, thanks to the discipline, 
zeal, iind ability of our man-of-war’s-men and their officers, 
without the sacrifice of a single human life, without sickness 
among those who took part in the undertaking, without the 
slightest damage to the vessel, and under circumstances which 
show that the same thing may be done again in most, perhaps 
in all years, in the course of a few weeks. It may be permitted 
us to say, that under such circumstances it was with pride we 
saw the blue-yellow flag rise to the mast-head and heard the 
Swedish salute in the sound where the old and the new worlds 
reach hands to each other. The course along which we sailed 
is indeed no longer required as a commercial route between 
Europe and China. But it has been granted to this and the 
preceding Swedish expeditions to open a sea to navigation, and 
to confer on half a continent the possibility of communicating 
by sea with the oceans of the world. 
