EXPEDITION OF JAMES. 
61 
had to protect them from the intense severity of the winter. 
Fortunately for them, they were able to collect a sufficiency of 
drift wood, to enable them to keep up large fires ; but never¬ 
theless their wine, vinegar, oil, and in fact, every thing that 
was liquid was frozen so hard, that they were obliged to cut it 
with a hatchet. To augment their sufferings, they were at¬ 
tacked with the scurvy, which reduced the crew to such a state 
of lassitude, that it was the month of July before they could 
gain strength sufficient to get the ship in a state of readiness for 
their homeward voyage. The charge of extreme timidity has been 
brought against James, in his conduct during the whole of this 
voyage ; but it is a question, the solution of which is rather in his 
favour, whether the difficulties which he so magnified as to ren¬ 
der the north west passage not only an improbable, but an im¬ 
practicable object, remain not even to the present day in their 
full force; and which the late voyages of Ross and Parry have 
not in the least degree removed. The simple contradiction of 
the opinions of James bv those, who considered themselves to 
be gifted with greater sagacity and skill in the conduct of a 
similar enterprise, by no means invalidates the arguments which 
he brought forward touching the improbability of a north west 
passage; they have hitherto been verified without a single ex¬ 
ception, and the cavillers of James must adduce their irrefragable 
proofs of the rectitude of their own views, before his recorded 
opinions can be negatived. 
In the Cabinet Cyclopaedia are the following remarks on 
the subsequent attempts to discover the north west passage 
“ The voyages to Hud son’s Bay, although they did not dis¬ 
prove the existence of a north west passage, were not calculated 
to raise sanguine expectations of finding it in that quarter. Be¬ 
sides the difficulties of the navigation, and the hardships arising 
from the climate, gave navigators a disinclination to proceed 
thither. The English had almost forgotten Hudson’s Bay when 
an accident again drew their attention towards it, and it became 
the object of commercial, when it had ceased to awaken geogra¬ 
phical interest.” 
The French settlers in Canada, in their travels through the 
