102 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. PARRY. 
vantage, that it was regarded in the character of a Quixotic 
undertaking, and met with general ridicule and censure. It may 
indeed be considered as the last of the government expeditions, 
for although the country raised not a murmur at the expence 
incurred in the previous voyages of Capt. Ross and Parry, so long 
as a great and national object was to be attained, yet severe 
indeed were the animadversions, which were cast upon the govern¬ 
ment, for advancing any sum of money on an expedition, which 
might gratify the adventurous spirit of the projector, but the 
result of which was to be nothing more than fixing a broomstick 
with the colours of England attached to it, in the ice, on a par¬ 
ticular spot of the globe, and then having given three hearty 
cheers, to retrace their steps and leave the broomstick with its 
appendage, to be swept away by the next storm, or perhaps to 
frighten the first bear, which might venture within view of so 
alarming an object. From this expedition, it was augured that 
Capt. Parry would return on, or before the ensuing quarter day, 
and the augurs were not wrong in their divinations. 
In the mean time, whilst Capt. Parry was prosecuting his dis¬ 
coveries amongst the Esquimaux in the west, and in the north 
was attempting to grasp with his hand the spindle of the globe, 
in the former of which he had completely falsified the report of 
Capt. Ross, as far as the geography of Lancaster Sound was con¬ 
cerned ; and in the latter had furnished an additional proof, if 
any were wanting, that John Bull is an animal more easily to be 
gulled, than any other in the great menagery of human bipeds; 
Capt. Ross was domiciliating amidst his native heather at 
Stanraer or elsewere, casting ever and anon like his great proto¬ 
type Columbus, a wistful eye towards the westward, but from 
some strange and unaccountable associations, which must have 
been floating in his mind, he always averted his look from the 
mountains which bounded his prospect to the northward. 
At times the buz of popular ridicule reached him in his 
seclusion, and in a bright and glorious moment of his life, 
rushed the grand conception into his mind, that although a man 
may have failed once in the acomplishment of a favourite project, 
it does not follow either logically, philosophically, or naturally. 
