104 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
that as Hope* had departed from the Board, and from the 
world also, there was little or no hope left for him. 
It canmt excite any surprise that the anxiety of Capt. Ross, 
to purify himself from the obloquy that clung to him, should have 
been so intense; smarting as he was under the castigation which 
he was continually receiving, and the severity of which was 
increased on the return of Capt. Parry, reporting that he had 
safely sailed over the Croker Mountains, and had penetrated 
nearly two thousand miles beyond them; but then, who was the 
individual that had pointed out to Capt. Parry, the route by 
which he was to steer—who, but Capt. Ross himself? Who had 
laid down so exactly the latitude and longitude of the place, 
that a collier’s boy could have navigated the vessel directly to¬ 
wards it—who, but Capt. Ross himself? Who was the person, 
that had brought home some of the mud of the sound, which his 
deep sea clamm had raised from the bottom of the ocean, at a 
depth of six hundred and fifty fathoms—who, but Capt. Ross 
himself? then let the great principle of Nelson’s motto be acted 
upon; let not the Palmam ferat, qui meruit be withheld from 
Capt. Ross; nor Capt. Parry be allowed to deck himself with the 
plumes, which belong so indisputably to another. 
Various indeed were the causes assigned for the conduct of 
Capt. Ross at the termination of his first voyage, acting as he 
did against the avowed opinion and advice of the officers under 
him, and while one ascribed his failure to pusillanimity, a second 
was inclined to attribute it to sheer ignorance and incapacity; a 
third to a kind of second sight, peculiar to his countrymen, who 
sometimes see things, which have no existence in reality, and a 
fourth sought for it in the jealousy and selfishness of the Hudson's 
Bay Company. It is true, that in 1752, one Joseph Robson, who 
was a surveyor to the company, and who had resided six years 
in the country, published a book, in which he assigns the reason, 
that the monopolizing spirit of the Hudson’s Bay Company, is the 
sole cause of the discovery of the north west passage not having 
been accomplished. Robson says, from the information collected 
* Alluding to Sir George Hope, the patron of Capt Ross. 
