LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
243 
It is not to be determined whether it was the effect of their 
scholastic education on board the Victory, or whether it was the 
impulse of their own natural feeling, but there was scarcely a 
sailor, who did not draw a comparison between the treatment 
\ which they received from the savage and untutored Esquimaux 
in their snow built huts, and that which the Esquimaux received 
from the tutored and civilized Europeans in the comparatively 
splendid cabin of the Victory. Their visits were at first most 
welcome ; their acquaintance was courted, and their good-will 
and confidence obtained by presents and other distinguished 
acts of kindness ; but it would appear that in this friendly and 
charitable mode of action lurked the predominant principle of 
self interest; they had something to communicate which might 
lead to results of the highest consequence; from them was to be 
obtained the most correct information of the geography of the 
country to the westward, on which perhaps the very success of 
the expedition depended; it had been given to the full extent of 
their knowledge in their rude and artless manner, the information 
was found to be correct, no disposition was shown to mislead or 
deceive, and in return for these services, they were at first caress¬ 
ed, and treated with all the urbanity and kindness of the equal. 
In proportion however as their stock of information declined, and 
every advantage had been obtained, which it was possible to be 
expected from a people so limited in their resources, and so con¬ 
fined in their means of knowledge, a treatment was adopted 
towards them, which did not stop at mere unkindness and incivi¬ 
lity, but it degenerated at last into downright cruelty and in¬ 
humanity. The plea that they were inured to the climate, w T as 
offered in extenuation of the heartless conduct in allowing them 
to remain for the space of several hours, “skulking under the 
lee of a snow wall,'” with the thermometer at about 80 ° below the 
freezing point, and taking no more notice of their helpless and 
desolate condition, than if they had been so many prowling 
beasts of the country; witholding from them even the benefit of 
a little temporary warmth on board the ship, to cheer them on 
their homeward way. 
We have not been able to trace any substantial or well-founded 
ason, for the line of conduct which Capt. Ross thought proper 
