LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
339 
cheuse, and on his return to England, he was taken under the 
special protection of the admiralty, who agreed to defray the 
expences of his education, in order that he might in every way 
be well fitted to act as an interpreter on the second expedition, 
which was then about to be undertaken under the command of 
Capt. Parry ; but his death put an end to all these plans. With 
the remembrance of the great services, which had been ren¬ 
dered by Sacheuse in the first expedition, Capt. Ross wished 
to obtain a substitute, whom he could convey to England, and 
by imparting to him the benefits of education, qualify him to 
become an interpreter to any future expedition, that might be 
projected. There is however a great difference between a per¬ 
son voluntarily expatriating himself, as was the case with Sa¬ 
cheuse, and a person who is to be induced by promises and 
bribes to leave his country, and to enter upon scenes unknown, 
without any innate desire for the acquisition of knowledge, or 
natural talent, to overcome the obstacles with which that acqui¬ 
sition is always accompanied. Some enquiries had been set on 
foot by Capt. Ross amongst the Esquimaux, whether there was 
a youth amongst them, who felt no objection to be received on 
board the ship as one of its inmates, and to accompany them to 
Europe, with the understanding that if his residence there should 
prove disagreeable to him, the earliest opportunity should be 
embraced of returning him to his native country. In this case 
however, there were many impressions and prejudices to over¬ 
come, which threatened to defeat the plan altogether. In the 
first place, the conduct of Capt. Ross towards the natives had 
been by no means such as to obtain their confidence or conciliate 
their respect or esteem; they dreaded him as the slave does his 
tyrant, who rules him with a rod of iron, and who considers 
himself entitled on the commission of the slightest offence, to 
trample him under his foot.—To exchange his natural liberty, 
rude and savage as it was, for a state of comparative bondage 
and servitude, appeared in the eyes of the native youths, an 
exchange so decidedly against them, that their snow-built hut, 
and their meal of blubber, seemed to them of higher estimation 
than all the splendid benefits, which the change held out to them. 
