LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. UOSS. 
411 
The stores of his ship were yet abundant ; and, according to his 
own admission before the committee of the House of Commons, 
there were provisions still remaining on Fury Beach, sufficient 
to last eleven months, and which he could make available for 
the use of the ship, immediately that the navigation was open. 
In regard to the reliance, which Capt. Ross placed on the stores 
at Fury Beach, there is one part of his evidence before the com¬ 
mittee, which is calculated to excite great surprise, in which 
he distinctly states, that he should not have been justified in 
undertaking the voyage, if he had not known, that the stores of 
the Fury were in Prince Regent’s Inlet. Now, above four years 
had elapsed since they were deposited by Capt. Parry on the 
beach; and since that period, no information had ever reached 
this country, of that place haying been visited by any English 
vessel ; nor was it likely that if any ship had visited that place, 
that they would not have appropriated to their own use some 
part of the stores, if not the whole of them. Now, we rather 
suspect, that if the examination had been followed up, by asking 
Capt. Ross, from what quarter he had obtained his information, 
as well as the latest date of such intelligence, it would have 
been a difficult task for him to have hit upon a satisfactory 
answer; but these sort of questions were not upon the list. At 
all events, it was a bold undertaking on the part of Capt. Ross, 
not to designate it by a stronger term, to sail upon an expedition, 
on the chance of meeting with some stores, that had been left 
four years previously, on a beach exposed to all the rigours of an 
arctic winter; when, although his informant, whoever he might 
be, had apprised him of their being still in existence on the 
beach, still he had forgotten, at the same time, to tell him, that 
they were in such a state as could be applied to the maintenance 
of his crew. The chances were against him, that he would find 
a single article fit for human food ; and yet he unequivocally 
states, that he would not have undertaken the expedition, if 
ho had not known that the stores of the Fury were perfectly 
available for the provisioning of his ship. 
On the 20th, an Esquimaux came to the ship, bringing a seal, 
w hich row became rather a scarce article, and he was, therefore, 
