LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
457 
of the animal world under their dominion, and which, therefore, 
hastened in swarms to be killed, whenever it was the will of 
their masters, that their lives should be sacrificed. It was the 
intention of Commander Ross, to have left with the natives a 
piece of netting*, sufficiently large to enable them to catch a 
limited number of fish at a time, and it would have been a kind 
of boon to the nation at large; but his good intentions were 
frustrated by the misconduct of the Esquimaux themselves, who, 
in return for his generosity, in having bestowed upon them 
such a number of fish, attempted to steal one of his nets, an 
act, in his eyes, which rendered them undeserving of any future 
act of kindness. 
On the 22nd, two of the crew were sent inland, for the pur¬ 
pose of bringing some of the articles, which Commander Ross 
had left in a particular place, from his inability to convey them 
to the ship, on account of his heavy load of fish, which he had to 
convey ; and on their return to the ship, they brought with them 
a live leveret, which they had hunted down, and w r hich it was 
their hope, that they should be able to keep alive during the 
remainder of the voyage. 
These men also brought home some small birds, which they 
bad killed, for their tameness was so great, that they were able 
to knock them down with their poles. They almost verified the 
description in Cowper’s beautiful lines, supposed to be written 
by Alexander Selkirk :— 
u They are so unacquainted with man, 
Their tameness is shocking to me.” 
On the 6 24th July, the ship, for the first time since its being 
blocked up, was entirely free from ice, and the launch was 
nearly so. The feelings of the crew may be easily imagined, 
at the near prospect, which presented itself, of their emancipation 
from a long, dreary, and helpless state of entanglement; and 
the extreme delight, with which the seamen, imprisoned as they 
had been for so many months, “ in thrilling regions of thick 
20. 3 N 
