488 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
As this subject is the great ground of complaint, which the 
crew of the Victory have against Capt. Ross, and as it still re¬ 
mains an unsettled point, attaching a considerable degree of 
obloquy to the character of that officer, it is right that the country 
should be put in possession of the real merits of the case, in 
order that a just decision may be formed, as to the quarter where 
the odium ought to attach. 
Capt. Ross, when before the committee, was asked : “On what 
terms did the men engage with you for the voyage ?”—His an¬ 
swer was, “ They first engaged with me to go as a whale 
voyage, and then to share with the crew of the whaler, which I 
took out with me to carry the stores; then this whaler mutinied, 
and I made a new agreement with the men, by which I was to 
pay them at the same rate, as they were paid on board the 
Isabella, and they were to run all risks, and the whaler did 
not go. 
“ Was any written ageeement entered into, between you and 
them?” “ None whatever .” 
Now, had any member of the committee put the following 
question to Capt. Ross, “ Was it not part of the agreement 
entered into between you and them, that, in the event of their 
being reduced to short allowance, they were to receive double pay?” 
w ould not Capt. Ross have deviated from the truth, if he had 
answered in the negative, and does he not himself state, before the 
committee, that the crew were fifteen months on short allowance, 
and that three of the men must have died in a fornight, so ex¬ 
hausted were they with cold, fatigue, and hunger . Thus, the cir¬ 
cumstance of the men being on short allowance, is unequivocally 
established by himself: on what ground, therefore, was not that 
part of the agreement fulfilled, that the men, on being put on 
short allowance, were to receive double pay ? It is also worthy 
of particular observation, that the correspondence, which took 
place between Capt. Ross and Mr. Barlow of the Admiralty, has 
a direct tendency to impress upon the minds of the public, that 
t)ie most ample justice has been done to them, and that they 
have declared themselves fully satisfied with the conduct of 
the Admiralty towards them. Now, it must be remembered, that 
the Admiralty has nothing whatever to do with the dispute 
