LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
623 
think it becoming in them, to put a question to him of such a 
puzzling nature, the answering of which would have confounded 
him in a greater degree, than any of the two and thirty questions 
which George III. put in one breath, to the wonder-stricken 
brewer of Chiswell-street. It was, however, perhaps a deep 
stroke of policy on the part of Capt. Ross, to hold out the 
flattering and cheering picture to his crew, that no danger 
whatever existed of them being starved to death; although he 
could not answer for them not being frozen to death, for so long 
as the certainty existed, of the Fury’s stores being on the beach, 
the certainty also existed, if they did not in reality succeed 
in dining with the governor of Kamschatka, that one of the 
greatest evils, which a sailor dreads, namely, that of being put 
on short allowance, could not possibly take place during their 
present voyage. How great, therefore, was the astonishment 
of the crew, when Capt. Ross now informed them, that when 
he was at WLodford, on the eastern coast of Baffin’s Bay, in 
1829, he had written a letter to Mr. Booth, instructing him to 
fit out the John, with the least possible delay, and to despatch 
her direct to Fury Beach, for the sole purpose of bringing away 
the remaining stores of the Fury. 
The only reason, which Capt. Ross had given to his men, for 
directing his course towards Fury Beach, was the hope, that 
he should there find such a stock of provisions, as would ensure 
them from all risk of actual want: and it may be truly said, 
that it was a hope, of which no wise or politic commander 
would have wantonly robbed his men, under the severe and 
trying circumstances, in which they were then placed. It was 
their daily habit to cheer one another with the prospect, that al¬ 
though they were then on short allowance, a few days more 
would bring them to Fury Beach, where plenty was supposed 
to await them, and where they expected to be placed under no 
restriction whatever, as to the quantity, which it might be 
their pleasure to consume. A faint glimpse was, however, ob¬ 
tained into this extraordinary conduct on the part of Capt. Ross, 
from the extreme anxiety, which he evinced not to leave his 
boats behind him ; for, as their ultimate escape from the country 
