NORTH 
except we give credit to the account fuppofed to have 
been received from Adams by the Jefuits of Japan. 
The moral character of Abacuk Pricket and of Robert 
Bylot would not feem to have fuffered very greatly in the 
eyes of the Merchant-Adventurers, on account of the 
unhappy cataftrophe which befel Hudfon ; and it may 
therefore be prefumed that they fubffantiated by proof 
their innocence of all participation in that atrocious 
tranfaftion. We find, at leaft, that both were engaged 
to proceed on the fame voyage the following year, under 
the command of Captain (afterwards SirThomas) Button, 
a gentleman then in the fervice of prince Henry, (eldeft 
foil of king James I.)' an able feaman and a man of very 
confiderable talent. The two (hips fitted out for this new 
voyage of difeovery bore the fame names as thole under 
the celebrated Cook, when on the fame fervice, but on 
the oppofite fide of America—the HefohUion and the 
Difcovery ; the former of which was commanded by fir 
Thomas, the latter by captain Ingram. Sir Thomas 
Button had with him befides, on this voyageof difeovery, 
a relation of the name of Gibbons, and one captain 
Hawkridge; both volunteers, and men of reputed Ikill 
and experience. The two (hips, being in all refpedts 
ready for fea and victualled for eighteen months, took 
their departure early in May, 1612. 
For reafons that one cannot well comprehend, the voy¬ 
age of fir Thomas Button was neverpublilhed, either by 
himfelf or by any competent authority ; a fort of myfte- 
rious fecrecy being kept up, though feveral details, col¬ 
lected from different perfons employed on it, and from 
verbal information, as well as fome abftraCts laid to be 
taken from Button’s own journal by fir Thomas Roe, 
were fome years afterwards printed by North-weft Fox, in 
the introductory part of his own voyage. 
The opening of Hudfon’s Strait into a great weftern 
fea, and the report in Pricket’s journal of Hudfon’s fliip 
having been floated off a rock near Cape Digges, by a 
high tide flowing from the 'weftward, are the reafons af- 
flgned for undertaking this new voyage of difeovery. It 
is to be hoped, however, that humanity had fome (hare 
in the bufinefs, and that one of the objeCts of the expe¬ 
dition might be that of inquiring after the fate of the 
unfortunate Hudfon and his companions. The intention 
at any rate was to follow the track of Hudfon ; and ac¬ 
cordingly, on arriving off the ftrait, Button flood direCtly 
to the weftward for Digges’s Ifland, where he remained 
about a week employed in fitting up a pinnace which had 
been brought out in pieces from England. He then conti¬ 
nued to proceed to the weftward, till he made the fouth- 
ern part of the large ifland, which in fome charts is called 
Southampton Ifland, and to which he gave the name of 
Carey's Swan's-Neft ; and from hence (till failing vvefterly 
he fell in with more land on the main coaft of America, 
in lat. 60. 40. to which he gave the name of Hopes checked. 
A ftorm coming on, the two ihips flood to the louthward 
down Hudfon’s Bay; and on the 15th of Auguft, entered 
the mouth of a river in lat. 57. 10. which was named by 
Button Neljon's River, fo called from the mafter of his 
ihip, whom he had the misfortune fo lofe, and who was in¬ 
terred at this place. 
The.f’ealon being far advanced, and Button feeing it 
would be expedient to winter here rather than in a more 
northerly latitude, his firft care was to fee lire the two 
(hips againlt the wind and tides and the floating ice, which 
he learned from early experience might be expeffed to be 
if i 11 more troublefome in thecourle of the winter. Many 
of the people died from the feverecold, thotigh the river 
was not frozen over till the 16th of February. The wea¬ 
ther however was frequently mild, and Button took ad¬ 
vantage of it by employing his people on-fliore in killing 
game. The quantity of partridges was fo abundant and 
fo eafily procured, that they are faid to have taken and 
confumed no lefs than eighteen hundred dozen. Healfo 
contrived, like a wife commander, to keep the crew em¬ 
ployed during theirconfinementtothefhip, well knowing 
Vol. XVII. No. 1169. 
POLE. m 
that the beft way of preventing men from murmuring, 
difeontent, and fecret confpiracies, was to divert their 
minds from dwelling on their own unpleafant fituation. 
To the inferior officers he put queftions concerning the 
route of their late navigation, and engaged them in com¬ 
paring each other’s obfervations as to the courfes they 
had run, the fet of the tides, the latitudes of the places 
they had touched at; and apparently confulting them 
what they fhould do, and whatcourfe purfue, on the ap¬ 
proach of fpring. Everyman in the fliip by thefe means 
felt himfelf of fome importance, and took an intereft in 
the further profecution of the voyage. Among others 
we find an anfwer given by one Jolias Hubert, the pilot 
of the Refolution, to the queltion, How the difeovery 
might be beft profecuted when they fhould be able to go 
to fea ? which (hows the found notions entertained by 
this man refpedling the true mode of fearehing for the 
paffage : “ My anfwer,” he fays, “ to this demand is, to 
fearch to the northward about this weftern land,- until, 
if it be poffible, that we may find the flood-coming from 
the weftward, and to bend our courfes againft that (food, 
following the ebb, fearehing that way for the- paffage. 
For this flood which we have had from the eaftward, I 
cannot be perfuaded, but that they are the veins of fome 
head-land to the northward of the Checks, and by the 
inlets of rivers which let the flood-tides into them; which 
headlands being found, I do affure myfelf that the tide 
will be found to come from the weftward.” The ice broke 
up from Nelfon’s River on the 21ft of April; but they 
did not quit their winteranchorage till two months after¬ 
wards, when they flood to the northward, exploring the 
eaftern coaft of America, conformably with Hubert’s 
idea, as high along the land of Southampton Ifland as 65°. 
Proceeding again to the fouthward, Button fell in with 
fome iflands which he named Muncel'sIJlands, and which 
are now marked on the charts as Mansfield's IJlands. To 
the extreme point of Southampton Illand, lying to the 
weftward of Carey’s Swan’s-Neft, he gave the name of 
Cape Southampton, and to that on the eaftof it Cape Pent - 
hrohe. After this he palled Cape Chidley, and in fixteeii 
days reached England in the autumn of 1613. 
There feems to have been no reafon why the proceed¬ 
ings of the voyage of fir Thomas Button fhould have 
been kept fecret, or publifhed only piecemeal. He was 
the firft who reached the eaftern coaft of America on the 
weftern - fide of Hudfon’s Bay, and difeovered Nelfon’s 
River, which has long been the principal fettlement of 
the Hudfon’s Bay Company. He was jirongly pojfejfed 
with the idea of the exiftence of a north-wejl pafj'age ; and 
he told Mr. Briggs, the celebrated mathematician, that 
he had convinced king James of the truth of this opinion, 
which is laid tohave had fo much influence with the Ad¬ 
venturers as to induce them to makeafurther attempt the 
following - year. 
In the fame year that fir Thomas Button failed from 
England, James Hall alfo made a fourth voyage, with 
two fmall veflels, called the Patience and Heart’s Eafc, 
fitted out by a new fet of merchant-adventurers of Loti- ■ 
don, of whom Mr. Alderman Cockin appears to have 
been one of the principal partners ; but it proved fatal to 
the perfevering commander of this expedition, who was 
mortally wounded by the dart of an Efquimaux on the 
coaft of Greenland. The little that is known of this 
voyage appears to have been written by William Baffin ; 
and it is chiefly remarkable for its being the firft on record, 
in which a method is laid down, as then pradtifed by him, 
for determining the longitude at lea by an obfervation of 
the heavenly bodies ; and the method he made ufe of fuf- 
ficiently proves that Baffin poffeffed a very coniiderabls 
degree of knowledge in the theory as well as practice of 
navigation. On an ifland in Cockin’s Sound he firft de¬ 
termined, by various obfervations of the fun, both above 
and below the pole, an exafit meridian line ; he fays, “ O11 
the 9th of July I went on-fhoare the illand, being a faire 
morning, and oblerved till the moone came juft upon 
Z z tbs 
