NORTH POLE. 
of the climate in Capt. James’s narrative, which deterred 
them from attempting fuch a project. Mr. Montague was 
at that time the Englifh minifter at Paris ; .and, hearing of 
tiie propofal of Groifeliez, and its rejection by the French 
government, fen t for him to. explain his views; they ap¬ 
peared fo fatisfaflory to the Englifh minifter, that he gave 
him a letter to prince Rupert, with which lie came over 
to England. Here he met with a different reception 
from that of his countrymen; he was immediately en¬ 
gaged to go out in one of his majefty’s fb.ips, which was 
taken up for the voyage, not merely to form afettlement, 
but alfo to profecute the oft-attempted paffage to China 
by the north-weft. 
Captain Zacchariah Gillam was appointed to carry out 
the Frenchman to Hudfon’s Bay, and to make difcoveries 
to the northward. He failed in the fummer of 1668, and 
is faidto have proceeded as far north up Davis’s Strait as 
75°, but nothing appears on record to juftify fuch an affer- 
tion. On his return into Hudfon’s Bay, he entered Ru¬ 
pert's River on the 39th of September, and prepared to 
pads the winter there. The river was not frozen over, 
before the 9th of December; and, though confiderably 
to the northward of Charlton Jfland, where James win¬ 
tered, no complaint is made by Gillam of the feverity or 
long continuance of the cold, which, on the contrary, is. 
laid to have ceafed in the month of April. At this place 
Capt. Gillam laid the foundation of the firft Englifh fet- 
tlement, by building a fmall ftone fort, to which he gave 
the name of Fort Charles. 
Prince Rupert did not content himfelf with merely pa¬ 
tronizing the voyage of Gillam. He obtained from king 
Charles a charter, dated in 1669, granted to himfelf and 
feveral other adventurers therein named, for having, at 
their own coft and charges, undertaken an expedition to 
Hudfon’s Bay, for the difcovery of a new palfage into 
the South Sea, and for the finding of fome trade for furs, 
minerals, and other confiderable commodities; it ftated 
that “ they had already made fuch difcoveries as encou¬ 
raged them to proceed farther in purfuance of their faid 
defign ; and that by means thereof great advantage might 
-probably arife to the king and his dominions ; and there¬ 
fore his majefty, for the better promoting of their en¬ 
deavours for the good of his people, was pleafed to con¬ 
fer on them, exclusively, all the land and territories in 
Hudfon’s Bay, together with all the trade thereof, and 
all others which they fhould acquire, &c.” This extra¬ 
ordinary charter, with its lweeping privileges, has conti¬ 
nued to be veiled to this day in the Hudfon’s Bay Company. 
The body of gentlemen and merchants, thus incor¬ 
porated, foon proved itfelf to be a body without afpirit, 
as far as difcovery formed a part of the original defign, 
though this was the chief plea on which the charter had 
been granted. Their whole attention was.turned to the 
eftablifhment of forts and factories, and to extend their 
trade with the Indians; from whom they procttred the 
moft valuable furs for articles of very trifling coft. In 
this profperous ftate of affairs, the north-weft paffage feems 
to have been entirely forgotten, not only by the adventu¬ 
rers who had obtained their exclufive charter under this 
pretext, but alfo by the nation at large; at leaft nothing 
more appears to have been heard on the lubjeS for more 
than half a century. In the mean time, however, the 
public attention was once more awakened to the poffi- 
bility of difcovering a paffage to the Indian Seas by the 
north-eafttvard; a new voyagewas projected with this de¬ 
fign, and was fanCtioned by the fame monarch who had 
granted fuch exclufive privileges to the Hudfon’s Bay 
Company. 
The queftion of a north-eafern paffage to China had 
been let at reft in England for more than a century,-when 
it was once more revived by the appearance of a paper in 
the T ran factions of the Royal Society of London, in 
1675. This volume of the Philolophical Tranfadtions 
contained a fnort. llatement of a voyage fitted out by a 
company ofinerchants in Holland for thepurpofe of mak¬ 
ing northern difcoveries; it ftated that the (hip employ¬ 
ed in this voyage had brought back an account of her 
having failed to the north-ealtward of Nova Zembla feve¬ 
ral hundred leagues, between the parallels of 70 0 and 8o°; 
and that the fea in that direction was found to be per¬ 
fectly open and free from ice ; that, in confequence of 
the navigation of this part of the Tartarian Sea being fo 
eafy and uninterrupted, and the palfage to China by that 
route fo nearly certain, thefe merchants had folicited the 
States-General for a charter, by which the advantages 
that would refult from the difcovery of a north-eaft paf¬ 
fage to the Indian leas fhould be i'ecured exclufively to 
the adventurers ; which however was refufed through the 
intrigues and reprefentations of the Dutch Eaft-India 
Company, to whom already an exclufive charter had been 
granted. About this time alfo there was a very current 
report of feveral Dutch Ihips having circumnavigated 
Spitzbergen, and that they found the lea open on all lides 
-of it; and another ftory, equally current, was, that it 
had been dilcovered, in fearching the journals of Dutch 
whalers, that, in the year 165.5, a certain fnip had pro¬ 
ceeded to within one degree of the North Pole ; and that, 
on three different journals which were kept in the fame 
Hup being produced, they all agreed as to an obfervation 
taken by the mailer on the ill of Auguft, 1655, which 
determined the latitude to be 88. 56. N. and it was fur¬ 
ther afferted that particular mention was made in thefe 
journals, of the fea being there entirely clear of ice, and 
that it was a hollow rolling ■ J'ea , like that of the Bay of 
Bifcay. There was belides publilhed, about this time, 
“A brief Difcourfe by Jofepli Moxon, Fellow of the 
Royal Society,” in which the probability of a paffage by 
the north pole to Japan is ftrongly contended lor, and 
which this ingenious writer conceives to be practicable, 
from the circumftance of our having no knowledge of 
any land lying within eight degrees about the pole; and 
becaule he had reafon to believe, on the contrary, “that 
there is a free and open fea under the very pole.” As 
the ground of this belief, he aflignsthe following circum- 
llance : “Being about twenty-two years ago in Amller- 
dam, I went into a drinking-lioufe; and, fitting by the 
public fire among feveral people, there happened a fea- 
man to come in, who, feeing a friend of his there, whom 
he knew went in the Greenland voyage, wondered to fee 
him, becaule it was not yet time for the Greenland fleet 
to come home, and alked him what accident brought him 
home fo foon ; his friend (who was the lleerman aforefaid 
in a Greenland Ihip that fummer) told him, that their 
Ihip went not out to fifli that fummer, but only to take 
in the lading of the whole fleet, to bring it to an early 
market. But, laid he, before the fleet had caught fii!L 
enough to lade us, we, by order of the Greenland Com¬ 
pany, failed unto the north pole , and came bach again. 
Whereupon (his relation being novel to me) I entered 
into difcourfe with him, and feemed to queftion the truth 
of what he laid; but he did enfure me it was true, and 
that the Ihip was then in Amfterdam, and many of the 
feamen belonging to her to juftify the truth of it; and 
told me moreover, that they had failed two degrees beyond 
the pole. I alked him if they found no land or iflands 
about the pole ? He told me—No, there was a free and 
open fea. I alked him if they' did not meet with a great 
deal of ice ? He told me, No, they law no ice: I alked 
him what weather they' had there ? He told me fine warm 
weather, fuch as was at Amfterdam in the fummer-time, 
and as hot. I ihould have alked him more queftions, but 
that he was engaged in difcourfe with his friend, and I 
could not in modelly interrupt them longer.” 
Such accounts as thefe were amply fufficient to revive 
the notion 'of a north ornorth-eait palfage, which had lb 
long lain dormant. It has generally happened, in this 
country, that fome individual more fanguine than the 
reft of the community has, by his fuperior knowledge, 
greater exertions, or more conflant perfeverance, lu.c- 
ceeded in bringing a project to bear, which, in Jefs 
vigorous 
