to the ship with the dismal tidings of the loss of their brave commander and his comrades.

During this melancholy night, passed in alternate lamentations and plans for search and rescue, the ice had so accumulated in the channel which the unfortunate Knight crossed the day before, that though the boat was speedily rigged for the expedition, and the party who occupied it were one and all uncontrollably eager to start, the morning light convinced the most sanguine of the utter impossibility of forcing their way across the gulf. Thus passed two wretched days of uncertainty, rendered doubly miserable by the inactivity to which they were condemned, when on the night of the second day the little encampment was attacked by a large party of natives, whose hostility left no doubt about the fate which had befallen their missing friends. A volley of musketry soon dispersed the savages, but fearing future attacks, the crew, now only eight in number, at once resolved to put to sea in their crazy bark, which, though deprived of its rudder, and so leaky that the pumps were obliged to be constantly at work, safely carried them to Newfoundland.

In the year 1607, Henry Hudson made the first attempt to sail across the North Pole, a plan started in 1527 by Robert Thorne, but not yet acted upon by any one during the eighty years that had since passed. He reached the east coast of Greenland in 73° of latitude, and then proceeded to the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, but all his efforts to launch forth into the unknown ocean beyond, were baffled by the ice fields that opposed his progress.

the

In his next voyage (1608) he vainly tried for the north-east passage, but his third voyage (1609), which he performed in the service of the Dutch, led to the discovery of the magnificent river which still bears his name, and at whose mouth Empire City' of the great American republic has arisen. In April, 1610, we find him setting sail on the last and most celebrated of his voyages. In all but its commander, this expedition was miserably inadequate to the object of its mission, for it consisted only of one vessel of fifty-five tons provisioned for six months, and manned by a crew who speedily proved themselves to be utterly unworthy of their leader.

HUDSON'S LAST VOYAGE.

389

On entering Hudson's Straits, the large masses of ice which encumbered the surface of the water and the thickness of the constant fogs, made them lose all courage, and they earnestly begged their commander to return at once to England. But Hudson pressed on until at last his little bark emerged into a vast open water rippling and sparkling in the morning sunshine. Hudson's Bay expanded before him, and the enraptured discoverer was fully convinced that the north-western route to India now lay open to the mariners of England.

It was the beginning of August, and the dastardly crew considering the passage effected, urged an immediate return; but Hudson was determined on completing the adventure, and wintering, if possible, on the sunny shores of India. For three months he continued tracking the south coasts of that vast northern mediterranean, but all his hopes of finding a new channel opening to the south proved vain, until at length the ship was frozen in on November 10 in the south-east corner of James's Bay. A dreary winter awaited the ice-bound seamen, with almost exhausted provisions, and unfortunately without that heroic patience and concord which had sustained the courage of Barentz and his companions under trials far more severe. But spring came at last and revived the spirits of their leader. His ship was once more afloat, once more his fancy indulged in visions of the sunny east, when as he stepped on deck on the morning of June 21, his arms were suddenly pinioned, and he found himself in the power of three of his men.

Inquiry, remonstrance, entreaty, command, all failed to draw a word from the stubborn mutineers, and Hudson resigned himself bravely to his fate, and with the quiet dignity of a noble nature, looked on calmly at the ominous preparations going forward. A small open boat was in waiting, and into this Hudson-his hands being previously tied behind his back-was lowered; some powder and shot, and the carpenter's box came next, followed by the carpenter himself, John King, whose name ought to be held in honourable remembrance, as he alone among the crew remained true to his master. Six invalids were also forced into the boat, which was then cut adrift, and the vessel sailed onwards on its homeward course. Nothing more was ever heard of

Hudson; but the ringleaders of that dark conspiracy soon paid a terrible penalty. Some fell in a fight with the Esquimaux, and others died on the homeward voyage, during which they suffered from the extremest famine.

The account of the great expanse of sea which had been reached gave new vigour to the spirit of discovery, and new expeditions sallied forth (Sir Thomas Button 1612, Gibbons 1614, Bylot 1615), to seek along the western shores of Hudson's Bay the passage which was to open the way to India. All efforts in this direction were of course doomed to disappointment, but Baffin, who sailed in 1616, with directions to try his fortune beyond Davis' Straits, enriched geography with a new and important conquest, by sailing round the enormous bay which still bears his name. During this voyage, he discovered the entrances of Smith's, Jones', and Lancaster Sounds, without attempting to investigate these broad highways to fields of later exploration. He believed them to be mere enclosed gulfs, and this belief became so firmly grounded in the public mind, that two full centuries elapsed before any new attempt was made to seek for a western passage in this direction, while Jens Munk, a Dane, sent out in 1619 with two good vessels, under the patronage of his king, Christian IV.; Fox and James (1631-1632), Knight and Barlow (1719), Middleton (1741), Moor and Smith (1746), confined their efforts to Hudson's Bay, and, by their repeated disappointments, made all expeditions in quest of a north-western passage appear well-nigh as chimerical as those of the knight-errants of romance.

The Torso Rock, near Point Deas Thompson, North Coast of America.

CHAPTER XXXII.

M'CLINTOCK.

Buchan and Franklin-Ross and Parry (1818)-Discovery of Melville IslandWinter Harbour (1819-1820) - Franklin's First Land Journey- Dreadful Sufferings-Parry's Second Voyage (1821-1823)-Iligliuk-Lyon (1824)Parry's Third Voyage (1824)-Franklin's Second Land Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea -Beechey-Parry's Sledge Journey towards the Pole-Sir John Ross's Second Journey-Five Years in the Arctic Ocean-Back's Discovery of Great Fish River-Dease and Simpson (1837-1839)-Franklin and Crozier's Last Voyage (1845)-Searching Expeditions-Richardson and Rae-Sir James Ross-Austin-Penny-De Haven-Franklin's First Winter Quarters discovered by Ommaney-Kennedy and Bellot-Inglefield-Sir E. Belcher-Kellett-M'Clure's Discovery of the North-West Passage-Collinson -Bellot's Death-Dr. Rae learns the Death of the Crews of the Erebus' and 'Terror'-Sir Leopold M'Clintock.

THE failure of Captain Phipps (afterwards Lord Mulgrave)

in the Spitzbergen seas (1773), and that of the illustrious. Cook (1776), in his attempt to circumnavigate the northern shores of America or Asia by way of the Straits of Behring, entirely damped, for the next forty years, the spirit of Arctic discovery; but hope revived when it became known that Captain Scoresby, on a whaling expedition in the Greenland seas (1806), had attained 81° 30' N. lat., and thus approached

the Pole to within 540 miles. No previous navigator had ever reached so far to the north; an open sea lay temptingly before him, and the absence of the ice-blink proved, that for miles beyond the visible horizon no ice-field or no snowcovered land opposed his onward course; but as the object of Scoresby's voyage was strictly commercial, and he himself answerable to the owners of his vessel, he felt obliged to sacrifice his inclinations to his duty, and to steer again to the south.

During the Continental war, indeed, England had but little leisure to prosecute discoveries in the Arctic Ocean: but not long after the conclusion of peace, four stout vessels (1818) were sent out on that mission by Government. Two of these, the Dorothea,' Captain Buchan, and the 'Trent,' Commander Lieutenant John Franklin, were destined to proceed northwards by way of Spitzbergen, and to endeavour to cross the Polar Sea. After unnumbered difficulties, the expedition was battling with the ice to the north-west of that wintry archipelago, when, on July 30, a sudden gale compelled the commander, as the only chance of safety, to 'take the ice'-that is, to thrust the ships into any opening among the moving masses that could be perceived. In this very hazardous operation, the Dorothea '—having received so much injury that she was in danger of sinking -was therefore turned homewards as soon as the storm subsided, and the Trent' of necessity accompanied her.

The other two ships which sailed in the same year, the "Isabella,' commanded by Captain John Ross, and the 'Alexander," by Lieutenant William Edward Parry, had been ordered to proceed up the middle of Davis' Strait to a high northern latitude, and then to stretch across to the westward, in the hope of being able to pass the northern extremity of America, and reach Behring's Strait by that route. As respects the purposes for which it was sent out, this expedition likewise ended in disappointment; for though Ross defined more clearly the Greenland coast to the north of the Danish possessions between Cape Melville and Smith's Sound, he was satisfied with making a very cursory examination of all the great channels leading from Baffin's Bay into the Polar