A Sketch of the British Fur Trade in North America: With Observations Relative to the North-west Company of Montreal

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James Ridgway, 1816 - 130 páginas

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Página 153 - ... Bay Company, the Reviewers do not think so well as Lord Selkirk does. — The rest of this article, and that which is of a far deeper interest, relates to the North-west passage. The relation of Maldonado's voyage is held to be a clumsy and audacious forgery. The Reviewers firmly believe, however, that a navigable passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, round the northern coast of America, does exist, and may be of no difficult execution. In support of this opinion, they proceed to examine...
Página 131 - Do what you can to take care of yourselves ;' but he was so much beloved that they affectionately gathered round him to learn what injury he had suffered ; when a volley of musketry was poured into the group, which killed several and wounded the greater part of them. ' The cavalry galloped towards the survivors, who took off their hat
Página 163 - We gained nothing; for on the 18th at noon our latitude was 70° 44'; and we were near five leagues farther to the eastward. We were, at this time, close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at least. But farther north, it appeared much higher. Its surface was extremely rugged, and here and there we saw upon it pools of water.
Página 163 - Passage for Vessels by Sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and also unto such as shall first approach by Sea within One Degree of the Northern Pole...
Página 145 - Mundo, fyc.' — and that he (Nicolao Antonio) had seen in the hands of Masscarenas, bishop of Segovia, the manuscript of a Voyage, ' being the Relation of the Discovery of the Strait of Anian, made by the author in the year 1588.'* Antonio de Leon Pinelo-f- also bears testimony to his talents as a navigator, and tells us, that he presented to the Council of the Indies (of which Pinelo was a member) two plans, one relating to rendering the magnetic needle not subject to variation, the other, to finding...
Página 137 - To obviate this difficulty their servants receive goods, the real value of which cannot be accurately known without a reference to the books of the Company ; but in the opinion of persons of the best general information, the prime cost of the goods so employed cannot exceed 10,000/. sterling. From one article a judgment may be formed of the rest — spirits are sold to the servants of the Company in the interior, at the rate of eight dollars per quart, which cost the Company little more than one...
Página 144 - Spain once regarded it otherwise; for her government in 1789 sent out an expedition "to discover the strait by which Maldonado was supposed to have passed in 1588 from the coast of Labrador to the great ocean." The expedition was not successful, and nothing more has been heard of any claim from this pretended discovery. The story of Maldonado has taken its place in the same category with that of Munchausen.
Página 134 - ... on the subject, it appears to be incontrovertible, that the irregularity pursued in carrying on the trade has brought it into its present forlorn situation...
Página 146 - Maldonado, towards the end of the l6th century,' &c. At first he considered it only as a tale to amuse the curious; but on reading it with attention, he found it stamped so strongly with the character of authenticity and veracity, that he determined to translate it, and to add to it some notes and a treatise to prove the truth of the 'Relation;' and as M. de Humboldt and others had consigned it to the rank of geographical impostures, before they knew what it contained, he conceived himself called...
Página 153 - I had not examined this very considerable inlet, it would have been assumed, by speculative fabricators of geography, as a fact that it communicated with the sea to the north, or with Baffin's or Hudson's Bay to the east...

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