which was named by Button, Nelson's River, so called from the master of his ship, whom he had the misfortune to lose, and who was interred at this place.

The season being far advanced, and Button seeing it would be expedient to winter here rather than in a more northerly latitude, his first care was to secure the two ships against the wind and tides and the floating ice, which he learned from early experience might be expected to be still more troublesome in the course of the winter. Many of the people died from the severe cold, though the river was not frozen over till the 16th February. The weather however was frequently mild, and Button took advantage of it by employing his people on shore in killing game. The quantity of partridges was so abundant and so easily procured, that they are said to have taken and consumed no less than eighteen hundred dozen. He also contrived, like a wise commander, to keep the crew employed during their confinement to the ship, well knowing that the best way of preventing men from murmuring, discontent, and secret conspiracies, was to divert their minds from dwelling on their own unpleasant situation. To the inferior officers he put questions concerning the route of their late navigation, and engaged them in comparing each other's observations as to the courses they had run, the set of the tides, the latitudes of the places they had touched at; and apparently

consulting them what they should do, and what course pursue, on the approach of spring. Every man in the ship by these means felt himself of some importance, and took an interest in the further prosecution of the voyage. Among others we find an answer given by one Josias Hubert, the pilot of the Resolution, to the question, How the discovery might be best prosecuted when they should be able to go to sea? which shews the sound notions entertained by this man respecting the true mode of searching for the passage, "My answer," he says,

to this demand is, to search to the northward about this western land until, if it be possible, that we may find the flood coming from the westward, and to bend our courses against that flood, following the ebb, searching that way for the passage. For this flood which we have had from the eastward, I cannot be persuaded, but that they are the veins of some 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 assure myself, that the tide will be found to come from the westward."

The ice broke up from Nelson's River on the 21st of April, but they did not quit their winter anchorage till two months afterwards, when they stood to the northward exploring the eastern coast of America, conformably with Hubert's idea, as high along the land of Southampton Island as 65°. Proceeding again to the southward Button fell in

with some islands which he named Mancel's Islands, and which are now marked on the charts as Mansfield's Islands. To the extreme point of Southampton Island, lying to the westward of Carey's Swan's Nest, he gave the name of Cape Southampton, and to that on the east of it Cape Pembroke. After this he passed Cape Chidley, and in sixteen days reached England in the autumn of 1613.

There seems to have been no reason why the proceedings of the voyage of Sir Thomas Button should have been kept secret, or published only piecemeal. He was the first who reached the eastern coast of America on the western side of Hudson's Bay, and discovered Nelson's River, which has long been the principal settlement of the Hudson's Bay Company. He was strongly possessed with the idea of the existence of a north-west passage; and he told Mr. Briggs, the celebrated mathematician, that he had convinced King James of the truth of this opinion, which is said to have had so much influence with the Adventurers as to induce them to make a further attempt the following year.

JAMES HALL-Fourth Voyage. 1612.

In the same year that Sir Thomas Button sailed from England, JAMES HALL also made a fourth voyage, with two small vessels, called the Patience and Heart's Ease, fitted out by a new set of

merchant-adventurers of London, of whom Mr. Alderman Cockin appears to have been one of the principal partners; but it proved fatal to the persevering commander of this expedition, who was mortally wounded by the dart of an Esquimaux on the coast 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 first on record, in which a method is laid down, as then practised by him, for determining the longitude at sea by an observation of the heavenly bodies; and the method he made use of sufficiently proves that Baffin possessed a very considerable degree of knowledge in the theory as well as practice of navigation. On an island in Cockin's Sound he first determined, by various observations of the sun, both above and below the pole, an exact meridian line; he says, "on the 9th of July I went on shoare the island, being a faire morning, and observed till the moone came just upon the meridian. At which very instant I observed the sunnes height, and found it 8 degrees 53 minutes north, in the elevation of the pole 65 degrees 20 minutes. By the which, working by the doctrine of sphericall triangles, having the three sides given, to wit, the complement of the pole's elevation; the complement of the Almecanter; and the complement of the sunnes declination; to find out the quantity of the angle at the pole: I say, by this working, I found it to be

foure of the clocke, 17 minutes and 24 seconds. Which, when I had done, I found by mine ephemerides, that the moone came to the meridian at London that morning at foure of the clocke, 25 minutes, 34 seconds, which 17 minutes, 24 seconds, subtracted from 25° 34′ leaveth 8° 10′ of time, for the difference of longitude betwixt the meridian of London and the meridian passing by this place in Groenland. Now the moone's motion that day was 12 degrees 7 minutes, which converted into minutes of time, were 48 minutes 29 seconds; which, working by the rule of proportion, the worke is thus: if 48 minutes 29 seconds (the time that the moone commeth to the meridian sooner that day, then she did the day before) give 360 (the whole circumference of the earth), what shall 8 minutes 10 seconds give-to wit, 60 degrees 30 minutes, or neere thereabout; which is the difference of longitude betweene the meridian of London and this place in Groenland, called Cockin's Sound, lying to the westward of London."*

Baffin admits that the operation is somewhat difficult and troublesome, and liable to error; yet the importance of knowing the longitude of places renders it, in his opinion, highly expedient that mariners should practise such things; and, he

*Purchas, vol. iii. p. 832.