rate, if it had not made at the time some noise in the world, it would now be wholly undeserving of notice. To return to Grosseliez. Having explored the country bordering on Nelson's River, he departed for Canada, leaving his nephew Chouart with five men to winter there; but some disagreement arising between him and his employers, he sent over his brother-in-law to France, to lay before the government a representation of the advantages which might be derived from an establishment on the coast of Hudson's Bay. The project however was treated as visionary; but so strongly convinced was Grosseliez of its great utility, that he set out himself for Paris, where he met with no better success than his brother-in-law had done. The only reason assigned for this indifference of the French government, to form any establishment on the shores of Hudson's Bay, is the dismal account given of the climate, in Captain James's narrative, which deterred them from attempting such a project. Mr. Montague was at that time the English minister at Paris; and hearing of the proposal of Grosseliez, and its rejection by the French government, sent for him to explain his views; they appeared so satisfactory to the English minister that he gave him a letter to Prince Rupert, with which he came over to England. Here he met with a different reception from that of his countrymen; he was imme diately engaged to go out in one of his Majesty's ships, which was taken up for the voyage, not merely to form a settlement, but also to prosecute the oft attempted passage to China, by the northwest. In a letter from Mr. Oldenburgh, the first secretary to the Royal Society, addressed to the celebrated Mr. Boyle, he says, "surely I need not tell you from hence what is said here with great joy of the discovery of a north-west passage made by two English and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the Royal grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson's Bay, and thence into the South Sea; these men affirming, as I heard, that with a boat they went out of a lake in Canada, into a river, which discharged itself north-west into the south sea, into which they went and returned north-east into Hudson's Bay." CAPTAIN ZACCHARIAH GILLAM was appointed to carry out the Frenchman to Hudson's Bay, and to make discoveries to the northward. He sailed in the summer of 1668, and is said to have proceeded as far north up Davis's Strait as 75°, but nothing appears on record to justify such an assertion. On his return into Hudson's Bay, he entered Rupert's River on the 29th September, and prepared to pass the winter there. The river was not frozen over before the 9th December; and though considerably to the northward of Charlton Island, where James wintered, no complaint is made by Gillam of the severity or long continuance of the cold, which, on the contrary, is said to have ceased in the month of April. At this place Captain Gillam laid the foundation of the first English settlement, by building a small stone fort, to which he gave the name of Fort Charles. Prince Rupert did not content himself with merely patronizing the voyage of Gillam. He obtained from King Charles a charter, dated in 1669, granted to himself and several other adventurers therein named, for having, at their own cost and charges, undertaken an expedition to Hudson's Bay, for the discovery of a new passage into the South Sea, and for the finding of some trade for furs, minerals, and other considerable commodities; it stated that they had already made such discoveries as encouraged them to proceed farther in pursuance of their said design; and that by means thereof great advantage might probably arise to the King and his dominions; and therefore his Majesty, for the better promoting of their endeavours for the good of his people, was pleased to confer on them, exclusively, all the land and territories in Hudson's Bay, together with all the trade thereof, and all others which they should acquire, &c. This extraordinary charter, with its sweeping privileges, has continued to be vested to this day in the Hudson's Bay Company. The body of gentlemen and merchants, thus incorporated, soon proved itself to be a body without a spirit, as far as discovery formed a part of the original design, though this was the chief plea on which the charter had been granted. Their whole attention was turned to the establishment of forts and factories and to extend their trade with the Indians; from whom they procured the most valuable furs for articles of very trifling cost. In this prosperous state of affairs, the north-west passage seems to have been entirely forgotten, not only by the adventurers who had obtained their exclusive charter under this pretext, but also by the nation at large; at least nothing more appears to have been heard on the subject for more than half a century. In the meantime, however, the public attention was once more awakened to the possibility of discovering a passage to the Indian seas by the north-eastward; a new voyage was projected with this design, and was sanctioned by the same monarch who had granted such exclusive privileges to the Hudson's Bay Company. JOHN WOOD AND WILLIAM FLAWES. 1676. The question of a north-eastern passage to China had been set at rest in England for more than a century, when it was once more revived by the appearance of a paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, in 1675. This volume of the Philosophical Transactions contained a short statement of a voyage fitted out by a com pany of merchants in Holland for the purpose of making northern discoveries; it stated that the ship employed in this voyage had brought back an account of her having sailed to the north-eastward of Nova Zembla several hundred leagues, between the parallels of 70° and 80°; and that the sea in that direction was found to be perfectly open and free from ice; that, in consequence of the navigation of this part of the Tartarian Sea being so easy and uninterrupted, and the passage to China by that route so nearly certain, these merchants had solicited the States-General for a charter, by which the advantages that would result from the discovery of a north-east passage to the Indian seas should be secured exclusively to the adventurers; which however was refused through the intrigues and representations of the Dutch East India Company, to whom already an exclusive charter had been granted.* About this time also there was a very current report of several Dutch ships having circumnavigated Spitzbergen, and that they found the sea open on all sides of it; and another story, equally current, was, that it had been discovered, in searching the journals of Dutch whalers, that, in the year 1655, a certain ship had proceeded to within one degree of the north pole; and that, on three different journals which were kept in the same ship being produced, they all agreed as to an ob * Philosophical Transactions. 1675." |