Traffic; nor made any great fight against the enemies of God and our Nation; yet I wish our Willingness in these Desart Parts may be acceptable to our readers. When we bore up helm, we were in Latitude 65° 30′ at least N. W. and by N. from Nottingham Island."

On the 3rd September, the south end of Resolution Island was seen, and on the 22nd of October, they arrived in Bristol Roads, "having been hindered and crost with much contrary tempestuous Winds and Weather."

In the year 1652, Frederick III., King of Denmark, despatched a vessel, commanded by Captain Danell, to the eastern coast of Greenland, which he reached in latitude 64° 50′, and tracked as far north as 65° 30 when he returned, and rounding Cape Farewell, stood along the western shore. He then again repassed Cape Farewell, and endeavoured to approach the eastern coast, but was obliged at length to give up his efforts, and return home.

Danell again sailed the following year, standing to the northward of Iceland, and reaching the latitude of 73° before he attempted to approach the coast of Greenland. He coasted along to the southward, down to Cape Farewell, but was never able to get within forty or fifty miles of the coast, owing to the ice.

Among the French settlers in Canada who crossed to the shores of Hudson's Bay, was a certain M. de Grosseliez, a brave, enterprizing man, who, seeing the advantages that would accrue to the French nation, if settlements were formed on the shores of the bay, urged the government, by every means in his power, to form such establishments; but his plans were treated with contempt, on the sole foundation of Captain Thomas James's dismal account of the climate.

The English minister at Paris, hearing of the pro

posal, sent Grosseliez over to England with a letter to Prince Rupert, who entered warmly into the project ; and Captain Zacchariah Gillam was appointed to convey the Frenchman to his proposed field of colonization, and to make further investigations. He sailed accordingly in the spring of the year 1668, in command of the Nonsuch ketch, and wintered in Rupert's River, at the bottom of Hudson's Bay, where he built a small stone fort, to which he gave the name of Fort Charles, the first English settlement in this quarter. Prince Rupert did not let the matter drop here; he obtained from King Charles a patent, incorporating him with the Duke of Albermarle, the Earl of Craven, and other noble lords, under the style and title of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay. It granted to them and their successors the sole trade and commerce to Hudson's Bay and Straits, with territorial rights and jurisdiction over all the land and countries on the coasts and confines of the same, which were not actually possessed by the subjects of any other Christian prince or state; to be reckoned and reputed as one of the British plantations or colonies in America, under the name of Rupert's Land.

It is not for us to enter into the question of the legality or otherwise of this charter, which has continued in full force to the present day, although said to have been limited to seven years, or whether the immense power given by it has been wielded with proper justice over a territory "comprising an area nearly one-third larger than all Europe; reigning supreme over fifty native tribes of Indians, who are the slaves of its laws and policy, and scarcely removed but in name from being its actual bondsmen :"3—it is not for us to say whether it is to the interest of that

2 Isbister's statement of the grievances of the native and Half-Caste Indians, p. 1.

company to keep the red man in the state of ignorance in which he is now plunged :3-all such questions are irrelevant to the subject of northern discovery; but it is certain that they have, till within these last few years omitted, to use those strenuous exertions for the discovery of a western passage, which, by their charter, they were bound to employ.

3 See "The Hudson's Bay Company and Vancouver's Island," by J. E. Fitzgerald, Esq.

CHAPTER X.

Renewed Attempt to Discover a North-East Passage, undertaken by Captain Wood, with two Vessels-Loss of one, and Narrow Escape of the other-Disasters and Return-Mr. J. Knight, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company's Factory on Nelson's River, sent out in search of Copper Mines in the North of Hudson's Bay-Melancholy Issue of the Enterprise-A small Vessel sent out in search of Knight-Indifference of Scroggs, the Commander, to the Object of his Mission-New Expedition under the Lords of the Admiralty, and Accusations on its Failure.

No attempt had been made at a north-east passage, out of England, for more than a century, when that project was again revived, by some notices which appeared in the transactions of the Royal Society for the year 1675, and by various learned treatises which were put forth by several ingenious reasoners; among whom Captain John Wood appears to have taken the lead. Being impressed with the conviction that such a passage did exist, and that there were many reasons why he should undertake its discovery, he drew up a statement and polar draught, showing the discoveries of former navigators in the same quarter, which were presented to Charles the Second, and his majesty, after consulting many merchants and seamen on the subject, was pleased to grant the Speedwell frigate for the enterprise, and to which was added the Prosperous, a pink, of one hundred and

twenty tons, bought, victualled, and manned, by the Duke of York and other honourable pers nages, who took a lively interest in the attempt, and commanded by Captain William Flawes. Thus equipped, Wood sailed from the Thames on Sunday, the 28th May, 1676, and doubled the North Cape about the 19th June. On the 22nd, he was in latitude 75° 59′, and on the 26th fell in with the western coast of Nova Zembla. In standing off and on to avoid the ice, on the 29th the frigate, which most probably drew far too large a draught of water for navigation in an icy sea; struck on a ledge of sunken rocks, and they had scarcely time to land some provisions before she went to pieces. The Prosperous narrowly escaped a similar fate, by wearing sharply round, and standing off the shore, when, as if to shut off their last hope of succour, she became enveloped in a thick fog, and for nine days remained invisible to the anxious eye of these unfortunate men. They were on the point of setting out on a land journey to Waigatz Strait, in the hope of there meeting with some Russian vessel, when, to their great joy, they beheld the Prosperous; and making a large fire to attract attention, happily got on board the same day; and steering direct for England, arrived safely in the Thames on the 23rd August. Wood gave it as his decided opinion, on his return, that he had been misled by following the opinion of Barentsz, the Dutch navigator, and that the islands of Nova Zembla and Greenland (by which is meant Spitzbergen) were one: "But," says the Hon. Daines Barrington, "these ill-founded reflections seem to be dictated merely by his disappointment in not being able to effect his discovery."

99 1

Wood's Voyage, together with Sir John Narborough's, Jasmen Tasman's, and Frederick Marten's, was published by Smith and Walford, printers to the Royal Society, in 1694, and is dedicated to Samuel Pepys, the Secretary of the Admiralty, who furnished the materials.