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PREFACE.

TIME and the tide of public favour have brought us to a twenty-second preface, and with it the pleasure of renewing our thanks to the patrons of this Miscellany. If this acknowledgment savour of sameness, we feel it does not lack sincerity; and, to quote from a succeeding page of this volumeone of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth!" Upon turning over the pages of this volume there will be found more novelty, or subjects of current interest, than in some of its predecessors. We use the term novelty in a qualified sense, being aware how little we see or hear that is actually new the last new mode of paving Fleet-street was adopted in Pompeii many centuries since; steam was employed to blow up a house in the reign of Justinian; and the idea of a north-west passage is certainly not of our times, by nearly three centuries and a half. Yet, with all this barefaced borrowing from antiquity, there is a disposition abroad to disparage whatever is old. Crities begin to rate Shakspeare lowly; but while the Spectator is dainned "an overpraised book,” hundreds furtively dip their pens in the incorrodible ink of its pages. In morality, says Bruyere, "we are come too late, by several thousand years, to say anything new." Yet, people who seem to ride upon mankind, like Pyrrhus on his elephant, are constantly vaunting their originality, forgetting that "there is not so poor a book in the world, that would not be a prodigious effort, were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators."

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It may be a comparison of large things with small to say that such an opinion will be evident in every sheet of this Miscellany, from its commencement. To render it a storehouse of facts and searches after profitable knowledge, and place these in the most entertaining and attractive forms, has been our constant aim; while a not less inviting feature of our plan has been to catch questions of public interest, "living

as they rose," and bring to their illustration such facts, views, and bearings, as our industry could command, and our best judgment select. In this portion of our duty, we have been influenced by no desire to please or flatter any party; to sweeten sentiments to suit the taste of any knot of theorists, or to recommend any set of schemes for improvement to especial adoption. We have, on the other hand, left such matters on their own merits, and thus, at least, maintained impartiality.

Public improvements and occurrences are, perhaps, most prominent in the following pages; but the picturesqueness of English antiquities has not been forgotten among notices of schemes for raising what a writer in the Edinburgh Review calls the standard of comfort." The donjon tower and castle wall are not passed by for the wonders of the steam engine; nor is the preservation of ancient art neglected for the triumphs of modern science. Neither has the enlargement of our knowledge of nature been overlooked, nor her splendid world besn:left;for the mere contrivances of man. To cherish kindly feelings, and to draw more closely the cords of affection that should bind all mankind as one great family, is the object of many a scene or sketch from social life; and a lively anecdote often illustrates a point or principle more effectually than a well-rounded discourse: for men are better taught by example than precept. By means such as these we have endeavonred to provide the reader with a successive fund of instruction and entertainment; with what fortune his favour has best determined. Past success shall stimulate us to further diligence, and our ample recompense will be the continued encouragement of an enlightened public.

DECEMBER, 23, 1833.

OUTLINE OF THE PUBLIC SERVICES

OF

CAPTAIN JOHN ROSS, R.N.

Or Captain Ross' early appointments and services in the Navy, we find the following recent record. He was made Lieutenant in March, 1805; advanced to the rank of Commander in February, 1812; and appointed to the Briseis brig, of 10 guns, on the Baltic station, March 21st, in the same year. In the night of June 28th following, his lieutenant, Thomas Jones, with a midshipman and 18 men, most gallantly attacked and recaptured an English merchant-ship, lying in Pillau Roads, armed, in expectation of such an attempt, with 6 guns and 4 swivels, defended by a party of French troops on her deck, and surrounded by small craft in the act of receiving her cargo. In this affair, the British had one man killed, and the midshipman, one sailor, and one marine wounded. In October, the Briseis captured Le Petit Poncet, French privateer, of 4 guns and 23 men, and drove on shore three other vessels of the same description. Captain Ross' subsequent appointments were, June 7, 1814, to the Acteon, of 16 guns; August 23, 1815, to the Driver sloop; and, in 1818, to the command of the first Polar expedition of the present century.

The details of this expedition will be found in the second volume of The Mirror; but it is necessary to repeat them for the completeness of this outline. When the late war was at an end, and the British government had time to employ some portion of its marine in the labours of peace, it was determined to send an expedition to explore Baffin's Bay and search for a north-west passage into the Pacific. For this purpose, the Isabella,† of 368 tons, and 58 officers and men, and the brig Alexander, of 252 tons, and 37 officers and men, were fitted out, and placed under the command of Captain Ross, whose experience in the navigation of northern seas recommended him to the post: the Alexander, being commanded by Lieutenant (now Sir Edward) Parry.

On April 25, 1818, the ships put to sea, and, on the 30th, anchored in Lerwick harbour, Shetland, which they quitted on the 3d of May. They made the first iceberg on the 26th, considerably to the southward of Cape Farewell. Proceeding along the coast of Greenland, the ships, on June 14th, reached Kron-Prins Island, and, on the 23d, were stopped by the ice, in company with several whalers, near Four-point Island, about ten miles to the northward of Wiggat, or Hare Island. From observations made at the island of Wiggat, it appeared that this coast was erroneously laid down in all the charts; the error in longitude, in those of the Admiralty, amounting to more than 5°. On July 5th, the ships were enabled to advance; on the 31st, they parted company with the last whaler; and, on the 6th and 7th of August, were in great danger from being caught by a gale of wind among the ice. The two ships ran foul of each other; the ice-anchors and cables broke, one after another; and the sterns of the vessels came so violently into contact, as to crush to pieces a boat that could not be removed in time. Nothing but the admirable manner in which they had been strengthened enabled the Isabella and Alexander to weather the storm.

In lat. 75° 54′, when the ships had passed what were hitherto deemed the inhabited parts of Greenland, a party of Esquimaux were seen approaching the navigators over the ice. Further on, our voyagers saw cliffs covered with snow of a deep red colour, which, when thawed, had the appearance of muddy port wine. Some of it was brought home, and submitted to the examination of chemists and naturalists: "a few pronounced that the colouring matter was of an animal, more of a vegetable, nature; but the question seems now

Spectator Newspaper, Nov. 2, 1833.

+ The Isabella was launched at Hull, in the year 1812, and named after the daughter of one of the owners, the late W. Moxon, Esq. for whom, and J. White, Esq. of Cottingham, the vessel was built. She was then engaged in the transport service, and was at the taking of St. Sebastian, with the troops, when several of the crew were killed. After the war she was selected by the government for the Polar expedition, and fitted up as above. A detailed account of the fittings, with a drawing of the vessel, will be found in the Nautical Magazine for December, 1833.

decided in favour of the latter opinion, an extremely minute lichen being supposed to vegetate even upon snow.

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Captain Ross, though acknowledged to be an experienced commander, ap. pears to have been, in most instances, indifferent to the objects of this expedition. He passed Wolstenholm Sound and Whale Sound without examining them; and he sailed so distant as only to discover the great inlet on the northern coast of Baffin's Bay, which Baffin named Sir Thomas Smith's Sound; and, by carelessness, which he must have felt to be hazardous to his own fame, he pronounced inlets to be only bays, the terminations of which he asserted, on his single authority, to be visible.

We have not space to follow the voyagers step by step, but must hasten to the result. "On descending the western shore of Baffin's Bay, towards the south, a great change was observed; the sea was clear of ice, and extremely deep; its temperature was increased, the land was high, and the mountains in general, free from snow." This promising aspect raised the hopes of the voyagers generally, but not that of their Commander, and his conduct on the occasion is thus related in one of the most valuable histories of the time.t "On the morning of August 30, the two ships stood into the inlet in Baffin's Bay, known by the name of Lancaster Sound, driven onward by a fine easterly wind, through a sea entirely free from ice. Towards evening, the wind rather headed the ships, and continued unfair throughout that night. Daylight on the 31st came, and still no ice was to be seen. The ships were now in the midst of a channel about 15 leagues wide, and continued standing on until three o'clock in the afternoon; when the Isabella, then four or five miles a head of the Alexander, in lat. 74° 14′ 50′′ north, longitude 80° 9′ 50′′ west, tacked, and stood back." In explanation, Captain Ross affirmed that he saw land stretching across the inlet, at eight leagues distance; and this imaginary range of hills which seemed to prevent his progress to the west, he named Croker's Mountains. His officers were, however, confident that the inlet, now recognized as Lancaster Sound, was a strait communicating with the open sea to the westward; and their mortification at thus hastily leaving it can scarcely be described. Proceeding southward, the Commander showed the same indifference to add to our geographical information of the coast. On October 1, the ship reached the entrance of Cumberland Strait, where much might have been done; but Captain Ross directed his course homeward, and returned to England without accident. He published an account of his expedition in a quarto volume, in the following year 1819; when his conduct was severely animadverted on. Meanwhile, lieutenant Parry had sailed on another expedition, and instead of Captain Ross' land, found a sea without bottom, at 170 fathoms, and subsequently passed the meridian of 110o west longitude, in latitude 74° 44′ 20′′, and thus entitled the crew to £5000. the first sum in the scale of rewards granted by Parliament. Thus, it has been well observed, Captain Ross, in this expedition, "unhappily for himself, although too easily satisfied of the contrary, pointed out the very course which led to the discoveries of his more fortunate successor, Sir Edward Parry." Captain Ross was absent about seven months, during which time, not an officer or man was on the sick list.

Such a result would have daunted many vigorous minds; but it had a contrary effect upon Captain Ross. The mistrust with which his statements were received, and the success with which his failure was followed up by Parry, stimulated him to the important duty of establishing his own views, and thus clearing himself of the imputations which had been unsparingly thrown upon his skill. Government could not be expected to sanction another attempt by an outfit; but, in 1829, Captain Ross was enabled by his friend Mr. Felix Booth, (late Sheriff of London and Middlesex), to equip an expedition in a superior style; consisting of the Victory steamer, formerly a Liverpool trader, with twenty-three men. In May, in the above year, the Captain, his nephew, * History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. iii. (Cabinet Cyclopædia.)

James's Naval History of Great Britain, vol. iii.

Nautical Magazine,

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Commander Ross, and their intrepid companions left the Thames, their object being, in the Captain's words, " to solve, if possible, the question of a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, particularly by Prince Regents' Inlet.” "This," observes the Nautical Magazine, "appears to have been Sir Edward Parry's favourite theory in the voyage after returning from Melville Island, when the Fury was lost on the western shore of the inlet."

In crossing the Atlantic, the Victory was dismasted by a storm; but the damage being repaired from the wreck of a whaler, she wintered on the west coast of Greenland, and was seen in the summer of 1830, standing across Baffin's Bay. Her crew were then in excellent health and high spirits; and the Victory, in her captain's estimation, was in better trim than when she left the port of London. Captain Ross fixed the autumn of 1832 as the period of his return, his provisions being calculated to last so long. He not, however, having returned by that time, it was feared that his vessel had been destroyed; although, it such had been the case, Captain Ross and his crew would probably have escaped; since a ship in high latitudes is seldom crushed so suddenly as to afford no time to launch the boats, with a supply of arms and provisions on the ice. The interest excited for the safety of the voyagers now led to a proposal for a land expedition in search of them.

It formed part of Captain Ross' plan to visit the wreck of the Fury, and to return and winter beside it, if in the course of the summer, he could penetrate to the westward. It was, therefore, in Regents Inlet, that the search for him or some trace of him, was most likely to be successful; and for thence the expedition, headed by Captain Back, left England, in February last; his outfit being provided by 7000/. raised by subscription.*

The first intelligence of Captain Back, after he had left Montreal, where he may be said to have commenced his undertaking, appeared in the same newspaper with the report of the safe return of Captain Ross, and his companions, except three; two of whom died on the voyage out, and one at a later period. The earliest account of their safety was received in a letter from the agent to Lloyd's, at Peterhead, dated the 12th of October, the intelligence having been brought home by the Clarendon whaler from Davis's Straits. 66 Hope had been excited in consequence of the arrival of the Cove, Greenlandman, in the Tyne, which vessel had picked up a portable soupcanister, near a small hut in which coal had been used as fuel. The site was Eardly Bay, near the entrance of Prince Regent's Inlet. The Swan, (of Hull) another whaler, picked up several tobacco-pipes, marked Deptford, not far from the same place; and these came as a presage of the happy omen."+ On Friday morning, October 18th, last, Captain Ross, Commander Ross, Mr. Thom, the naturalist, and Mr. M'Diarmid, the surgeon, arrived at Hull in a steam-packet from Rotterdam; whither they had been carried by the Isabella, Captain Humphreys, the vessel which conveyed them from the iceregions, and which is the very ship in which Captain Ross made his first voyage of discovery in 1818. The news was immediately communicated to the King; on the 20th, Captain Ross reported himself at the Admiralty, and on the same day the Captain and Commodore Ross dined with his Majesty at Windsor. The Captain wore the Swedish order of the Sword, which he received after the battle of Ratan, in which he served as flag-captain. In the following week, a narrative of the voyage, under the signature of Captain Ross himself, was communicated to the public journals through the Admiralty and Lloyd's; but, as this document has appeared in nearly every newspaper,

It would 'occopy more room than we can spare, and require illustration, to explain the track of Captain Back's land expedition: a paper on which was read by the Captain, before the Royal Geogra phical Society, on November 26, 1832 A subscription was also opened for the outfit of a voyage by sea in search of Captain Ross, the amount of which it is now proposed to apply" to the relief of the shipwrecked mariners, who have lost their all, and remuneration of those instrumental to the preservation of their lives."

Literary Gazette.

After the return of this expedition, the Isabella was paid off, and the vessel was then sold to the present owners, who have strengthened her for the whale fisheries, and thus enabled her to go further into the ice than other ships could venture.

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