18 or 20 leagues: and as the Strait of Anian was laid down in the 60° of latitude in all the charts at the time of Maldonado, and as he found the land stretching on the one side to the south-east, and on the other to the south-west, it was most natural that this navigator should conclude that Cook's Inlet was the identical strait which he was sent to discover; and that it separated the two great continents of Asia and America. We must not forget that Cook, who, with all the advantage of Behring's discoveries and chart, was employed twelve days in ascertaining that it was not a strait, observes, that if he 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.' Destitute as we consider the Relation' of Maldonado to be both of' veracity and authenticity,' we are by no means inclined to suppose that such a voyage as it describes is impracticable. We firmly believe, on the contrary, 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. Why, then, it may be asked, have all the attempts made at different times, from both sides the continent of America, failed? Because not one of them was ever made near that part of the coast of America, round which it is most likely the passage would lead into the Frozen or Northern ocean. To prove this we must take a glance at what has been done; and if our readers should feel that pride and pleasure, which we do, in reviewing the daring enterprizes and the perilous and persevering efforts of our early navigators in the frozen regions of the North, they will not deem a brief survey of them tedious or misplaced Resolute, gallant, glorious attempts! exclaims that quaint but delightful old writer of the Pilgrimage,' 'How,' continues he, 'shall I admire your heroicke courage, ye marine worthies, beyond all names of worthiness! that neyther dread so long eyther *We owe much of the rapid growth of our infant navy to those voyages; and we may here take occasion to observe, that the honourable appellation of Father of the British Navy has not been justly conferred on Henry VIII. The real founder of a permanent navy, distinct from the Cinque-port Marine, was the Conqueror of Agincourt. Among the many curious documents brought to light by the present able and industrious keeper of the records in the Tower, is a letter of Henry V. dated 12th August, 1417, directing the Lord Chancellor to issue letters-patent under the great seal, granting a sort of half-pay or annuity to certaine maistres for owr owne grete shippes, carrackes, barges and balyngers.' That this monarch had regular King's ships, distinct from the mercantile marine, is further corroborated by that curious poem in Hackluit's collection, called the English Policie, &c.' which complains of the neglect of the navy by Henry VI. and extols the policie of keeping the see in the time of the marvellous werriour and victorious prince, King Henrie the fift and of his grete shippes.'-We like the policie' better than the poetry. And if I should conclude all by the King When eyther presence or absence of the sunne; nor those foggy mysts, tempestuous winds, cold blasts, snowes and hayle in the ayre: nor the unequall seas, which might amaze the hearer, and amate the beholder, where the Tritons and Neptune's selfe would quake with chilling feare, to behold such monstrous icie ilands, renting themselves with terrour of their own owne massines, and disdayning otherwise both the seas sovereigntie, and the sunne's hottest violence, mustering themselves in those watery plaines where they hold a continual civill warre, and rushing one upon another, make windes and waves give backe; seeming to rent the eares of others, while they rent themselves with crashing and splitting their congealed armours.' The flourishing commerce of the Portugueze and Spaniards in the Indian seas stimulated the merchants of England to a participation in that great source of wealth, by the discovery of a passage that would shorten the voyage to India and China to less than half the distance of that round the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Such a passage was, in fact, supposed to have been made by Caspar de Cortereal, a Portugueze of some rank, in the year 1500. He touched at Newfoundland, passed over to Terra Verde, afterwards called Terra de Cortereal, and gave to the southern part of it, which was fit for cultivation, the name of Terra de Labrador. Then coasting to the northward and opening out a wide passage (now called Hudson's Strait) he concluded he had discovered the so much desired passage round America, which he is said to have named the Strait of Anian; not however, as we conceive, 'in honour of two brothers who accompanied him,' but because he deemed it to be the eastern extremity of a strait, whose western end opening into the Pacific, had already received that name. He hastened back to Portugal to communicate the agreeable intelligence, and was sent the following year to complete the discovery, but was never heard of more; and his brother Michael de Cortereal, who afterwards went in search of him, shared the same fate, The first Englishman who undertook the discovery of a North When at Hampton, he made the Great Dromons What hope ye was the King's grete intent Of thoo shippes, and what in mind he meant; Lord round-about environ of the See. Better indeed is Henry VII. entitled to be called the friend and founder of the avy than his successor. It was he who caused the Great Harry to be built at the expense of 15,0004, an enormous sum in those days. It was he too who engaged the Cabots of Venice in the discovery of Newfoundland; and it was accident only that prevented him from employing Columbus. But the spirit of discovery and foreign enterprize died away and revived only in full vigour after receiving the fostering hand of Elizabeth, whose long and flourishing protection of it has been exceeded only by that of George Iil. west west passage to China, was Mr. (afterwards Sir Martin) Frobisher. He left England in the middle of July, 1576, with two small vessels and a pinnace, the largest only 25 tons; and proceeding to the entrance of a supposed strait in latitude 63° 10' N. he returned to Harwich on the 2d October, bringing back from an island on the coast of Greenland 'one of the salvages' and some bright stones. The wife of one of the adventurers threw one of these stones accidentally into the fire, and having quenched it with vinegar, it glistered with a bright marquisset of gold.' The following year Frobisher anchored on the west coast of Greenland, where the stones be altogether sparkled, and glister in the sun like gold.' One of his people found the horn of a sea unicorn, into which some spiders being put immediately died; and these spiders,' we are told, as many affirm, are signs of great store of gold.' They also caught two women, one of whom was so ugly that the sailors suspected her to be the devil, and would not be convinced of the contrary, until they had stripped off her skin boots to see whether she had a cloven foot. Queen Elizabeth, it seems, was so much satisfied with the report of this voyage, that Frobisher was sent out for the third time the following year, to take possession of Meta incognita (Greenland) with 15 ships and 120 settlers; but the ice opposing their passage through the Strait, and the season being far advanced, they contented themselves with taking on board a large quantity of the glistering stones,' and returned to England. These stones we suppose turned out to be pieces of that beautiful iridescent spar known by the name of Labrador spar. The unfavourable result of Frobisher's third expedition seems for a while to have cast a damp on the spirit of enterprize in this quarter; which however was revived in 1585, when some noblemen and gentlemen formed an association for effecting the discovery of the North-west passage, and John Davis, of Sandridge in Devonshire, was engaged to conduct the expedition. He left England with two ships, passed the south point of Greenland on the 20th July, to which, from its horrid appearance, he gave the name of the Land of Desolation,' then steered N. W. and making the land on the 6th August, in latitude 66° 40′ N., he gave to a high mountain glittering like gold,' the name of Mount Ralegh.' Having doubled the South cape of this island, which he named Cape of God's Mercy,' he proceeded up a strait (Cumberland Strait of modern charts) 20 leagues wide, to the distance of 60 leagues, when adverse winds and tides obliged him to return. In 1586, Davis was again sent with four ships, but made no discoveries of importance, and reached not beyond his former latitude. On his third voyage in 1587, he was more suc cessful, cessful, having proceeded along the west coast of Greenland to the latitude of 72° 12′ N. He then steered a westerly course towards the continent of America, but being opposed by fields and mountains of ice, which alarmed his people, he coasted to the southward along the same land he had discovered on his first voyage; saw Lumley's Inlet between 69° and 63°, and returned to Dartmouth by the 15th September. In his short letter to Mr. Saunderson, the great promoter of the undertaking, he says, ‘I have been in 73°, finding the sea all open, the passage most probable, the execution easy.' The failure of Davis, however, put an end to any further attempt in that century; and in 1591 Sir James Lancaster was sent with five ships by the usual but circuitous route of the Cape of Good Hope. This officer, or some person for him, having added to one of his letters a postscript, in which he says the passage to the Indies is in the N. W. of America in 62° 30′ N.' the report of it once more revived the question; and, in 1602, Captain Waymouth left England with two fly-boats in search of the North-west passage. He succeeded in passing all the straits, and in reaching the latitude of 63° 55' N. on the coast of America; (about Marble Island;) but here his crew mutinied, which obliged him to returu to England. Knight and Hall, in 1606 and 1607, lost their lives in a scuffle with the natives before they had made any discovery of importance. Notwithstanding all these failures, a society of merchants still persevered in the attempt to discover a northern route to India and China; they engaged, for this purpose, Captain Henry Hudson, a man of approved skill in seamanship, of great experience, and daring intrepidity. He left England in 1607, but instead of entering any of the straits, he stood directly for the East coast of Greenland, which he made in 73°, and named the point Hold with Hope. The weather continued mild, and even warm, till he reached the latitude of 78°; the sea open, with much drift-wood. In 30° 23′ N. he sent his boat on shore with the mate and boatswain, who quenched their thirst, the weather being hot, at two excellent streams of fresh water. He still advanced to the northward as high as 82° N. when falling in with mountains and fields of ice, he returned home, and arrived at Gravesend on the 15th September, The following year he made a second voyage, to attempt a passage between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, few particulars of which were made public, and these are not to our present purpose. The third, and, to him, the last and fatal voyage, was undertaken in 1610. Having passed the strait which now bears his name, and doubled the westernmost capes of Labrador, which he named Wolstenholme and Digges, he stood to the southward down the great bay bay which bears his own name, and entered a harbour which they called Michaelmas, where it was Hudson's intention to pass the winter; but an accident prevented him, and he stood down to the lowest bite of the bay. Here the chief employ of his crew was to procure provisions, with which they appear to have been scantily supplied in the ship; but they killed about a hundred dozen of partridges as white as milk; and in the spring, when those left them, came birds of divers sorts, as swannes, goose, ducke, and teale.' While thus employed, a mutiny was stirred up among the ship's company by one Greene, a person whom Hudson had taken on board out of charity and treated as his own child. On leaving this spot, the mutineers forced Hudson, his son, and seven others into the boat, amidst fields of ice, with a scanty supply of provisions she was never heard of more, and all that were in her must have miserably perished. The mutineers stood away for Digges's Island at the mouth of Hudson's Strait, where they found tents full of men, women, and children, bigge-boned, broad-faced, flat-nosed, and small-footed, like the Tartars.' Here Greene and another of the principal mutineers were shot by the natives, and three others died a few days after of their wounds : 'everywhere,' observes Purchas, 'can Divine justice find executioners.' The remainder of the crew, after taking on board about 400 sea-fowl which they caught on leaving the land, made the best of their way homewards, being reduced to the greatest distress, living chiefly on sea-weeds fryed with candle-ends, and the skins and feathers of the fowl they had eaten. The account of this unfortunate voyage is written by one of the crew named Habakuk Pricket, who, of course, endeavours to lay the whole blame on Greene and the others who had been killed by the Eskimeaux; but North-west Foxe,' in his remarks on the transaction, slily observes, Well, Pricket, I am in great doubt of thy fidelity to Master Hudson.' This Habakuk Pricket, however, was engaged to accompany Sir Thomas Button two years after (1612) on the same voyage of discovery, with two ships whose names were the same as those under the celebrated Cook in his last voyage-the Resolution and the Discovery. He passed through Hudson's Strait, saw the south point of the large island named on some of our charts Southampton İsland, and gave it the name of Carey's Swan's Nest, and steering from thence S.W. made the main land of America in 60° 40′, to which he gave the name of Hope's Check. Button wintered in Port Nelson, so called from his pilot, in latitude 57° 10' N. which is now the principal station of the Hudson's Bay Company. He lost many men by cold and hunger, and yet,' says Foxe,' he was supplied with great store of white partridges and other fowle, of which I |