observes, were more
adapted to contribute to the glory of a victory, as commander of a
line-of-battle ship, than to add to geographical discoveries by
encountering mountains of ice, and exploring unknown coasts.

Notwithstanding the unsuccessful issue of all these attempts to discover a
north-west passage, the existence and practicability of it still were
cherished by many geographers, who had particularly studied the subject.
Indeed, nothing had resulted from any of the numerous voyages to the
Hudson's or Baffin's Bay, which in the smallest degree rendered the
existence of such a passage unlikely. Among those scientific men who
cherished the idea of such a passage with the most enthusiasm and
confidence, and who brought to the investigation the most extensive and
minute knowledge of all that had been done, was Mr. Dalrymple, hydrographer
to the Admiralty. "He had long been of opinion, that not only Greenland,
but all the land seen by Baffin on the northern and eastern sides of the
great bay bearing his name, was composed of clusters of islands, and that a
passage through the _Fretum Davis_, round the northern extremity of
Cumberland Island, led directly to the North Sea, from the seventy to the
seventy-first degree of latitude." This opinion of Mr. Dalrymple was
grounded, in part at least, on the authority of an old globe, one of the
first constructed in Britain, preserved in the library of the Inner Temple:
this globe contains all the discoveries of our early navigators. Davis
refers to it; and Hackluyt, in his edition of 1589, describes it "as a very
large and most exact terrestrial globe, collected and reformed according to
the newest, secretest, and latest discoveries, both Spanish, Portugal, and
English, composed by Mr. Emmeric Molyneaux, of Lambeth, a rare gentleman in
his profession, being therein for diverse years greatly supported by the
purse and liberality of the worshipful merchant Mr. William Sanderson."

Mr. Dalrymple prevailed on the Hudson's Bay Company to send out Mr. Duncan,
a master in the navy, who had displayed considerable talent on a voyage to
Nootka Sound. This gentleman was very sanguine of success, and very zealous
in the cause in which he was employed. But this attempt also was
unsuccessful: Mr. Duncan, after a considerable lapse of time, reaching no
farther than Chesterfield Inlet.

The attention of scientific men, and of the public at large, was called
again to this important problem in th