His Nephew Made From This Point Scientific
Explorations; Discovered A Strait, Called After Him The Strait Of
James Ross, And On The Northern Shore Of This Strait, On The Main
Land Of Boothia, Planted The British Flag On The Northern Magnetic
Pole.
The ice broke up, so did the Victory; after a hairbreadth
escape, the party found a searching vessel and
Arrived home after an
absence of four years and five months, Sir John Ross having lost his
ship, and won his reputation, The friend in need was made a baronet
for his munificence; Sir John was reimbursed for all his losses, and
the crew liberally taken care of. Sir James Ross had a rod and flag
signifying "Magnetic Pole," given to him for a new crest, by the
Heralds' College, for which he was no doubt greatly the better.
We have sailed northward to get into Hudson Strait, the high road
into Hudson Bay. Along the shore are Esquimaux in boats, extremely
active, but these filthy creatures we pass by; the Esquimaux in
Hudson Strait are like the negroes of the coast, demoralised by
intercourse with European traders. These are not true pictures of
the loving children of the north. Our "Phantom" floats on the wide
waters of Hudson Bay - the grave of its discoverer. Familiar as the
story is of Henry Hudson's fate, for John King's sake how gladly we
repeat it. While sailing on the waters he discovered, in 1611, his
men mutinied; the mutiny was aided by Henry Green, a prodigal, whom
Hudson had generously shielded from ruin. Hudson, the master, and
his son, with six sick or disabled members of the crew, were driven
from their cabins, forced into a little shallop, and committed
helpless to the water and the ice. But there was one stout man,
John King, the carpenter, who stepped into the boat, abjuring his
companions, and chose rather to die than even passively be partaker
in so foul a crime. John King, we who live after will remember you.
Here on aim island, Charlton Island, near our entrance to the bay,
in 1631, wintered poor Captain James with his wrecked crew. This is
a point outside the Arctic circle, but quite cold enough. Of
nights, with a good fire in the house they built, hoar frost covered
their beds, and the cook's water in a metal pan before the fire was
warm on one side and froze on the other. Here "it snowed and froze
extremely, at which time we, looking from the shore towards the
ship, she appeared a piece of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a
ship resembling a piece of ice." Here the gunner, who hand lost his
leg, besought that, "for the little the he had to live, he might
drink sack altogether." He died and was buried in the ice far from
the vessel, but when afterwards two more were dead of scurvy, and
the others, in a miserable state, were working with faint hope about
their shattered vessel, the gunner was found to have returned home
to the old vessel; his leg had penetrated through a port-hole.
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