They Were Indeed Roused, But Very Ineffectively, From Their Torpor, By One Of Their Captains Intimating, That If They Refused To Fulfill The Terms Of Their Charter, By Making Discoveries, And Extending Their Trade, He Would Himself Apply To The Crown.

In order to silence him, they sent him and another captain out in two vessels, in 1719 or 1720; but they both perished, it is supposed, near Marble Island, without effecting any thing.

Two years afterwards they sent out another ship under the command of a person, who, destitute of the requisite knowledge and enterprize, was totally unfit for such an undertaking: the result was such as might have been anticipated - nothing was effected. An interval of twenty years passed over, and the company again sank into apathy on the subject of a north-west passage, when the attention of government was directed to the subject by the enthusiasm of an Irish gentleman of the name of Dobbs. Having well considered what preceding navigators had ascertained, and especially the remarkable circumstance particularly noticed by Fox, that the farther he removed from Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome the smaller was the height to which the tide rose, and who thence inferred, that if a passage were practicable, it must be in this direction, this gentleman applied to the company to send out a vessel. Accordingly, a vessel was sent; but all that is known of this voyage, and probably all that was done, amounts merely to this, that the vessel reached 62 deg.

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