[6] In Consequence Of Captain Ross Having Penetrated Into Baffin's Bay, An Object Only Accomplished Once Before By Baffin Himself,

And which for two hundred years had been frequently again fruitlessly attempted, the Greenland ships which left England during the

Season immediately following Captain Ross's return, were induced, in order to reach a fresh and unfished sea, to pursue the course that he had opened for them. The circumstance that fourteen of them were wrecked, proves, unless the season had been uncommonly tempestuous, that Captain Ross must have conducted his expedition with considerable care and skill, notwithstanding he missed an excellent opportunity of either discovering a north-west passage, or of adding one more opening to those which were proved not to contain it.

The second sea expedition, to which we have already alluded, was under the direction of Captain Parry, who had sailed along with Captain Ross in the first expedition; he was therefore possessed of much knowledge and experience, which would prove essentially useful and directly applicable to the object he was about to undertake. Two ships were fitted out with all necessary preparations for such a voyage, the Hecla bomb, and Griper gun-brig, and they sailed from the Thames early in the month of May 1819. Of the high importance and value to navigators of the chronometer, Captain Parry had a striking and undoubted proof in the early part of his voyage. On the 24th of May he saw a small solitary crag, called Rockall, not far from the Orkney Islands.

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