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AND CROSS-QUESTIONED.

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street in Covent Garden, and himself now lives in Wapping. This Mr. Ben sailed to Japan with the Dutch, as a carpenter of the ship, and he told me that year, viz. 1668, he was newly come home from Japan.

"I ask'd him how long they were under-way home from thence? He told me, he could not well tell, because when they set out from Japan, the Captain commanded the steer-man

to sail due north, and they did sail from thence

about 400 Dutch miles, which is almost 27 degrees, due north.

"I ask'd him whether they met with no land or islands, as I had done before the Dutch Greenland steer-man.

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'He told me No, they saw no land, but that there was a free and open sea so far as they sailed, nor any sign of land appeared.

"I ask'd him why they sailed so far northward?

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He told me he could not tell, only the Captain commanded it, &c.

"I was thus inquisitive with him, because ever since I heard the former relation of

68 THE HYDROGRAPHER IMPOSED UPON. [CH. II. the Greenland steer-man, I harped at a passage through or about the North Pole to Japan, China, &c., and by these two discoveries, it appears very probable that there is so, and that it is passable in summer-time."

These are the cogent reasons that induced the learned Hydrographer of King Charles the Second to take such a prominent part in the advocacy of North Polar exploration. I am afraid, from his own showing, that for a man holding such an exalted official position, he was rather addicted to frequenting low haunts, and associating with low company, and that he was as much a victim to the marvellous imagination of his Wapping friend, as he was to the joking propensities of the Dutch steer-man he had met in the tavern at Amsterdam!

The publication of his "brief discourse," had little or no effect on the public opinion of that day, but it no doubt materially did its share towards assisting in the despatch from England of a government North Pole expedition a hundred years later.

CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN PHIPPS'S VOYAGE IN 1773.

IN the year 1773, Mr. Daines Barrington1 revived the subject of Polar discovery. He had beforehand, very carefully and assiduously, collected all the information he could gather on the subject; this he elaborated in a series of papers which he read before the Royal Society.

Among the numerous accounts of successful voyages that had been made towards the North

1 Daines Barrington was a son of Viscount Barrington. He received a legal education, and rose to the office of second Justice of Chester. He was the author of Observations on the Statutes, and other works. He died in 1800. His brother Samuel was an Admiral who greatly distinguished himself at the capture of St. Lucia, and also at the memorable relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe. Another brother, Shute, was Bishop of Durham.

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AN EXPEDITION ORDERED.

[CHAP. Pole which he related, it is not likely he omitted those already described by Mr. Moxon. These, with others, were fully set forth in order to induce the Royal Society to endorse his views. It is needless to add the voyages said to have been performed were as fictitious as those in the veracity of which King Charles's Hydrographer seemed to place implicit reliance.

Whether Mr. Barrington believed in these stories or whether he did not is beside the question; it is sufficient to know that his exertions were crowned with success, and that in the early part of 1773, the Royal Society submitted a memorial, through the Earl of Sandwich, who was first Lord of the Admiralty at the time, to the King, urging the desirability of sending an expedition to try how far navigation was practicable towards the North Pole. This, His Majesty was "pleased to direct should be immediately undertaken, with every encouragement that could countenance such an enterprise, and every assistance that could contribute to its success."

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Captain the Honourable Constantine Phipps having volunteered his services, was intrusted with the command of the expedition. The two ships selected were the Racehorse and Carcass. Being bomb vessels, they were considered the strongest, and therefore best adapted for the purpose.

Captain Phipps hoisted his pendant in the Racehorse, while the command of the second ship, the Carcass, was given to Commander Lutwidge, in which latter vessel also served our great naval hero, Horatio Nelson, as midshipman.

Southey, in his Life of Nelson, says that he was entered on the books of this ship as Captain's coxswain. This was not the case, for although in the pay and muster books of the Carcass, no less than four out of the six midshipmen on board were entered as A. B's., and not rated midshipmen until after the departure of the ships from England, Nelson appears as having joined with the original rank of midshipman. I simply mention this to correct an

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