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PREFACE.

SOME explanation is, perhaps, necessary regarding the publication of the few pages which are here collected together under the title of Northward Ho!

During the early part of the present year a friend placed in my hands an old journal which had been written by one one of his ancestors, whilst serving as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, more than a hundred years ago.

This journal, or log-book, was in a very dilapidated condition, several of its leaves were missing, others were torn, and in many parts it was nearly illegible.

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Sufficient material, however, remained to form a perfectly connected and intelligible narrative.

As it had reference to a very memorable expedition, the first in modern times to attempt the solution of that difficult problem which has hitherto successfully baffled all nations, the discovery of the North Pole, I conceived, with the kind permission of my friend, the idea of publishing it; and I was the more readily induced to do so, because I was aware that the only account of this particular voyage that had ever been made public, was the official one written by Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, the leader of the expedition, immediately after his return to England.

The narrative itself appeared to me SO amusingly written, and the incidents so quaintly described, that I felt it would be almost a sin

to allow the manuscript to be longer buried in

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obscurity, more especially as any relation of that particular voyage must be rendered doubly interesting, from the fact that our great naval hero, Nelson, served as a midshipman on board one of the two ships comprising the expedition.

It had the further

recommendation

of

being the account of a Polar voyage from a midshipman's point of view.

The original narrative has been transcribed almost word for word, excepting at those places where the pages, or portions of them, were deficient. Where these occur the context has been carefully studied, and the deficiency made good by references to the work of Captain Phipps, as also to the official logs of the two ships, as well as to the journals of Commander Lutwidge and the other commissioned officers of the expedition, which latter are now deposited at the Public Record Office, and

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which, through the permission of the Admiralty,

I have been allowed to consult.

My first intention was simply to publish Mr. Floyd's journal accompanied by a short introductory chapter relating to Polar exploration; but the latter portion grew to such alarming dimensions, almost unconsciously to myself, that I deemed it expedient to introduce what was originally intended to form, as indeed it does now, the gist of the work in its proper chronological order in connection with the other voyages, being convinced that by so doing I should be more fully studying the convenience of my readers.

It is as well perhaps for me to take this opportunity of stating, that Northward Ho! is designed simply as a monograph of Polar voyages, or voyages that had specially for their object the discovery of the North Pole, or exploration of the northern regions, as

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those expeditions that

distinguished from those

were despatched in quest of passages by the north-west, or north-east, to which I have scarcely alluded.

The accounts from which I have compiled my sketch of Polar exploration, prior to the expedition of Captain Phipps in 1773, are taken from the pages of Hakluyt and Purchas, whilst those of the subsequent voyages are gathered from the works published by the acknowledged historians of those expeditions.

If the result of my labours in thus briefly chronicling the deeds of those who have gone before us, afford my readers half as much pleasure as the compilation afforded I shall feel myself amply rewarded in thus having collected together materials which, I trust, will direct their thoughts northward, and turn the attention of the

me,

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