Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/255

 commanded by Captain James Clark Ross [q. v.], his shipmate in the Fury and the Hecla. The Cove made a summer voyage to Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay in 1836, and on 10 Jan. 1837 Crozier was promoted to be commander. On 11 May 1839 he was appointed to the Terror, in which he accompanied Captain Ross in his voyage to the Antarctic Ocean, from which they both happily returned in September 1843. Crozier had been during his absence advanced to post rank, 16 Aug. 1841, and, after a short stay at home, was again, 8 March 1845, appointed to the Terror for Arctic exploration under the orders of Sir John Franklin [q. v.], who commissioned the Erebus at the same time. The two ships sailed from England on 19 May 1845. On 26 July they were spoken by the Prince of Wales whaler, at the head of Baffin's Bay, waiting for an opportunity to cross the middle ice; and for many years nothing further was heard of them, or known of their fate. It was not till 1859 that the private expedition under the command of Captain (now Admiral Sir Leopold) McClintock found the record which sadly told their story (, Fate of Sir John Franklin, 5th ed. 1881, p. 246). After a very prosperous voyage, and the discovery of the long-looked-for north-west passage, the ships were beset on 12 Sept. 1846. By the death of Sir John Franklin on 11 June 1847 the command had devolved on Crozier. On 22 April 1848, the provisions running short, the ships were deserted. The men, officers and crews, numbering in all 105, landed on the 25th in lat. 69° 37′ 42″ N., long. 98° 41′ W., and—it was added in Crozier's writing—‘start to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River.’ They all perished by the way. With a very few exceptions, no trace even of the bones of the dead has been found (ib. p. 312). Stories have indeed been told of white men living among the Eskimos many years afterwards. It is perhaps possible that some of the crews of wrecked whalers may from time to time have so survived; but the supposition that Crozier or any of his companions lived in this way is pronounced by McClintock to be ‘altogether untenable.’

 CRUDEN, ALEXANDER (1701–1770), author of the ‘Biblical Concordance,’ was second son of William Cruden, a merchant in Aberdeen, one of the bailies of that city, and an elder in a presbyterian congregation. He was born 31 May 1701, and educated first at the grammar school in Aberdeen, and afterwards at Marischal College, where he took the degree of A.M., but owing to the loss of the college registers before 1737 the exact date is unknown. Very soon, however, he began to show signs of insanity, attributed by some to a disappointment in love, of a specially sad nature, and was for a short time under restraint. Upon release he left Aberdeen and removed to London in 1722, where he obtained employment as a private tutor. His first engagement was as tutor to the son of a country squire living at Elm Hall, Southgate; afterwards, it is said, he was engaged in a like capacity at Ware. In 1729 he was for a short time employed by the tenth Earl of Derby, on the recommendation of Mr. Maddox, chaplain to the bishop of Chichester (probably the clergyman of that name who was afterwards bishop of Worcester), apparently as a reader or amanuensis, but was discharged at Halnaker on 7 July on account of his ignorance of French pronunciation, with regard to which we have his own confession that he pronounced every letter as it is written. He then returned to London and took lodgings in the house of one Madame Boulanger in Crown Street, Soho (having previously lodged with Mr. Oswald, a bookseller, at the Rose and Crown, Little Britain), a house exclusively frequented by Frenchmen, and took lessons in the language, with the hope of a speedy return to the earl's service; but in this he was disappointed. In September of that year he went down to Knowsley, intending to claim a year's salary if not retained, but the earl would not see him, and he was peremptorily dismissed the day after his arrival. He attributed his dismissal to the unfriendly offices of one of the earl's chaplains, Mr. Clayton, on account, as he supposed, of his being a presbyterian; but it is evident from his own correspondence that he was unfitted for the work he had undertaken, and that he was in a half-crazed condition. However, as he is said by Chalmers to have spent some years as a tutor in the Isle of Man before 1732, it is probable that that employment was found for him by the earl. He returned to London in 1732 and opened a bookseller's shop in the Royal Exchange; in April 1735 he obtained the unremunerative title of bookseller to the queen (Caroline) as successor to a Mr. Matthews. For this (as we learn from a letter among the Addit. MSS., British Museum) he had been recommended by the lord mayor and most of the whig aldermen to Sir Robert Walpole in December 1734, and he asked Sir Hans Sloane's assistance in obtaining the appointment on the ground that he had had a learned education, and had been for some years corrector of the press in Wild Court; but he makes his learn-