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 apprentice for four years, during which time he made three voyages to the West Indies and three to the Baltic. In 1794 he entered the service of the East India Company. In September 1799 he returned to the navy as a midshipman of the Weasel in the North Sea and on the coast of Holland; he was afterwards in the Clyde frigate with Captain Charles Cunningham [q. v.]; and on the renewal of the war in 1803 joined the Grampus, bearing the flag of Sir James Saumarez (afterwards Lord de Saumarez) [q. v.] With few and short intervals he continued with Saumarez in different ships, as midshipman or mate, and, after his promotion on 13 March 1805, as lieutenant, till 1812. In 1805, while serving as lieutenant of the Surinam, he was severely wounded in cutting out a Spanish vessel from under the batteries of Bilbao. For this he was granted a pension of 5s. a day, which was afterwards increased to 150l. a year. In his old age, it was stated in his presence, and without contradiction, that he had been wounded thirteen times, and had been three times ‘immured in a French prison’ (Galloway Advertiser, 20 Nov. 1851). It must have been about this date, but the details have not been recorded. In September 1808, being then in the Victory, he was for a short time attached to the staff of the Swedish admiral, a service for which he was well qualified by a familiar knowledge of Swedish. In August 1809 he was created a knight of the order of the Sword, and Saumarez was requested to send him again to the Swedish admiral; but as he was then away, in acting command of the Ariel, the request could not be complied with.

On 1 Feb. 1812 Ross was promoted to the rank of commander, and in March was appointed to the Briseis sloop, which he commanded in the Baltic, North Sea, and the Downs. In 1814–15 he commanded the sloop Actæon in the North Sea, and for a short time in the White Sea, where he surveyed part of the coast, and determined the longitude of Archangel by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. In 1815–17 he had command of the Driver on the coast of Scotland, and in January 1818 he was appointed to the Isabella, a hired whaler, as commander of an expedition, which with the Alexander, commanded by Lieutenant William Edward Parry [q. v.] sailed in April, to endeavour to make the North-West Passage through Davis' Strait. It was the renewal of the search which had been laid on one side during the long war, and resulted in the rediscovery of Baffin's Bay [see ] and the identification of the several points named in Baffin's map. Ross then attempted to proceed westward through Lancaster Sound, but being deceived, presumably by a mirage, he described the passage as barred by a range of mountains, which he named the Croker Mountains, and returned to England. The report was, in the first instance, accepted as conclusive, and Ross was promoted to post rank on 7 Dec. 1818. In the following year he published ‘A Voyage of Discovery made under the orders of the Admiralty, in His Majesty's Ships Isabell and Alexander, for the purpose of exploring Baffin's Bay, and inquiring into the probability of a North-West Passage’ (1819, 4to).

The admiralty had already learned that there were some doubts as to the reality of the Croker Mountains, and had despatched another expedition, under the command of Parry; but the issue of the semi-official account of the voyage brought the question before the public, and Captain (afterwards Sir Edward) Sabine, who had been one of the scientific staff of the expedition, published ‘Remarks on the Account of the late Voyage,’ &c., severely controverting the statement, which led to a reply by Ross, entitled ‘Explanation of Captain Sabine's Remarks,’ &c. (1819, 8vo). The matter, as one of conflicting evidence and opinion, could not be decided till Parry's return in October 1820 brought proof that Ross had judged too hastily, and led to an undue disparagement of his work. He was naturally anxious to make another attempt, but the admiralty declined his services; and it was not till 1829 that he was offered the command of the Victory, a small vessel, fitted out mainly at the expense of Felix Booth [q. v.], Ross himself contributing 3,000l. towards it. In searching for a passage south from Regent's Inlet, the Victory was stopped by the ice, and spent the winter of 1829–30 in Felix Harbour. In the summer of 1830 she got a few miles further south and wintered in Victoria Harbour. But there she remained, fast held by the ice, and in May 1832 was abandoned, Ross and his men making their way to Fury Beach, where they passed a fourth winter in a hut built from the wreck of the Fury. In the summer of 1833 they succeeded in reaching a whaler—Ross's old ship, the Isabella—in Lancaster Sound, and in her returned to England in October.

The results of the voyage, remarkable for the length of time spent in the ice, were the survey of the peninsula since known as Boothia, of a great part of King William Land, of the Gulf of Boothia, and the presumptive determination that the sought-for