Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/366

Rh On the last day of August the fleet set sail on its return to England.

The following, upon the same subject, is from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1754, vol. xxiv. p. 46:—

"Philadelphia, Nov. 15.—Sunday last arrived here the schooner Argo, Captain Charles Swaine, who sailed from this port last spring on the discovery of the N.W. passage. She fell in with the ice off Farewell; left the eastern ice, and fell in with the western ice, in lat. 58, and cruized to the northward to lat. 63 to clear it, but could not, it then extending to the eastward. On her return to the southward she met with two Danish ships bound to Bull river and Disco, up Davis's streights, who had been in the ice fourteen days, off Farewell, and had then stood to westward; and assured the commander that the ice was fast to the shore all above Hudson's streights to the distance of 40 leagues out; and that there had not been such a severe winter as the last these 24 years that they had used that trade: they had been nine weeks from Copenhagen. The Argo, finding she could not get round the ice, pressed through it, and got into the streight's mouth the 26th of June [sic], and made the island Resolution; but was forced out by vast quantities of driving ice, and got into a clear sea the 1st of July [sic]. On the 14th, cruizing the ice for an opening to get in again, she met four sail of Hudson's Bay ships endeavouring to get in, and continued with them 'till the 19th, when they parted in thick weather, in lat. 62 and a half, which thick weather continued to the 7th of August; the Hudson's Bay men supposed themselves 40 leagues from the western land. The Argo ran down the ice from 63 to 57.30, and after repeated attempts to enter the streights in vain, as the season for discovery on the western side of the Bay was over, she went in with the Labrador coast, and discover'd it perfectly from 56 to 65; finding no less than six inlets, to the heads of all which they went, and of which they have made a very good chart, and have a better account of the country, its soil, produce, &c. than has hitherto been publish'd. The captain says 'tis much like Norway; and that there is no communication with Hudson's Bay through Labrador, where one has been imagined ; a high ridge of mountains running N. and S. about 51 leagues within the coast. In one of the harbours they found a deserted wooden house with a brick chimney, which had been built by some English, as appeared by sundry things they left behind; and afterwards, in another harbour, they met with captain Goff, in a snow from London, who inform'd [sic] that the same snow had been there last year, and landed some of the Moravian brethren, who had built that house; but the natives having decoyed the then captain of the snow, and five or six of his hands, in their boat, round a point of land at a distance from the snow, under pretence of trade, carried them all off (they having gone imprudently without arms); the snow, after waiting sixteen days without hearing of them, went home, and was obliged to take the Moravians to help to work the vessel. Part of her business this year was to inquire after those men. Captain Swaine discovered a fine fishing bank,