Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/17

 expectations of meeting with much of adventure and interest in the distant and savage region to which he was invited: he therefore resolved to accept this reiterated offer, and proceeded to America early in 1829.

Of the years spent by him in the Hudson's Bay country previous to the commencement of the Arctic expedition, it is unnecessary to say much. His sanguine temperament and buoyant spirits enabled him to pass through them without much weariness or ennui; and he strove, and with success, to accommodate himself to the duties and mode of life which were imposed upon him by a residence in the country which he had chosen as his sphere of action.

Of the share Mr. Simpson had in planning and organizing the expedition of which the following pages are a narrative, he himself speaks modestly and briefly in the first chapter of that narrative. Although Mr. Simpson's name appears only as second or junior officer of the expedition,—the senior being Mr. Peter Warren Dease, an old and experienced officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, who co-operated with Sir John Franklin on his last expedition,—yet a glance at the narrative in the following pages will prove that Mr. Simpson was really the main-spring of the expedition. He alone was at all conversant