The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-21 00:00:00

ARRIVAL OF CAPTAIN ROSS.

(From a Second Edition of the Hull Advertiser of Friday.)
We stopped the press at half-past nine o'clock this
morning, to announce the arrival of Captain Ross, whom
we had the pleasure of welcoming to Old England on
board the Gazelle, Rotterdam steam-boat. He came ac-
companied by our townsman, Captain Humphreys, whose
vessel they bad quitted off the Humber, and to whose bold
seamanship and manly exertions the shipwrecked navi-
gator and his crew are, under Providence, indebted for
their rescue. We have been put in possession of a num-
ber of most interesting particulars, the accuracy of which
may be relied upon, and we lose no time in laying them
before the public.
In 1829, our readers are aware that Captain Ross fitted
out his expedition with the view to determine the practi-
cability of a new passage which had been confidently said
to exist, particularly by Prince Regent's Inlet, and that
in consequence of the loss of the foremast of his vessel (the
Victory), and other untoward circumstances, he was
obliged to refit at Wideford, in Greenland. The accounts
of his departure from thence on the 27th of July, 1829,
formed the last authentic intelligence received of the ex-
pedition, until the commander and crew were picked up by
Capt. R. W. Humphreys, of the Isabella, of Hull, Capt.
Ross's oh! ship. By Captain Ross's account, it appears
that the first season—that of 1829—was the mildest that
had ever been recorded, and the sea was more clear of ice
than had been experienced during any of the former
voyages. On the 14th of August, he reached the spot
where the Fury's stores were, landed without difficulty,
and there he found the provisions, &c., but not the wreck,
which had totally disappeared. Having supplied all his
wants at this depot, he advanced to the southward round
Cape Carey, from whence the west coast led him in a
south-west direction, to the latitude of seventy-two de•
grees north. Here be was, for the first time, seriously
impeded by ice: but after examin)ag an inlet, he proceeded
to urge his way to the southward, as near the west shore
as the shallowness of the water would permit, and occa-
sionally landed to take possession of the newly discovered
region for the British Crown, with the usual ceremony.
Owing to the rapidity of the tides and currents, the
stubborn quality of the ice, and the rocky character of
the coast, the voyage was perilous in the extreme.
Having experienced several almost miraculous escapes
from shipwreck, they ultimately succeeded in reaching
the seventieth degree of latitude, in a direction nearly due
south of Fury Point, where their course was arrested by
an impenetrable barrier of ponderous ice. In a harbour
which they found at this extreme point, they wintered.
In January, 1830, they opened a communication with
a most interesting tribe of natives who had never before
held intercourse with strangers. Friendship being soon
established between the adventurous tars and these primi-
tive people, the first winter, which was not more than
commonly severe, was spent very pleasantly. Having
learnt from the natives that the East sea was divided from
the West by a neck of land, this point was examined,
and all hope of effecting a passage in that direction com-
pletely extinguished. Commander Ross, (nephew of
Captain Ross) who was sent to survey the coast of the
West sea, leading to Cape Turnagain, succeeded in getting
within 150 miles of it, and left off within a short distance
of where Captain Back expected Fish River to join the sea.
They also determined that the land was continuous to that
which forms Repulse Bay. During the autumn of 1830,
the voyagers waited in vain for the ice to dissolve
as it had done the preceding year. Although they
used their utmost exertions, they had not succeeded
in retracing their course more than four miles,
when they were arrested in a very dreary position by the
approach of a winter unparalleled in severity—the lowest
temperature being 92 degrees below the freezing point.
The summer proving no less rigorous fur the season, little
hope was entertained of a release, and a further progress
of 14 miles was all they could accomplish. In October,
1831, the ship was laid up in the harbour in which she
at present lies moored—and where the party endured the
rigours of another winter not less severe than that of the
preceding year. Their provisions being consumed they
had now no alternative but to abandon the vessel, and to
-proceed to the spot where the Fury's provisions still re-
mained—a direct distance of 200 miles, which was in.
creased by one half, in consequence of the circuitous route
which the ice obliged them to take. They, accordingly,
left the Victory in May, 1832, and, after a journey of
uncommon labour and hardship, they reached Fury Beach
in the month of July. During this journey they had
not only to carry their provisions and sick, but also
a supply of fuel, for without melting snow, they
could not procure even a drink of water. They re-
paired the Fury's boats and attempted to escape, but it
was September before they reached Leopold's Island,
which they have fully established to be the N.E. point of
America. Here they waited with inconceivable anxiety
for a disruption of the ice, but in vain. It presented
one impenetrable mass, extending across Lancaster Sound,
and intercepting the progress of the fishing ships, which
could advance no further than Admiralty Inlet, where
some remained so late as the 19th September in the same
year. Winter set in, and no choice was made but to re-
trace their steps and spend another inclement season in
canvass huts covered with snow. Their sufferings at this
time, aggravated by want of beds, clothing, and animal
food, must have been of the most acute description. Capt.
Boss says they never can be completely submitted to the
public, for he could not expect it would be believed that
human beings could undergo such poignant misery for so
protracted a period. We find that the carpenter perished,
and several others of the crew were so much reduced, that
they had to be carried to Batty Bay where the boats had
been left.
The spring and summer of the present year afforded
the desolate party more cheering hopes. The ice opened
on the 14th of August, and on the same day that Captain
Humphreys, in the Isabella, tried to reach Leopold's
Island, they arrived there. The former could not cross
the ice, and was driver, by a N.W. gale, to the south-
ward, up Prince Regent's Inlet. The party remained
until the gale had departed, and having crossed when the
Isabella was to the southward, they passed to the north-
ward of her, and *having gained the south shore of Lan-
caster Sound, they nearly reached its cry'. ,nce b fore the
Isabella overtook them. It is impossible for any descrip- '
tion to do justice to the feelings of either side on meeting.
None but those who have been in a similar situation can
form any idea of what passed in the minds of men rescued
from such misery by the hand of Divine Providence—nor
can the feelings of him who has teen selected as the in-
strument of mercy, be fully appreciated. The party were
not more reduced by their sufferings than might have
been expected. In consequence of kind and truly
British treatment they may be said to have corn-
nletely recover ed. The circumstance that Captain Ross
corn-
} rescued by the ship he commanded in 1818, cannot
fail to 1,0 considered an extraordinary as well as a happy
conclusion of the voyage, the result of which has been, as
far as the ende3vours of the explorers were directed, of
the most conclusive nature—namely, establishing that there
is no new passage south of 74. Q N. The country dis-
covered, which is larger than Great Britain, has been
named Boothea, after Felix Booth, Esq., who was Sheriff
of London in 1829, and acted as a truly patriotic and
public-spirited citizen in assisting Captain Ross, when
tittine out the expedition. The true position of the M ig-
netic Pole has been discovered, and much and valuable
information obtained for the improvement of Geographical
and Philosophical Knowledge. Captain Ross had a good
opportunity of verifying his former survey of the west
coast of Baffin's Bay, which every master of a Greenland
ship can testify is the most correct. Only three men died
during the voyage, two of whom were men whose consti-
tu'ao ns were unfit for the climate. On the whole, it may
bet truly said that this expedition has done more than
any that has preceded it, and be it remembered that
Captain Ross and his nephew were volunteers serving
without pay for the attainment of a great national object,
n prosecuting which they have lost their all.