The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1853-11-10
Discovery Of the Northwest
PASSAGE,


news, by the late arrivals from England,
is the announcement that passage has
been discovered between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans, arond the northern
extremity of the American continent.--
The great geographical problem of two
hundred years has at last been solved but
with no other benefit likely to result to
the world from it, than the establishment
of an interesting fact in science. For
those frozen seas, where vessels would al
ways be liable to be blocked up with ice,
perhaps two or three years, before work.
ing their way through, could never be
resorted to for purposes of navigation.
Many lives have been lost in the re-
peated attempts to discover the northwest
passage The earlist account we have,
is that of two Portuguese brothers, by the
name of Cortereal, who, in the sixteenth
century, sailed to the north, but were
never heard of more. Fifty years after
wards, Sir Hugh Willoughby undertook
to find route to China by the way of
Labrador, but he perished with his crew,
and their bodies were discovered by the
Esquimaux Indians. Sir Humphrey Gill
bert afterwards, in similar attempt, was
lost off the coast of Newfoundland. And
the distinguished navigator Hudson, after
discovering the noble river in New York
which bears his name, tried his fortune in
the polar seas, where he discovered and
explored Hudson's Bay. A mutinous
crew here put him and several of his men
into boat and set them adrift, and they
were never heard of afterwards. Sir
John Franklin and his companions have
now been absent seven years, and but
very small hopes remain that they will
ever be found alive, or even that any
traces of their sad history will be dis
covered.
English navigators have the honor of
making the first discovery of the north
west passage. These parties had been
out some two years in search of Sir John
Franklin, and had themselves. from not
being heard from, become objects of much
solicitude. Capt. Mcclure, of the ship
Investigator, was working his perilous
way through from the east, when he at
last met party from Behring's Straits.
Some of the incidents of their meeting
are described, in the English account, as
follows:
MEETING OF COMMANDER MCCLURE FROM
THE EAST AND LIEUTENANT
PIN FROM THE WEST.
The first meeting of Lieutenant Bed
ford PIN with the party from the Inves-
tigator is thus described in a private let
ter from Captain Kellett, G. B., dated her
Majesty's ship Resolute, Melville Island
April 10th, 1853:
'This is really ed-letter day in our
voyage, and shall be kept as holiday by
our heirs and successors forever At
nine o'clock this day our lookout man
made the signal for party coming in
from the westward; all went to meet them
and assist them in. A second party was
then seen. Dr. Donville was the first
person met. I cannot describe my feel
ings when he told me that Captain Nc
Clure was among the next party. I was
not long in reaching him and giving him
many hearty shakes-no purer were ever
given by two men in this world. Nc
Clure looks well, but is very hungry
His description of Pins making the
Harbor of Mercy would have been a fine
subject for the pen of Capt. Marryatt,
were he alive.
Mcclure and his first lieutenant we're
walking on the foe. Seeing a person
coming very fast towards them, they sup
posed he was chased by a bear, or had
seen bear. Walked towards him; on
getting onwards hundred yards, they
could see from his proportions that he
was not one of them. PIN began to
screech and throw up his hands-his face
was as black as my hat. This brought
the Captain and Lieutenant to stand as
they could not hear sufficiently to make
out his language.
'At length PIN reached the party, quite
besede himself, and stammered out, on
McClure's asking him 'Who are you, and
where do you come from?' Lieutenant
PIN, Herald, Captain KelIett.' This was
the more inexplicable to Mcclure, as 1
was the last person he shook hands with
in Behring's Straits. He at length found
that this solitary stranger was true Eng
lishman-an angel of light. He says:
He soon was seen from the ship; they
had only one hatchway open, and the
crew were fairly jammed there in their
endeavor to get up. The sick jumped
out their hammocks, and the crew forgot
their dependency; in fact, all was changed
on board the Investigator
Mcclure had thirty men and three of
ficers fully prepared to leave for the depot
at Point Spencer. What disappoint-
ment it would have been to 60 there and
find the miserable yacht Mary with four
or five casks of provisions, instead of a
fine large depot.
Another party of seven men were to
have gone by Mckenzie, with request
to the Admiralty to send out a ship to
moot M Point Toonold IN 1874 III