NORTH-West Passage, a passage to the Pacific ocean through Hudson's bay or Davis's straits, and which hath been frequently attempted without success; notwithstanding which, many people are still of opinion that it is practicable.
The idea of a passage to the East Indies by the north pole, or through some opening near to it, was suggested as early as the year 1527. The person who had the honour to conceive this idea was Robert Thorne, a merchant of Bristol, who addressed two papers on the subject, the one to King Henry VIII. the other to Dr Ley, ambassador from that monarch to the emperor Charles V. To remove any objection to the undertaking, which might be drawn from the supposed danger, he insists, in his address to the king, upon the great advantages of constant daylight in the polar seas, and the probability of the climate being in those regions temperate during the summer months. In the paper addressed to Dr Ley, he observes that cosmographers may as probably be mistaken in the opinion which they
entertain of the polar regions being impassable from extreme cold, as it has been found they were in supposing the countries under the line to be uninhabitable from excessive heat.
The possibility of the passage was, in consequence of these addresses, very generally supposed; and in 1557, Sir Martin Forbisher sailed to 62° north latitude, where he discovered the straits which have since borne his name. In 1577, Barne, in a book entitled the Regiment of the Sea, mentions a north-west passage as one of the five ways to Cathay; and dwells on the mildness of the climate, which, from the constant presence of the sun during summer, he imagines must be found near the pole. In 1578, George Best, a gentleman who had been with Sir Martin Forbisher in his voyages of discovery, wrote a very ingenious discourse to prove all parts of the world habitable. It does not, however, appear that any voyage was undertaken, for the express purpose of attempting to sail to India in a north-west direction, till the year 1607, when Henry Hudson was sent, at the expence of some merchants in London to discover a passage by the north pole to Japan and China. He sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May, and on the 21st of June fell in with the land to the westward, in latitude 73°, which he named Hold-with-hope. On the 27th he discovered Spitzbergen, and met with much ice. The highest latitude in which he made an observation was 85° 27'. See HUDSON.
In March 1609, Jones Poole was sent by Sir Thomas Smith, and the rest of the Muscovy Company, to make further discoveries towards the north pole. After great severity of weather, and much difficulty from ice, he made the south part of Spitzbergen on the 16th of May; and sailing along and sounding the coast, he made many accurate discoveries; but was not in that voyage able to proceed beyond 79° 50'. He was again employed (1611), in a small vessel called the Elizabeth, to attempt the north-west passage; but after surmounting numberless difficulties, and penetrating to 85° of latitude, he lost his ship at Spitzbergen. Two voyages equally unsuccessful, were made in 1614 and 1615, by Bassin and Fotherby; the latter of whom concludes the account of his discoveries and dangers, with exhorting the company which employed him not to adventure more than 1500. or 2000. at most on yearly voyages to these seas.
Hitherto nothing had been done in this great undertaking but by private adventurers, fitted out for the double purpose of discovery and present advantage; and the polar regions were suffered to remain unexplored in that direction, from the year 1615 till 1773, when the earl of Sandwich, in consequence of an application which had been made to him by the Royal Society, laid before his majesty a proposal for an expedition to try how far navigation is practicable towards the north pole. Upon receiving this proposal, his majesty was pleased to direct that the voyage should be immediately undertaken, with every assistance that could contribute to its success. Accordingly, the Racehorse and Carcass bombs were fitted out for the purpose, and the command of the expedition given to Captain Phipps, now Lord Mulgrave. His Lordship's instructions were to proceed up to the pole, or as far towards it as possible, and as nearly upon a meridian as the ice or other obstructions should admit; and during the course of the voyage, to make such observations
tions of every kind as might be useful to navigation, or tend to the promotion of natural knowledge. A very accurate account of this voyage was published by his Lordship in 1774. He had, by exerting all the powers of a skilful and intrepid seaman, forced his way, on the 1st of August, to ; but could proceed no farther, as he was there opposed by one continued plain of smooth unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon.
Many other attempts have been made to discover this passage, by sailing along the western coast of America; but hitherto none of them has been crowned with success. So early as 1579, Sir Francis Drake assured Queen Elizabeth that he had failed some leagues up the Straits of Anian (see ANIAN), and discovered New Albion, to the north of California; but the strait is now known to have no existence; and Drake's real discoveries were not improved. In 1638, King Charles I. sent Captain Luke Fox in one of his pinnaces to attempt the passage; but of his proceedings we know nothing, but that he reached Port Nelson in Hudson's bay, where he found some remains of former navigators. Next year Captain James was fitted out by the merchants of Bristol for the same purpose. James was one of the ablest navigators that ever sailed from England or any other country; and his voyages to the north were printed in 1633. After all the experiments he had made, he concluded that there was no such passage; or if there be, he affirmed that the discovery of it would not be attended with those advantages which are commonly expected. His reasons, however, for these opinions have been answered, and many subsequent attempts have been made to perform what he thought impossible. The arguments for a north-west passage were so plausible, that in 1744, an act of parliament was passed to encourage the discovery of it. Among many others, Captain Cook attempted the discovery in vain, and thence adopted James's opinion. (See COOKE'S Discoveries, No 103.) This celebrated navigator, after having proceeded northwards to the western extremity of America, and ascertained the proximity of the two great continents of Asia and America, returned to the Sandwich islands, firmly persuaded of the impracticability of a passage in that hemisphere from the Atlantic into the Pacific ocean, either by an easterly or a westerly course.
Later voyagers, however, have pretended to detect some errors in Cooke's discoveries; and the author of a small tract, entitled An authentic Statement of all the Facts relative to Nootka Sound, goes a great way to make the discovery not yet hopeless. In his account of the expedition under the direction of Messrs Etches, he says, that "one of the first discoveries made by these ships was, that what was by the immortal Cook laid down as a continuation of the north-west continent of America, and lying between the northern latitudes of and , is on the contrary an extensive cluster of unexplored islands inhabited by numerous tribes of friendly Indians, with whom a regular connexion was formed."
These islands they discovered, contrary to the assertion of Captain Cook, to conceal the opening of a vast inland sea, or archipelago, in all probability equal to the Mediterranean or Baltic seas, and dividing the great northern continent of America. The Princess Royal penetrated some hundred leagues among them, in a north-east course, to within 200 leagues of Hudson's
house, but had not then an opportunity to explore the extreme termination of that archipelago, their commercial concerns obliging them to return to the China market; but the commanders had the strongest reasons to believe, had the time favoured their survey, that they should have been able to discover the long-wished for passage between the Atlantic and South sea. They conceived, that should neither the inland arm of the sea through which the Princess Royal penetrated, nor a large strait named Sir Charles Middleton's about three degrees to the southward, be found to reach across the continent, yet that the land barrier must be very inconsiderable; and that at the extremity of this bay a practicable passage, either by rivers or lakes, will, by perseverance, be found terminating towards Hudson's bay.
The last attempt to discover this passage was made by Vancouver between the years 1790 and 1795; but the result of this voyage renders the existence of such a passage still more doubtful.
Upon the whole, however, it appears to us extremely doubtful whether there be such a passage; but it is much more likely to be discovered, if discovered at all, by the progressive advances of mercantile enterprise than by any immediate expedition undertaken for that purpose.