FOOTNOTES
[1]See [Appendix (E)].
[2]This duty is considered by all naval officers as the severest trial of health and spirit to which the profession of a seaman is liable: and in proof of this, it will appear, by the following Narrative, that, upon the Rosamond being ordered a second time to this station, her Captain obtained leave to quit his ship, and eight of her crew deserted the first time the boat went to shore, after the order arrived from the Admiralty.
[3]See the narrative of this circumstance, as it appeared, at the time, in the Naval Chronicle and other public journals. Upon this signal instance of British valour in a person so young as to be almost a child in the service, and who had gallantly volunteered to accompany the expedition upon this dangerous enterprise, the Captain of his ship presented Mr. Chappell with the sword of the Spanish Commander, as the prize of his valour.
[4]The Gunner was tried by a Court-martial, during our stay at the Nore; and was sentenced, to be reprimanded, and to receive an admonition to be more cautious in future.
[5]This is one of the most remarkable examples of the Cyclopéan architecture of the Celts which is known to exist; owing to its remote situation with regard to the rest of Europe.
[6]The Fucus Vesiculosus of Linnœus, or Bladder Fucus; called also Sea Oak, and Sea Wrack. The alkaline salt obtained from these ashes is the common carbonate of soda.
[7]For an accurate Table of the different degrees of variation, see [Appendix (A)].
[8]For any further particulars respecting the Settlements and progress of the Moravians, on the Coast of Labrador and elsewhere, the Reader is referred to a “History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America,” in Three Parts, by George Henry Laskiel; translated from the German, by Christian Ignatius La Trobe, 1794. Also to “The Periodical Accounts of their Missions,” published by the Brethren’s Society, for the furtherance of the Gospel, at No. 10, Nevil’s Court, Fetter Lane, Holborn, London.
[9]See the Vignette to p. 1.
[10]See the rough [Sketch of a Canoe], made by the Author on the spot. Plate I.
[11]Mr. Hearne, in his Journey to the Mouth of the Coppermine River, observes, that the Esquimaux, on the sea coast to the northward, used kettles made of lapis ollaris.
[12]It was probably Sea-weed; a kind of food eaten as a stew, or soup, by the natives of the Isle of St. Kilda, in the Hebrides.
[13]A List is contained in the [Appendix], of the different articles of Esquimaux manufacture which were presented, by the Author, to the University Library at Cambridge; accompanied, also, by a List of things of a similar nature brought to Russia by Commodore Billings, from the N. W. coast of America.
[14]This gallant officer lost his arm in the attack on Java, by a cannon-ball. The seamen seeing him knocked backwards by the shock, and lying senseless, conjectured that he had been killed outright; but as they were bearing him off the field, the Captain recovered his senses, and feeling the hot beams of a vertical sun striking directly on his face and head (his hat having rolled off when he fell), he immediately exclaimed to one of his men, “Damme, Sir! fetch me my hat.”
[15]Some of the arrows brought to England by the Author were barbed flint, and exactly resemble the arrow-heads found in the Tomb of the Athenians in the Plain of Marathon.
[16]See the Plate.
[17]See Hearne’s “Journey to the Northern Ocean,” p. 154, London, 1795.
[18]This practice was common to almost all the antient world; especially to the Celtic and Gothic tribes, as manifested by the antiquities now found in their sepulchres. Possibly, therefore, the Asiatic origin of the Esquimaux may hence be deduced. The same custom also exists among the Greenlanders; who are, in fact, a branch of the Esquimaux. “They like,” says Crantz, “to make the grave in some remote high place, laying a little moss upon the bare ground (for the rock admits of no digging), and spread a skin upon it. . . . . Near the burying spot they deposit the kajak and darts of the deceased, and the tools he daily used.”—See Crantz’s Greenland, vol. I. p. 237. London, 1767.
[19]Moschetos are considered as among the winged agents of the Evil Spirit, by some of the North-American tribes.
[20]See the [Sketch] of this remarkable Cape, taken on the tops.
[21]Hearne’s Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 224. Lond. 1795.
[22]See the Voyages of Frobisher, Davies, and others.
[23]This is the denomination of the bottom of Hudson’s Bay to the southward of Cape Henrietta Maria.
[24]The Beluga.
[25]The account of the above transaction was derived from the most indubitable authority.
[26]Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Robinson.
[27]See the account of Expeditions through the North-West Continent of America to the Pacific Ocean.
[28]The infant colony is called by his Lordship, Osna Boia (two Gaelic words signifying Ossian’s Town), from the resemblance between that and the Indian name of Red River—Asnaboyne.
[29]See [Appendix B].
[30]It is astonishing, that, before the return of the ships, the whole of the drift ice in the Straits disappeared.
[31]I should have before mentioned, that the Prince of Wales did not arrive at York Flats until the day after our ship.
[32]As it may be amusing to some people, I have added a few thermometrical observations made at Oxford House, in the year 1811.—See [Appendix C].
[33]Instead of tracing the Nelson River from its source to the sea, it will be expedient to annex a map of the river from Lake Winnipeg to the Gull Lake, shewing also the portages, &c.; and this part of the river may be taken as a sample of the whole.
[34]The badge of his dignity among the Indians.
[35]The title by which he distinguished the officers of the ship from the gentlemen of the factory.
[36]A very expressive name given by the Indians to spirituous liquors, signifying Mad-Water.
[37]Whilst this Journal was preparing for the press, the following article appeared in many of the Daily Prints.
“Intelligence has been received, by a late arrival from Canada, of the entire dispersion of the Colony founded by Lord Selkirk, in conjunction with the Hudson’s-Bay Company, on the River Asnaboyne, in the interior of the N. W. Continent of America. Disputes with the Metiffs of the Country, a race of people between Canadians and Indians, inflamed the natural jealousy which the latter have always felt, relative to the agricultural encroachments on their hunting-grounds in the interior, and, we understand, compelled his Lordship’s Governor to abandon the establishment which had been made.”—“About one hundred and forty settlers were conveyed by the Canadian traders to Lake Superior, on their way to Canada; and the remainder are supposed to have gone to Hudson’s Bay, with a view of finding a passage to Great Britain.
“The Governor, Mr. McDonald, and a Sheriff, also appointed by Lord Selkirk (Mr. Spencer), were brought down prisoners to Montreal; the one for having granted, the other for having executed, a warrant, under the authority of which, provisions, the property of Canadian traders, were seized during the preceding winter, for the maintenance of the colonists; and these gentlemen were admitted to bail in the Courts of Lower Canada, to take their trials for this alleged offence.”
Whatever may be the decision of the Judges on this trial, the Metiffs will have succeeded in their malevolent intention, that of destroying all prospect of the Colony ever arriving to a flourishing condition.
[38]See Pinkerton’s Geography.
[39]Here Mr. Pinkerton, although perfectly correct in every other respect, has fallen into the same error as other geographers; namely, in peopling Hudson’s Bay with Esquimaux: whereas, the Cree Indians, who inhabit the Bay, are not savage, take no care of their eyes, and are clothed by the European traders.
[40]Here he plainly alludes to the Esquimaux of Hudson’s Straits; not to the Cree Indians of the Bay.
[41]At present they employ but two ships, and consequently considerably fewer seamen.
[42]For the amusement of persons who are desirous of such information, I have annexed an abstract of the ship’s reckoning from Cape Resolution to the Orkneys. See [Appendix D].
[43]See Walter Scott’s Notes on Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field.
[44]Fossil timber, in a mineralized state, is found in the Orkneys and in the Hebrides. In the island of Skie there was found part of a large tree mineralized by Hornstone; which is now in the possession of the Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge.
[45]So called by the Canadians.