No voyage of discovery since the world began was ever made under such circumstances. Numerous members of the crew, who had got wind of the situation, were filled, or professed to be filled, with distrust of their captain. Caring nothing about the voyage itself or the object for which it was undertaken, they entered with zeal a hundred times a day into plots to make the commander's life unbearable. The supposed passage was christened the "Forbidden Straits," and the crews vastly amused themselves with Middleton's supposed discomfiture. Several were very nearly yard-armed for spreading reports that the captain had purposely sailed past the straits. Sometimes the captain merely laughed at the views of his subordinates; at other times, it is said, he flew into a temper, and indulged in threats and abuse. Once, when from the number of whales and the breadth and depth of the river, word sped from mouth to mouth that it was a strait they were in, and no river, "he rated several of them for pretending to say so against his opinion, saying his clerk was a double-tongued rascal, that he would cane the lieutenant, broomstick the master, and lash any others who would concern themselves about the voyage." It was, moreover, charged against Middleton that he interdicted the keeping of private journals, and that if any disobeyed this order he threatened to break open their boxes and get possession of such records. Once when the lieutenants and masters were absent down the river to look for a cove for the ships, Middleton grimly observed that he supposed the former would bring back "some romantick account of a strait or passage." Nevertheless, for his part, he would not take the ships a foot farther. Intrigue characterized the whole of this voyage of discovery.
The officers of both the Furnace and the Discovery took turns in making jaunts into the country. On the 8th of August, Captain Middleton, the clerk, gunner, and carpenter went ashore at Cape Frigid, and after pacing some fifteen miles into the country, returned, to find the ship drifted, although it lacked some hours of high water. Rankin and the men on board from this had become convinced that it was the effects of the flood from the supposed strait. The captain laughed them to scorn, and said that if it came from any strait at all it was Hudson's Strait.
Two northern Indians were taken on board the Discovery, and Thompson, the surgeon, who could speak some of the southern tongue, began busying himself making a vocabulary of their language. At this innocent occupation he was observed by Middleton, who threatened to "crop him" in case he persisted. When they reached Marble Island, although the two Indians were desirous of going to England, he put the pair ashore in a bad boat they were ignorant of how to manage. The supplications of the unhappy savages were useless to turn the Company's captain from his purpose. In vain they told him that the island was three leagues from the mainland, and a hundred miles from their own country; that it was inhabited by the Esquimaux, their enemies.
"The Captain gave them some provisions, ammunition, hatchets and toys. The excuse he made for not bringing them to England was, that upon his return his friends might be out of the Admiralty, and as he had no orders to take them home, they would be left a charge upon him." This was plausible, but Middleton's detractors did not rest there. They accused the captain of saying that he was afraid the Indians, when they learned to speak English, would be talking of the copper mine and the north-west passage, and would thereby put the public to the expense of sending out more ships in quest of it. "And this, no doubt," commented Dobbs, "was the true reason for that piece of cruelty, for he thought if they came to England he should not be able to conceal the passage."
On Middleton's return, after his quest, he was accused of saying, "My character is so well established as a discoverer that no man will ever, hereafter, attempt to discover the north-west passage."
Middleton returns without discovering the passage.
He certainly received a cordial invitation from the Government, the Admiralty and the Court. Immediately upon his arrival in London he communicated with several of the partners of the Hudson's Bay Company. The preparation of his journal occupied for a time his leisure. "He himself," says Dobbs, "had got great reputation from the Royal Society for his observations upon cold; and for what he had discovered had got a medal from them. He was upon good terms with the Lords of the Admiralty, and was to dedicate his charts and discoveries to the King and noblemen of the first rank as well as to the Lords of the Admiralty." That the Lords of the Admiralty were perfectly satisfied with his conduct, there is every reason to believe, as in the following year Middleton was placed in command of the Shark, a sloop. All this naturally put him into a position to serve those under him. All his recommendations for promotion only strengthened the suspicions gathering in the mind of Dobbs and his fellow-patrons. "He had recommended also his lieutenant, and thought none other on board had weight enough to impeach his proceedings, which, if they failed in, would ruin their characters; so that securing his officers, he thought all things would be safe amongst the crew. But Middleton was not one to forget the patron and prime mover of the expedition, whom he endeavoured to propitiate by sending him an abstract of his journal. This abstract seemed, to Dobbs, to be so full of contradictions and discrepancies, that he wrote to the explorer to send him, if possible, the journal itself. He had scarcely dispatched this communication when he received a letter from Lanrick, "a gentleman who had been bred a scholar," who had accompanied Middleton on the voyage. It was substantially the same account rendered by the captain, with this added paragraph:
"Sir,—This account I should have sent you before now but that the Captain, for reasons to himself best known, desired that none of us should say anything about it relating to the discovery for a little."
This very natural desire on the part of an explorer, about to become an author, seems to have been fraught with deep and incriminating significance to Dobbs. After a short time the whole of Middleton's journal reached him; it appeared to confirm all Dobbs's presentiments.
Suspicion attaches to Middleton.