Further instructions to Company's officials.
It also urged Governor Pilgrim and Council, at Prince of Wales' Fort, "to keep a good watch, and your men near home, except those that are guarding the battery at Cape Merry, but not to hinder a proper number to be employed in providing a sufficient quantity of the country provisions to prevent the complaint of those persons that murmur for want of victuals; and we recommend sobriety, that you may be capable of making a vigorous defence if attacked.
"We again recommend your keeping the land, round the Fort and the Battery at Cape Merry, free from everything that may possibly conceal or shelter an enemy, that you may thereby prevent being surprised.
"We again direct that you keep up a general correspondence with all the Factories, and get what intelligence you can of the designs of the French."
Plans of York and Prince of Wales' Forts.
The course of events now bids us return to Dobbs and the renewed endeavours to find a north-west passage through the Company's territory.
A number of public-spirited persons came forward for the prosecution of the design. Parliament was urged to act in the matter, and a bill was carried, offering a reward of twenty thousand pounds for the discovery of the north-west passage.
Parliament and the North-West passage.