"Well, and have I not sacrificed everything for it?"
"No, Hatteras, you have not sacrificed your personal antipathies. Even at this very moment I know you are in the mood to refuse the indispensable conditions of reaching the pole."
"Ah! it is the boat you want to talk about, and that man--"
"Hatteras, let us discuss the question calmly, and examine the case on all sides. The coast on which we find ourselves at present may terminate abruptly; we have no proof that it stretches right away to the pole; indeed, if your present information prove correct, we ought to come to an open sea during the summer months. Well, supposing we reach this Arctic Ocean and find it free from ice and easy to navigate, what shall we do if we have no ship?"
Hatteras made no reply.
"Tell me, now, would you like to find yourself only a few miles from the pole and not be able to get to it?"
Hatteras still said nothing, but buried his head in his hands.
"Besides," continued the Doctor, "look at the question in its moral aspect. Here is an Englishman who sacrifices his fortune, and even his life, to win fresh glory for his country, but because the boat which bears him across an unknown ocean, or touches the new shore, happens to be made of the planks of an American vessel-a cast-away wreck of no use to anyone-will that lessen the honour of the discovery? If you yourself had found the hull of some wrecked vessel lying deserted on the shore, would you have hesitated to make use of it; and must not a sloop built by four Englishmen and manned by four Englishmen be English from keel to gunwale?"
Hatteras was still silent.
"No," continued Clawbonny; "the real truth is, it is not the sloop you care about: it is the man."