"You are, with the first opportunity of wind and weather, to depart from Gravesend on your intended {xxvii} voyage, and by God's permission, to find out the Straits of Anian, in order to discover gold and other valuable commodities to the Northward, &c. &c."
Mr. Knight soon left Gravesend, and proceeded on his voyage; but the ship not returning to England that year, as was expected, it was judged that she had wintered in Hudson's Bay; and having on board a good stock of provisions, a house in frame, together with all necessary mechanics, and a great assortment of trading goods, little or no thoughts were entertained of their not being in safety; but as neither ship nor sloop returned to England in the following year, (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), the Company were much alarmed for their welfare; and, by their ship which went to Churchill in the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one, they sent orders for a sloop called the Whale-Bone, John Scroggs Master, to go in search of them; but the ship not arriving in Churchill till late in the year, those orders could not be put in execution till the Summer following (one thousand seven hundred and twenty-two).
The North West coast of Hudson's Bay being little known in those days, and Mr. Scroggs finding himself greatly embarrassed with shoals and rocks, returned to Prince of Wales's Fort without making any certain discovery respecting the above ship or sloop; for all the marks he saw among the Esquimaux at Whale Cove scarcely {xxviii} amounted to the spoils which might have been made from a trifling accident, and consequently could not be considered as signs of a total shipwreck.
The strong opinion which then prevailed in Europe respecting the probability of a North West passage by the way of Hudson's Bay, made many conjecture that Messrs. Knight and Barlow had found that passage, and had gone through it into the South Sea, by the way of California. Many years elapsed without any other convincing proof occurring to the contrary, except that Middleton, Ellis, Bean, Christopher, and Johnston, had not been able to find any such passage. And notwithstanding a sloop was annually sent to the Northward on discovery, and to trade with the Esquimaux, it was the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven, before we had positive proofs that poor Mr. Knight and Captain Barlow had been lost in Hudson's Bay.
The Company were now carrying on a black whale fishery, and Marble Island was made the place of rendezvous, not only on account of the commodiousness of the harbour, but because it had been observed that the whales were more plentiful about that island than on any other part of the coast. This being the case, the boats, when on the look-out for fish, had frequent occasion to row close to the island, by which means they discovered a new harbour near the East end of it, at the head {xxix} of which they found guns, anchors, cables, bricks, a smith's anvil, and many other articles, which the hand of time had not defaced, and which being of no use to the natives, or too heavy to be removed by them, had not been taken from the place in which they were originally laid. The remains of the house, though pulled to pieces by the Esquimaux for the wood and iron, are yet very plain to be seen, as also the hulls, or more properly speaking, the bottoms of the ship and sloop, which lie sunk in about five fathoms water, toward the head of the harbour. The figure-head of the ship, and also the guns, &c. were sent home to the Company, and are certain proofs that Messrs. Knight and Barlow had been lost on that inhospitable island, where neither stick nor stump was to be seen, and which lies near sixteen miles from the main land. Indeed the main is little better, being a jumble of barren hills and rocks, destitute of every kind of herbage except moss and grass; and at that part, the woods are several hundreds of miles from the sea-side.
In the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine, while we were prosecuting the fishery, we saw several Esquimaux at this new harbour; and perceiving that one or two of them were greatly advanced in years, our curiosity was excited to ask them some questions concerning the above ship and sloop, which we were the better enabled to do by the assistance of an Esquimaux, who was then in the Company's service as a linguist, and annually sailed in one of their vessels in that character. The {xxx} account which we received from them was full, clear, and unreserved, and the sum of it was to the following purport:
When the vessels arrived at this place (Marble Island) it was very late in the Fall, and in getting them into the harbour, the largest received much damage; but on being fairly in, the English began to build the house, their number at that time seeming to be about fifty. As soon as the ice permitted, in the following Summer, (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), the Esquimaux paid them another visit, by which time the number of the English was greatly reduced, and those that were living seemed very unhealthy. According to the account given by the Esquimaux they were then very busily employed, but about what they could not easily describe, probably in lengthening the long-boat; for at a little distance from the house there is now lying a great quantity of oak chips, which have been most assuredly made by carpenters.
Sickness and famine occasioned such havock among the English, that by the setting in of the second Winter their number was reduced to twenty. That Winter (one thousand seven hundred and twenty) some of the Esquimaux took up their abode on the opposite side of the harbour to that on which the English had built their houses,[E] and {xxxi} frequently supplied them with such provisions as they had, which chiefly consisted of whale's blubber and seal's flesh and train oil. When the Spring advanced, the Esquimaux went to the continent, and on their visiting Marble Island again, in the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one, they only found five of the English alive, and those were in such distress for provisions that they eagerly eat the seal's flesh and whale's blubber quite raw, as they purchased it from the natives. This disordered them so much, that three of them died in a few days, and the other two, though very weak, made a shift to bury them. Those two survived many days after the rest, and frequently went to the top of an adjacent rock, and earnestly looked to the South and East, as if in expectation of some vessels coming to their relief. After continuing there a considerable time together, and nothing appearing in sight, they sat down close together, and wept bitterly. At length one of the two died, and the other's strength was so far exhausted, that he fell down and died also, in attempting to dig a grave for his companion. The {xxxii} sculls and other large bones of those two men are now lying above-ground close to the house. The longest liver was, according to the Esquimaux account, always employed in working of iron into implements for them; probably he was the armourer, or smith.
Some Northern Indians who came to trade at Prince of Wales's Fort in the Spring of the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight, brought farther accounts of the grand river, as it was called, and also several pieces of copper, as samples of the produce of the mine near it; which determined Mr. Norton, who was then Governor at Churchill, to represent it to the Company as an affair worthy of their attention; and as he went that year to England, he had an opportunity of laying all the information he had received before the Board, with his opinion thereon, and the plan which he thought most likely to succeed in the discovery of those mines. In consequence of Mr. Norton's representations, the Committee resolved to send an intelligent person by land to observe the longitude and latitude of the river's mouth, to make a chart of the country he might walk through, with such remarks as occurred to him during the Journey; when I was pitched on as a proper person to conduct the expedition. By the ship that went to Churchill in the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine, the Company sent out some astronomical instruments, very portable, and fit for such observations as they required me {xxxiii} to make, and at the same time requested me to undertake the Journey, promising to allow me at my return, a gratuity proportionable to the trouble and fatigue I might undergo in the expedition.[F]