We must next direct our attention to what has been done since the
commencement of the eighteenth century, toward discovering a passage in the
north-east of America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
One of the conditions on which the Hudson's Bay Company obtained their
charter, in the year 1670, from Charles II., was, that they should
prosecute their discoveries; but so far from doing this, they are accused,
and with great appearance of reason, of not only suffering their ardour for
discovery to cool, but also of endeavouring to conceal, as much as
possible, the true situation and nature of the coast about Hudson's Bay,
partly in order to secure more effectually their monopoly, and partly from
the dread they entertained, that if a passage to the Pacific were
discovered by this route, government would recal their charter, and grant
it to the East India Company. They were indeed roused, but very
ineffectively, from their torpor, by one of their captains intimating, that
if they refused to fulfill the terms of their charter, by making
discoveries, and extending their trade, he would himself apply to the
crown. In order to silence him, they sent him and another captain out in
two vessels, in 1719 or 1720; but they both perished, it is supposed, near
Marble Island, without effecting any thing.
Two years afterwards they sent out another ship under the command of a
person, who, destitute of the requisite knowledge and enterprize, was
totally unfit for such an undertaking: the result was such as might have
been anticipated--nothing was effected.
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