enabled to make, induced him to change his opinion ; and,
on his return to England, he made an unfavourable report.
Mr. Dobbs, the patron of the enterprize, did not acquiefce
in this; and, fortified in his original idea o f the practicability
of the paflage, by the teilimony of fome o f Middleton’s
officers, he appealed to the Public, accufing him of having
mifreprefented fads, and of having, from intereft.ed motives,
in concert with the Hudfon’s Bay Company, decided
againft the pradicability of the paffage, though the difco-
veries of his own voyage had put it within his reach.
He had, between the latitude of 65° and 66°, found a very
confiderable inlet running Weftward, into which he entered
With his ihips; and, “ after repeated trials of the tides, and
“ endeavours to difcover the nature and cOurfe of the open-
“ ing, for three weeks fucceffively, he found the flood con-
w flantly to come from the Eaftward, and that it was a large
“ river he had got into,” to Which he gave the name o f
Wager River *.
The accuracy, or rather the fidelity of this report was denied
by Mr. Dobbs, who contended that this opening is a
Strait, and not a freflo, •water river, and that Middleton, if he
had examined it properly, would have found a paflage
through it to the Weflern American Ocean. The failure
of this voyage, therefore, only ferved to furniih our zealous
advocate for the difcovery, with new arguments for attempting
it once more; and he had the good fortune, after
getting the reward of twenty thoufand pounds eflabliihed
by aft of parliament, to prevail upon a fociety o f gentlemen
and merchants to fit out the Dobbs and California
* See the Abitract of his Journal, publiihed by Mr. Dobbs.
which
which ihips, it was hoped, would be able to find their way
into the Pacific Ocean, by the very opening which Middleton’s
voyage had pointed out, and which he was believed to
have mifreprefented.
This renovation o f hope only produced frefli difappoint-
ment. For it is well knp.wn, that the voyage o f the Dobbs
and California, inftead o f confuting, ftrongly confirmed all
that Middleton hid ailer ted. The id.p.pofed Strait ty/it; found
to be nothing more than a fre-ih. water river, and its wnaofl:
Weftern navigable boundaries were now afcertained, by accurate
examination. But though Wager’s Strait had thus
difappointed our hopes, as had alfo done Rankin’s Inlet,
which was now found to be a clofe Bay; and though
other arguments, founded on the fuppofed courfe of the
tides in Hudfon’s Bay, appeared to be groundlefs; fuch is our
attachment to an opinion once adopted, that, even after the
unfuccefsful iflue of the voyage of the Dobbs and California,
a paflage through fome other place in that Bay was, by
many, confidered as attainable; and, particularly, Chefter-
field s (formerly called Bowden’ s)- Inlet, lying between latitude
63° and 64°, fucceeded Wager’s Strait, in the fanguine
expe&ations of thofe who remained unconvinced by former
difappointments. Mr. Ellis, who was on board the ihips,
and who wrote the hiftory of the voyage, holds up this as
one of the places where the paflage may be fought for,
upon very rational grounds, and with very good effects *, He alfo
mentions Repulfe Bay, nearly in latitude '67°; but as to this
he fpeaks lefs confidently ; only faying, that by an attempt
there, we might probably approach nearer to the difcovery f.
He had good reafon for thus guarding his expreffion; for
* Ellis’s Voyage, p, 3-28.
f 2
f I^)id. p, 330.
the