countries, pretending to law or government, held sacred from examination, save by authorized persons, and from spoliation by any person. I hesitate not to assert, that the depositories of my brother were rifled of valuable papers; and I call upon you who hold rule in the country in which the violation was, as I believe, committed, to take cognizance of such an unjustifiable proceeding.

“The abstractors, though they removed (as no doubt they were ordered to remove) all such papers as might afford me legal grounds for proceeding against the Hudson's Bay Company for the fulfilment of pledges given to my brother, fortunately passed unnoticed a small bundle containing original sketches of letters addressed by my brother to you, previous to and during his Arctic expedition.

"You know what comments these letters would bear out: but I shall, at present, confine myself to the pledges which they inform me you gave him previous to his entering on Arctic discovery.

"I stated to the Directors of the Hudson's Bay Company the claims grounded on these pledges thus,―

"Previous to starting on the expedition as your responsible agent in North America, Governor

Simpson, promised to my brother a Chief Tradership in return for his past services. I claim the fulfilment of that promise the year after it was made.

"He promised him a Chief Factorship on reaching Back's Great Fish River. He reached it in 1839; and I claim the fulfilment of that promise from 1840.

"The power to appoint officers to the emoluments of Chief Factors and Chief Traders is, by the Constitution of the Company, solely vested in you. Sir George Simpson is your avowed confidential Agent. Qui agit per alium agit per se.'

"The claims thus set forth were repudiated' by the Honourable Directors on the ground 'that you had no authority to bestow appointments: but, Sir, that you made such promises as induced my brother to believe that such appointments were to be his immediate reward is clear and undeniable; and I now call upon you to come forward and obtain their fulfilment.

"I am, Sir,

"Your very obedient servant,

"ALEXANDER SIMPSON."

No answer has been received to the above.

POSTSCRIPT ON ARCTIC DISCOVERY.

It will be observed by reference to my brother's letters, and to his last will, that he considered that, through his discoveries, the question of the existence of a north-west passage had been finally solved in the affirmative. It will also have been seen that the opinions of the English press were to the same effect in fact, that thereon he founded his claim.

Was this claim unfounded?-Can any subsequent explorations deprive him of the merit of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by an open sea-communication ?

To this point I have already adverted; and I should not have returned to the subject, had I not observed, while preparing the foregoing pages for the press, that it is in contemplation by the British Government to send out another maritime expedition-(how many have already failed!) - for the discovery of a North Polar passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The connexion by my brother of the discovery on the Polar coasts of Beechey, Franklin, and Back, forming a continuous line of Arctic American Sea-board of sixty-two degrees of longitude, is, of course, perfectly incontrovertible. The only possible point on which a doubt

can be hung as to his having completed the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is, whether he reached the same sea which Sir John Ross sailed down in the Victory, passing through Barrow's Straits, and Prince Regent's Inlet; and which Parry saw before him from the western extremity of the Straits of the Fury and Hecla.'

His own opinion that he had reached this gulf is thus expressed :-" We could therefore hardly doubt being now arrived at that large gulf uniformly described by the Esquimaux as containing many islands, and with many indentations running down to the southward, till it approaches within forty miles of Repulse and Wager Bays."

The correctness of this opinion has not been questioned by those best acquainted with the subject, until a very recent period, when a conjecture has been hazarded, that North Somerset is a part of the main continent of America.' *

This conjecture implies the existence of an isthmus connecting Boothia Felix with the continent. As I have already pointed out such an isthmus was asserted by Sir John Ross to exist. Back's voyage went far to disprove this assertion, and an inspection of the chart, as now

* Dr. King in letters on Arctic Discovery, addressed to Sir J. Barrow.

all but filled up by my brother's discoveries, will, I am convinced, satisfactorily prove its incorrect

ness.

It will be seen that after passing through a narrow strait, in which there was a rapid rush of tide from the east,* my brother passed the Estuary of Back's Great Fish River, and proceeding some distance further, with a clear sea, reached lon. 94° 14'; and obtained a view of the coast for eight miles further. This was an advance to precisely the same parallel of longitude that had been reached by Sir John Ross in the Victory; and the distance between the two points attained in their sea-going craft, i.e., Felix Harbour (Ross), and River Castor and Pollux (Simpson), is less than one hundred miles in a line due north and south. Pedestrian excursions made from the Victory reduce this blank to less than sixty miles.

* I find it recorded in my brother's notes (there is but one other case which has come under my notice, in which his notes add to the distinctness of his dispatches and narrative), that "there are strong currents or little races among the islands in the Strait of Boothia, also in the estuary of the Great Fish River." If the comparatively open sea, to which the Strait of Boothia led, were merely a cul de sac, as the junction of Boothia Felix to the continent would make it, how are we to account for these "strong currents or little races?" Are they not indicatory of this being the open passage between two oceans?