Our limits compel us to pass over the voyages of Stephen Bennet (1603–1610), Jonas Poole (1610–1613), and Captain Luke Fox (1631). In 1631 the merchants of Bristol despatched Captain Thomas James, but he made no additions to the discoveries of his predecessors. And then for nearly two centuries England abandoned her efforts to open up a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In 1818, however, the question of the existence of a North-West Passage once more occupied the public mind; and the British Government accordingly fitted out an exploring expedition, the _Isabella_ and the _Alexander_, under the command of Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry. They sailed from England on the 18th of April, reached the southern edge of the Baffin Bay ice on the 2nd of July, and, after a detention of thirty-eight days, reached the North Water on August 8th. The capes on each side of the mouth of Smith Sound, Ross named after his two ships; and having accomplished this much, he affirmed that he saw land against the horizon at a distance of eight leagues, and then retraced his course, and sailed for England. The British Government, however, refused to be discouraged by the failure of an expedition which had obviously been conducted with an entire absence of vigour and enterprise. They therefore equipped the _Hecla_ and the _Griper_, and gave the command to Lieutenant Parry; who sailed from the Thames on the 5th of May 1819, and on the 15th of June sighted Cape Farewell. Striking northward, up Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, he found himself checked by the ice-barrier in lat. 73° N. A man of dauntless resolution, he came to the determination of forcing a passage at all hazards; and in seven days, by the exercise of a strong will, great sagacity, and first-rate seamanship, he succeeded in carrying his ships through the pack of ice, which measured eighty miles in breadth. He was then able to enter Sir James Lancaster Sound; and up this noble inlet he proceeded with a fair wind, hopeful of entering the great Polar Sea. But after advancing a considerable distance, he was once more met by the frozen powers of the North, and this time he was forced to own himself vanquished. He accordingly returned towards the south, discovering Barrow Strait; and, more to the westward, an inlet which has since figured conspicuously in Arctic voyages--Wellington Channel. Bathurst Island he also added to the map; and afterwards he came in sight of Melville Island. On the 4th of September he attained the meridian of 110° W. long., and thus became entitled to the Parliamentary grant of £5000. A convenient harbour in the vicinity was named the “Bay of the _Hecla_ and the _Griper_,” and here Lieutenant Parry resolved upon passing the winter.