Foxe had found his master and mate to be nuisances and hindrances throughout the voyage, and the former was very pusillanimous. Now his difficulties were much increased by the spread of sickness among the crew. His decision to return without risking a winter was no doubt right. He took all possible means at his disposal for the good of the sick, and established a dietary of four beef days in the week. Passing Cape Chidley on the 15th, the _Charles_ arrived off the Downs on the 31st October, 1631, “not having lost one man nor boy, nor any manner of tackling.” The account of his voyage published by Luke Foxe is a remarkable book in several respects. It is the first attempt to give a history of all the Arctic voyages which preceded his own, from the account of Othere’s voyage given by King Alfred down to his own time. It contains the only narrative that has been preserved of the voyage of Button. His own story is that of a well-conducted and, on the whole, successful expedition. Above all, “North-West Foxe,” as he calls himself, has given us the quaintest and most amusing narrative in the whole range of Polar literature, which is fairly voluminous. His too obvious self-conceit and very high estimation of the merits of North-West Foxe himself may well be forgiven for the sake of his quaint remarks and the amusing style of his writing. Foxe’s book is an acquisition to Arctic literature. One more rather unimportant expedition closes the first period of Arctic endeavour. John Wood was a Master’s mate in the _Sweepstakes_ under Sir John Narborough when a voyage was undertaken through Magellan’s Strait to Chile in 1669. He gave want of employment and aversion to an idle life as reasons for submitting a plan to Government for discovering the north-east passage. The plan met with the approval of Samuel Pepys, the Secretary to the Admiralty, and Wood received the command of the _Speedwell_, with the _Prosperous_ pink as a tender. The _Speedwell_ also had the eminent hydrographer Grenville Collins on board. The expedition sailed on the 28th May, 1676; the polar pack between the North Cape and Novaya Zemlya was reached on the 22nd June, and Novaya Zemlya was sighted on the 26th. But there was no one on board with any experience of ice navigation; the _Speedwell_ grounded on the 29th and became a wreck. Fortune, however, favoured the crew. There was no loss of life, and all the members of the expedition returned home in the pink, arriving in the Thames on the 24th August.