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 fresh water river_, and that Middleton, if he had examined it properly, would have found a passage through it to the Western American Ocean. The failure of this voyage, therefore, only served to furnish our zealous advocate for the discovery, with new arguments for attempting it once more; and he had the good fortune, after getting the reward of twenty thousand pounds established by act of parliament, to prevail upon a society of gentlemen and merchants to fit out the Dobbs and California; which ships, 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 misrepresented. This renovation of hope only produced fresh disappointment. For it is well known, that the voyage of the Dobbs and California, instead of confuting, strongly confirmed all that Middleton had asserted. The supposed strait was found to be nothing more than a fresh water river, and its utmost western navigable boundaries were now ascertained, by accurate examination. But though Wager’s Strait had thus disappointed our hopes, as had also done Rankin’s Inlet, which was now found to be a close bay; and though other arguments, founded on the supposed course of the tides in Hudson’s Bay appeared to be groundless, such is our attachment to an opinion once adopted, that, even after the unsuccessful issue of the voyage of the Dobbs and California, a passage through some other place in that bay was, by many, considered as attainable; and, particularly, Chesterfield’s (formerly called Bowden’s) Inlet, lying between latitude 63° and 64°, succeeded Wager’s Strait, in the sanguine expectations of those who remained unconvinced by former disappointments. Mr. Ellis, who was on board the ships, and who wrote the history of the voyage, holds up this as one of the places where the passage may be sought for, _upon very rational grounds, and with very good effects_.[44] He also mentions Repulse Bay, nearly in latitude 67°; but as to this he speaks less confidently; only saying, that by an attempt there, we might probably _approach nearer to the discovery_.[45] He had good reason for thus guarding his expression; for the committee who directed this voyage, admitting the impracticability of effecting a passage at Repulse Bay, had refused allowing the ships to go into it, _being satisfied as to that place_.[46] Setting Repulse Bay, therefore, aside, within which we have no reason for believing that any inlet exists, there remained no part of Hudson’s Bay to be searched, but Chesterfield’s Inlet, and a small track of coast between the latitude 62°, and what is called the South Point of Main, which had been left unexplored by the Dobbs and California.