The consequences resulting from this extensive discovery are obvious. We now see that the continent of North America stretches from Hudson’s Bay so far to the north-west that Mr. Hearne had travelled near thirteen hundred miles before he arrived at the sea. His most western distance from the coast of Hudson’s Bay was near six hundred miles[49]; and that his Indian guides were well apprized of a vast tract of continent stretching farther on in that direction is certain from many circumstances mentioned in his journal; one of which, as besides establishing this fact, it presents us with a very striking picture of savage life, has been transcribed in the following note.[50] What is now for the first time authentically laid before the public, with regard to the discoveries made by the Hudson’s Bay Company, was well known to the noble lord who presided at the Board of Admiralty, when this voyage was undertaken; and the intimate connection of those discoveries with the plan of the voyage, of course regulated the instructions given to Captain Cook. And now, may we not take it upon us to appeal to every candid and capable inquirer, whether that part of the instructions which directed the captain _not to lose time, in exploring rivers or inlets, or upon any other account, till he got into the latitude_ of 65°, was not framed judiciously: as there were such indubitable proofs that no passage existed so far to the south as any part of Hudson’s Bay, and that if a passage could be effected at all, part of it at least must be traversed by the ships as far to the northward as the latitude 72°, where Mr. Hearne arrived at the sea? We may add as a farther consideration, in support of this article of the instructions, that Beering’s Asiatic discoveries, in 1728, having traced that continent to the latitude of 67°, Captain Cook’s approach toward that latitude was to be wished for, that he might be enabled to bring back more authentic information than the world had hitherto obtained, about the relative situation and vicinity of the two continents, which was absolutely necessary to be known, before the practicability of sailing between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in any northern direction, could be ascertained.