It is with no ordinary feeling of pride and pleasure that we claim THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE as a countryman. His father, Captain M'Clure of the 89th Regiment, served with great distinction under Abercrombie in Egypt, and was beside that brave general when he fell mortally wounded at the battle of Aboukir. In 1806 he married Jane, only daughter of the venerable Archdeacon Elgee, rector of Wexford, but survived the marriage only four months. The posthumous child of this union was Robert John Le Mesurier M'Clure, the subject of our memoir; born in Wexford, at the residence of his grandfather, Archdeacon Elgee, January 28th, 1807, where he remained for the first four years of his life, under the care of his young mother, who had the singular destiny of being wife, widow, and mother in one year, and before she had attained the age of nineteen. The sponsor for the fatherless child was General Le Mesurier, hereditary Governor of Alderney, a man of immense wealth and noble character. A peculiar friendship had existed between him and the elder M'Clure; they were brother officers, and Captain M'Clure had once saved the General's life in Egypt. From this a promise arose, the General then having no children, that should his friend ever marry and have a son, he would adopt him as his own. Accordingly, when the young Robert was four years old, General Le Mesurier wrote to claim him, in fulfilment of this promise, and he was taken to Alderney by his uncle, the present rector of Wexford, who describes him as being then singularly attractive, and remembers well the fearless pleasure manifested by the child, even at that age, at being on the water for the first time. From that period till he was twelve years old, young M'Clure resided in the princely residence of the Governor, as the adopted child and son of the house. But then, an unlooked-for change took place in General Le Mesurier's family. After twenty-three years of childless marriage, his lady presented him in three successive years with

three sons, the youngest of whom is now the inheritor of his father's vast wealth and munificent spirit.*

Young M'Clure was sent to Eton, and from thence to Sandhurst, but the military profession was distasteful to him; and in a short time, with the love of adventure instinctive to his nature, and the rashness of sixteen, he left the college with three young noblemen, fellow-students there, and proceeded to France, determined never to enter the college walls again.

With undiminished kindness, General Le Mesurier now allowed him to select his own profession, and shortly after, he was appointed midshipman on board Lord Nelson's old ship, the Victory.

With such associations he began his naval

career.

During the next ten years he served in various parts of the globe; his animated, elastic nature, full of life, energy, and mental force, along with the extreme fascination of his manners, gaining him the love of his brother officers, and the good-will and affectionate interest of every commander he served under.

In 1836, he had already served six years as mate, and passed his examination as lieutenant, when, not being on active service, his destiny led him to the Admiralty to seek employment. On entering the audience-chamber, a high official then present exclaimed, "M'Clure, you are just the man we want. There is an expedition fitting out for the North Pole; will you join ?"

The young officer was unable to pronounce at once. He retired to the ante-room, and sat down on a chair to meditate. The old porter, who was by, asked him "What he had on his mind." M'Clure told him. "Well," said he, "I saw Nelson sitting on that very chair, thinking just like you what he would do, and he took what they offered him. you do the same." M'Clure accepted the omen,

Do

Mr. Le Mesuirer gave lately a donation of £10,000 towards building a church at Alderney.

This was the twelfth expedition undertaken since the year 1819, for the discovery of the north-west passage, that frozen phantom which had been haunting the minds of navigators and commercial men for centuries.

Within the limits of 23° from the shores of the known continent to the pole, the problem was to be solved. To search an area of the earth's surface, above 8,000 miles in extent, yet untrodden beyond the arctic circle; to find the icy sea, and plough a channel through it from one great ocean to the other; or discover the fair and beautiful land, the Polynia, which the Russians dream lies beyond the eternal ice-barrier, up at the extreme polar limit; these were objects that might well kindle the imagination, and inspire daring hearts with courage sufficient to make them brave all the terrible desolation and unknown horrors of the icy

zone.

During a long course of years, science and daring advanced far upon the frozen regions, baptizing cape, and bay, and headland, with names that in themselves are histories of heroism and suffering unequalled in the annals of human progress, and still each step was a conquest upon the unknown. New seas, new lands revealed themselves to each successive navigator. The grand object indeed was as yet unattained, but every brave mau fancied, as he went forth heroically to the ice-world, that perhaps the glory of success might be his. And when M'Clure, at twenty-nine, gave up all the brilliancy and beauty of life for the sunless, silent, frozen region where nature lies for ever a corpse, covered with a snow shroud, who can tell what starry prescient hope may have lit his mind, that by him the great problem of the centuries would at length be solved?

To understand fully the nature of the great achievement of which Captain M'Clure is the hero, we must take a glance at Arctic history; we must see how ten centuries had vainly dashed against the ice-barrier, which has opened but for him; how the fine brain and intellect of Europe warred ceaselessly for four hundred years against the frost-giants; and how still the best and bravest of Europe are found in the conflict, some as conquerors, some as martyrs, till you can track the progress of the combat by the memories of dead men in their icy graves.

From the earliest times, seafaring nations had tried to penetrate the mysteries of the

as the ninth century, reached Iceland, where the Irish, it is said, had even preceded them; and a century later, Eric of Iceland, the first arctic navigator, "set forth westward to search for other lands." These Scandinavians, from their wild sea-rovings, brought back tales of lofty islands walled with glaciers, and others so fair, they named them Green-land and Vin-land; but this land of grapes has never since revealed itself, though searched for subsequently in all directions, from Labrador to the Azores. Wandering mariners, too, in these northern latitudes, spoke of the strange barrier, neither earth, air, nor sky, but all three, through which it was impossible to penetrate." Here, in this unknown ocean, tradition and fable had placed their marvels: the island of St. Brenda, only visible at peculiar times and to favored eyes; and that other strange island of gloom and mystery, five days' sail from the Orkneys, to which the souls of the dead were ferried over at midnight, according to the belief of the fishermen along the wild sea-coast of western Ireland. Here also Plato placed his Atlantis, and Strabo prognosticated that one or more worlds might be found there, inhabited by races different from the old continent; and still, as the prescience of discovery haunted the human mind, all the great nations of antiquity came in turn, and gazed from the Pillars of Hercules upon the mare tenebrosum, whose waters they believed connected Europe with eastern Asia.

Two paths to India were indicated by tradition and science: the north-west by the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, (that tried by the Vikings of Scandinavia ;) and the south-west, by the Canaries and Azores, tried by the maritimal Phoenicians. But no great and serious measures towards oceanic discovery were undertaken till the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese took the lead in adventure; their object being to effect a passage to India by Africa, in order to rival Italy, at that time carrying on her trade by the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Then the beautiful ocean islands were first revealed to Europe, and imagination filled with the idea that other lands as lovely lay circled by its waters, awaiting European discovery.

The Portuguese succeeded. The path to India by the Cape was found, and the great ocean highway, eastward, to the Indies opened for the nations. To rival the Portuguese, Columbus conceived the bold idea of a western passage, across the untried waters of the

Atlantic, and thus reaching the Spice Islands even sooner than the Portugueseby their newfound Cape. A presage of the possibility of the achievement had come down the stream of time, and he undertook the voyage confident of success. Thus the name of Columbus stands first on the list of those who attempted the western passage to India, and by so doing discovered a new world.

The impulse given by Portugal and Spain continued with daring rivalry amongst European powers through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Then was the great era of maritime progression through every zone and every meridian of the earth's surfaceone of those singular epochs when the minds of men are all turned to one object-epochs which seem never to recur with similar unity and intensity of purpose. The traffic of the world was opened; islands and continents rose up in grand succession before the advancing prows of the daring ships; but one thing was wanting to the completion of geographical science-the knowledge of the north-west path to India across the Atlantic.

Great was the interest excited throughout Europe at the wonderful revelations of Columbus, especially at the Court of Henry VII., where it was affirmed to be a "thing more divine than human to sail by the west into the east, where spices do grow, by a way never known before." So, five years after he had tried a south-west passage, and discovered the West Indies, Cabot led the first north-west expedition from the English shores, and the northern continent of America was discovered. Interest heightened with success, and Sebastian Cabot, the son, undertook a second expedition. With two caravels and three hundred men, he set forth bravely, and reached Labrador, but durst pass no further for the heaps of ice." Twice afterwards he essayed the north-west passage, ever in the hope of finding Cathay, and reached to the sixty-seventh degree, when a mutiny amongst his crew obliged him to return. Still, even though he failed, honors, rewards, and a pension were bestowed on him for his services, and his memory has been transmitted to posterity as the "great seaman."

The fifteenth century had now scarcely closed, yet all Europe was hastening to set forth her adventurers and victims to the iceworld; for all human progress seems to demand human sacrifice. Two expeditions, undertaken by the Portuguese, reached as far as Hudson's Straits, but perished theretheir fate was never known. But failures are

great teachers. great teachers. When the icy barrier was found impassable that lay along the northern route to India, men turned hopefully to the south, and the Portuguese had again the honor of the lead, when Magellan, in his ship the Victoria,* passed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the straits that immortalize his name-passed to his death. A brief time after, he lay murdered in one of the ocean islands he had discovered.

East and west, southward, the Portuguese now voyaged to India, and a passage east and west, northward, was therefore deemed equally attainable. So, in the reign of the young Edward VI., a north-east expedition, by Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, was organized under command of the ill-fated Sir Hugh Willoughby, the first Englishman who wintered in the arctic regions, and perished there. The year after his departure, some Russian fishermen found him lying dead and frozen in his ship, the Esperanza, his journal beside him, and all his crew lying dead around him, like so many ice-statues.

The efforts of Cabot had stimulated all Europe; and Cortez, not content with the conquest of Mexico, offered his services to Spain to discover the north-west passage, by simultaneous voyages along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of America. His offer was not accepted, but Gomez, a Spaniard, actually undertook to find a passage due north, and proceeded some way, but had to return without achievement or discovery.

Thus, before even the close of the sixteenth century, we find the passages by the northwest, the north-east, and the due north had all been tried, and without success.

In the brilliant court of Elizabeth the idea again revived, and Frobisher sailed with three ships to find that north west passage which he considered "the only thing in the world yet left undone by which a notable mind might be made famous." All England felt interested in the search: the stately Queen herself, who ever appreciated courage and intellect, waved her hand to him at departure from the windows of her palace; and on his return presented him a chain of gold with her own hand, and conferred on him knighthood and an estate. Frobisher made three voyages with eminent success, discovered the Straits that still bear his name, and for his bravery

was

"much commended by all men, and es

By a strange coincidence, the Victoria passes first from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and in the reign of Victoria the first ship passes northward

from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

pecially famous for the hope he gave of reaching Cathay."

Drake was then in the Spanish Main. When satiated with plunder there, he passed through Magellan Straits, boldly resolving to try whether he could not reach home by the Pacific, eastward to the Atlantic. So he bore up northward, but reached no farther than California, his crew being unable to bear the colder latitudes; then sailed away across the Pacific, reached the Moluccas, and thus home to England, being the first Englishman who circumnavigated the globe. Of this effort to find a passage on the Pacific side, Barrow says, with singular prescience, "Drake's attempt is one of the most daring on record, as not a ship of any nation had as yet the opportunity; and perhaps it had never entered into any man's head to search for a passage on the west side of America, though it is most likely that by taking such a course it may be found. It will be done." And so it has, but not till two centuries and a half after Drake's splendid failure.

Great was England's enthusiasm at the return of Drake. His ship, the Golden Hind, became the resort of crowds, and the cabin was a complete banqueting-room. The Queen herself dined on board with the brave commander, and "there did knight him, and advanced him to the rank of admiral, who, preferring the honor of his country before his own life, with magnanimity undertook unwonted adventures, and went through the same with wonderful happiness." The Queen likewise ordered the ship to be laid up in dock as a trophy; and afterwards, when it fell to pieces from decay, a chair was made from the wood, and presented to Oxford. If such were the honors lavished on the Golden Hind and her brave commander, what may we not expect when M'Clure and the Investigator return, after having achieved what Drake could only attempt? Still unbroken continued the succession of martyrs in the cause of Arctic discovery. Sir Humphrey Gilbert first wrote a treatise on "The practicability of a north-west passage," then set forth with Sir Walter Raleigh to search for it. The expedition failed, and Gilbert went alone upon a second voyage. The Queen, to evince her interest, gave him one of her maids of honor in marriage, sent for his picture, and presented him with a golden anchor guided by a lady. Thus, high in hope, he set sail, but never returned. Ship, commander, and crew were seen no more. Raleigh led the next brave band, but steered southward to avoid the polar dangers, and so fell in with the whole line of Ameri

can coast, from which resulted, not the discovery of the north-west passage, but the colonization of America, and the upspringing of a great nation-Saxon and Irish in blood, and of English tongue.

Davis, meanwhile, whose name has become part of our geography, was grinding his ships amongst the ice up as high as seventy-two degrees; and great service he accomplished discovering that great highway, Davis's Straits, all have traversed since, and through which he affirmed "the passage would certainly be found."

Terrible must the untried frost-kingdom have appeared to the early navigators in their frail vessels, none of which exceeded a hundred tons. No wonder that we hear of how men prepared themselves for the fearful north-west passage, as if preparing to enter eternity. Davis complains of "the loathsome view," and the "irksome noyse of y yce." He named Greenland the Land of Desolation, and the place where he found unhoped-for anchorage, "The Bay of God's Mercy," yet he never wintered in those regions. Human courage had not reached that point of endurance; but, strong in faith, he made three voyages, helped on by the worshipful merchants of London, until men would no longer lend him money. "This Davis," they said, "hath been three times employed; why hath he not found the passage ?"

And now comes the mournful story of Barentz, and the first recorded sufferings of human creatures in a polar winter. He commanded an expedition sent by Holland in 1594 to try the north-east passage by Nova Zembla. On the first voyage they were stopped by the ice and had to return, first signing a declaration before God and the world that they had done their best to penetrate by the north to China and Japan. A second and a third time they ventured. On the last voyage the ice encircled and imprisoned them. There for eight months they strove as desperate, dying men against all the horrors of darkness, cold and famine. At last a boat was built with the remnants of the ship. As they left the shore, Barentz, the spectral leader of the ghastly crew, bade them lift him in the boat that he might gaze once more on the scene of his daring and his suffering, and so died. A few of his men reached home to tell the tale. This was the first Arctic winter Europe heard of.

A century had now passed of trial and failure, yet the hope remained. Five thousand pounds were offered by the merchants of London to the successful discoverer. En

terprise was stimulated, and an expedition set forth under Weymouth; but scarcely had they made Greenland when the terrified crew mutinied, and bore up the helm for England. Weymouth, coming forth from his cabin, demanded, "Who bore up the helm ?" "ONE AND ALL," they answered; and so the expedition turned homeward.

Still the merchants were undismayed, and they sent out Hudson, who opened the seventeenth century bravely. With one vessel and a crew of ten men he sailed due north, to try the passage across the Pole, and reached Spitzbergen; then made an attempt to sail round Greenland and home by Davis's Straits, but failed. A second and a third time he led his ship up to the ice barrier between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and was forced to return. The north and northeast passages were therefore considered hopeless, and he set out on his last and fatal voyage to the north-west, sailed up the Straits that now bear his name, and thought he beheld the Pacific in the broad waters of the bay. But winter approached; the ship was frozen in the first British ship obliged to winter there. Cold and famine came upon the crew, with all their untried horrors. Hudson "wept out of pity for their hardships;" but there was no pity for him amongst men who thought he led them out to die. They plotted dark deeds throughout the long frozen winter; then, when spring came, and the open water, they thrust Hudson forth, along with his son and six others, in an open boat, without provisions, and sailed away for England, leaving them to starve and die. Nothing more was ever heard of the murdered leader, who thus perished in the bay that preserves at once the memory of his name, his daring, and his doom.

Still the merchants continued their expeditions, telling their captains to steer straight for Japan, and bring home one of the natives as a sample; and the usual record of failures follows, till we are arrested by the name of BAFFIN, memorable ever after as the discoverer of the finest bay in the world. He sailed round it, named Smith's Sound and Lancaster Sound; but did not explore either, though suspecting the latter was the true portal to Japan. Baffin, who accomplished his discovery in one season, never wintered in the ice, and appeared to think it would for ever prove an impassable barrier to the Pacific. The best chance, he said, would be to try the passage from the Asiatic side. So, for twenty years, we hear no more of merchant expeditions.

But the Danes, meanwhile, were seeking and suffering, starving and dying in the cause. Of a crew of sixty-four who wintered in Hudson's Bay, all perished, dying one by one, of famine, disease, and despair. Yet men are not deterred; they seem even growing familiar with the idea of an Arctic winter. Two others are ready to attempt it-Luke Fox and Captain James. Charles I. gave them a letter from him, to be delivered to the Emperor of Japan, in case of success. But they only reached Hudson's Bay, where they wintered, and with such excellent arrangements, that they returned home without the loss of a single hand. These two commanders did good service, searching Hudson's Bay; and, like others, commemorated their discoveries by names expressive of fear and terror, hope and comfort, death and starvation, by which the Arctic map becomes the mental history of the Arctic heroes. Here, frozen for ever in the eternal ice, are these successive records of human emotion; grotesque names, too, at least to our ears. Thus we have "Gibbon his hole,” after Gibbon, who was blocked up there twenty weeks; "Briggs his mathematicks;" "Fox his farthest. But many are the records of sudden comfort vouchsafed, hope realized, God's mercy acknowledged, for they were Christian men, as all brave men mostly are; and from first to last, from the time when Sir Humphrey Gilbert stood on the deck of his sinking vessel, and called out to his crew, as they drifted in the darkness to death, "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land," to the hour when Franklin and Richardson sat starving in the desolate fort of the Coppermine river by the unburied bodies of their dead companions; or M'Clure, in that frozen winter in the Bay of Mercy, two thousand miles from all human aid, thanks "a beneficent Providence for his blessing," we have no record of a time when the daily prayer was omitted, or the daily trust in God grew faint.

After the Restoration, we find Prince Rupert taking warm interest in the cause; and through his exertions a charter was granted to certain merchants, giving them the trade and territories of Hudson's Bay, by which jurisdiction was obtained over a district onethird larger than all Europe, under the name of "Rupert's Land." For nearly two hundred years the Company have now been enjoying the enormous rights conceded by their charter; and civilization, with all its gayety, wealth, grace, and beauty, fills the region where Hudson found only ice, silence, and