passion she could have done I wot not what; but this being in a pleasant and smiling manner, I answered her majesty, that it was good for me I was not near her so long as that humour lasted. But withal, taking hold of her speech, asked her in great earnest what it meant, and whither, having proceeded thus far, she had not a full and resolute meaning to go through with the said execution according to her warrant. Her answer was yes, confirmed with a solemn oath in some vehemency; this only she thought that it might have received a better form, because this threw the whole burthen upon herself; whereto I replied, that the form prescribed by the warrant was such as the law required, and could not well be altered with any honesty, justice, or surety of those that were commissioners therein; neither did I know who could sustain this burthen if she took it not upon her, being sovereign magis trate, to whom the sword was committed of God for the punishment of the wicked, and defence of the good, and without whose authority, the life or member of the poorest wretch in her kingdom could not be touched. She answered, that there were wiser men than myself of other opinion. I told her I could not answer for other men, yet this I was sure of, that I had never yet heard any man give a sound reason to prove it either honourable or safe for her majesty to take any other course than that which standeth with law and justice, and so, without further replication or speech, we parted. The same afternoon (as I take it) she asked me whether I had heard from sir Amias Paulet, I told her no; but within an hour or two after going to London I met with

letters from him, in answer to those that were written unto him some few days before, upon her commandment. The next morning, having access unto her majesty upon some other occasion, I told her of the receipt of them, which her highness, desirous to see, took and read; but finding thereby that he was grieved with the motion made unto him, offering his life and all he had to be disposed at her pleasure, but absolutely refusing to be an instrument in any such action as was not warranted in honour and justice; her majesty, falling into terms of offence, complaining of the daintiness and (as she called it) perjury of him and others, who, contrary to their oath of association, did cast the burthen upon herself, she rose up, and after a turn or two went into the gallery, whither I followed her, and there renewing her former speech, blaming the niceness of those precise fellows (as she termed them), who in words would do great things for her surety, but in deed perform nothing, concluded that she could have well enough done without them. And here, entering into particularities, named unto me (as I remember) one Wingfield, who, she assured me, would, with some others, under take it; which gave me occasion to shew unto her majesty how dis honourable (in my poor opinion) any such course would be, and how far from preventing the malice and danger which she so much sought to avoid. And so, falling into the particular case of sir Amias Paulet and sir Drue Drury, discoursed unto her the great extremity she would have exposed those poor gentlemen to, for if, in a tender care of her surety, they should have done that she desired, she must

either allow their act or disallow it; if she allowed it she took the matter upon herself, with her infinite peril and dishonour; if she disallowed it she should not only overthrow the gentlemen themselves, who had always truly and faithfully honoured and served her, but also their estates and posterities, besides the dishonour and injustice of such a course, which I humbly besought her majesty to consider of: and so, after some little digression and speech of Mr. Secretary and others, touching some things passed heretofore, her majesty, understanding it was time to go to the closet, rose up, and left me. At my next access unto her, which (as I take it) was the Tuesday before my coming from court, having occasion to wait upon her highness with certain letters that were to be signed, touching some difference between the lord deputy of Ireland and Mr. Fenton, her secretary there, she entered of herself into some earnest discourse of the danger she lived in, and how it was more than time this matter were dispatched, swearing a great oath, that it was a shame for us all that it was not already done, considering that she had, for her part, done all that law or reason could require of her; and thereupon made some mention to have letters written to sir Amias Paulet for the hastening thereof, because the longer it was deferred the more her danger increased. Whereto, knowing what orders had been taken by the lords in sending the commission to the earls, which I presumed she could not be ignorant of amongst so many as were partners therein, I answered that that needed not (as I conceived), the warrant being so general and sufficient as it was; to which her

majesty replied little else but that she thought sir Amias Paulet would look for it; and so brake off our speech at that time, which was the last I had with her majesty of this or any other matter whatsoever, to my remembrance. The next (Thursday) morning early, being, as I take it, the day before my coming from court, my lord treasurer sent for me and acquainted me with the news he had received by Henry Talbot of the said Scottish queen's execution, which (upon some conference had thereof with Mr. Vice-chamberlain and others) he thought it not fit to break suddenly to her majesty, and therefore concealed it from her all that day; which being nevertheless brought unto her that evening by other means, she would not at the first seem to take knowledge of it, but the next morning, falling into some heat and passion about it, sent for Mr. Vice-chamberlain, to whom she disavowed the said execution as a thing she never commanded or intended, casting the burthen generally upon them all, but chiefly upon my shoulders, because (as she pretended) I had, in suffering it to go out of my hands, abused the trust she reposed in me; whereupon my lords being that morning assembled at my lord treasurer's chamber, I was sent for unto them, and acquainted with her majesty's said offence and charge both against them and me; but having mine own conscience and themselves for witnesses of mine innocency and integrity in that behalf, did not at the first apprehend it. Howbeit, being advised by them all to absent myself for a day or two, and otherwise compelled thereto by an unhappy accident befallen unto me the day before, together with some

indisposition of my health at that time, I returned home, where the next news I heard was that her majesty had resolved to commit me to the Tower, which at the first seemed a matter very strange unto me, and such as I could by no means

believe, till my lord of Buckhurst came with order from her majesty to execute this her pleasure, which, by reason of my sickness, was deferred for two or three days, and afterwards, on the fourteenth of this month, accomplished.

W

HILE lieutenant Parry was exploring a passage across the Polar Sea towards the Pacific, our government conceived it might not only be serviceable to that intrepid navigator, but desirable for the benefit of geographical and hydrographical science, to ascertain the actual position of the mouth of the Copper-mine River and the line of the shores of the Polar Sea to the eastward of it. With this view, lieutenant (now captain) Franklin was recommended by the Lords of the Admiralty as a proper person to be employed on such a service; they, at the same time, nominated doctor Richardson, a naval surgeon, well skilled in natural history, Mr. Hood, and Mr. Back, two admiralty midshipmen (subsequently promoted to the rank of lieutenants), and two steady English seamen, to accompany him.

This little party embarked on board the Hudson's Bay Company's ship, Prince of Wales, the 23rd of May, 1819; and they reached Stromness, the 3rd of June, where four boatmen were engaged to as

sist their progress up the rivers of America:-after a narrow escape from being wrecked on the rocky shores of Resolution Island beset with heavy ice, they arrived in safety at York factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay, on the 30th of August.

The journey into the interior commenced at York Fort, where the party embarked on the 9th of September, 1819; and they arrived at Cumberland House on the 22nd of October, the travelling distance by water being about six hundred and ninety miles. Late as the season was, captain Franklin determined not to remain here, but to set out on a long and perilous expedition of several hundred miles to Fort Chepewyan, near the western extremity of Athebasca lake; where, by his presence, he hoped to prevent delay in the necessary preparations for their ulterior proceedings. With this view, accompanied by lieut. Back, on the 18th of January, 1820, he took leave of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood, who were to bring up their baggage in the spring; and after a

journey of 857 miles in the very depth of winter, the thermometer frequently at 40°, and sometimes more than 50° below zero, arrived safely, on the 26th of March, at the Fort.

Travelling in winter can only be performed on sledges, which are drawn by dogs, or by walking in snow-shoes. The settlers attach to the former a covering of leather to protect the lower part of the body, and when "beautified" with a little paint and a few trifling ornaments, the sledge assumes the name of cariole. Every traveller takes care to supply himself with a pair of snow-shoes, a blanket, hatchet, steel, flint, and tinder, and generally with fire-arms. In mounting his cariole, he puts on a large skin cloak with a hood, a fur cap, leathern trowsers and Indian stockings and mocassins. Three dogs will draw a weight, besides that of the sledge, of three hundred pounds, at the rate of two miles and a half an hour, or about fifteen miles a day, when the snow is hard frozen. To the inexperienced, the suffering occasioned by walking in snow-shoes appears to be dreadful.

"The miseries," says lieutenant Hood, "endured during the first journey of this nature are so great, that nothing could induce the sufferer to undertake a second, while under the influence of present pain. He feels his frame crushed by unaccountable pressure, he drags a galling and stubborn weight at his feet, and his track is marked with blood. The dazzling scene around him affords no rest to his eye, no object to divert his attention from his own agonising sensations. When he rises from sleep; half his body seems dead, till quickened into feeling by the irritation of his

sores. But, fortunately for him, no evil makes an impression so evanescent as pain. The traveller soon forgets his sufferings, and at every future journey, their recurrence is attended with diminished acuteness."

On halting for the night, the first operation, in the Canadian phrase, is that of "flooring the hut." It consists in clearing away the snow, and covering the ground with pine branches, upon which the travellers spread their blankets, skins, cloaks, and coats. The sleeping place being thus arranged, the next step is, to send out parties to collect a sufficiency of wood to serve as fuel for the night; the fire is then allowed to be kindled, the sledges are unstowed, the dogs unharnessed, and the provisions hung upon the trees, out of the reach of these voracious animals. Supper is then cooked; the voyagers coil round the fire in the centre with their feet towards it; the dogs creep in among them wherever they can find a vacancy, receiving and communicating heat, and thus the whole party enjoy repose, without any other canopy than the heaven, even though the thermometer should be far below zero.

In journeys thus performed, the danger of the traveller is not so great from the severity of the cold, as from the risk of perishing for want of food. The servants of the North-west company are frequently obliged to set out in search of the hunting-parties of Indians, to receive the furs which they may have collected. A snowstorm arises; they lose all traces of them, miss their way, and are very often driven to the last resource of killing their dogs for food. The Indians themselves are