astern. It was the usual, and captains worked to the south almost necessary, practice for and east along Hudson Bay, the old sailing ships to trail and James had the honour of their larger boats, a practice discovering that deep-indented which in bad weather almost James Bay which bears his always led to the damage or name to this day. Incidentally loss of the boats. So it hap- he insisted, as a pious Welshpened with Captain James. man, in christening Northern He had not been at sea a week Ontario New South Wales, before he reached ice, which though geographers-who resmashed his shallop, and he tain the last word in these was obliged to bring up the matters-declined to accept the long boat, put her together, designation. It was while on and trail her astern. There this exploration of James Bay, was no space on deck to when seeking a way through accommodate the long boat to the River of Canada (St while the shallop was being Lawrence), that the shallop repaired. Thus early James was totally lost and the long began to suffer disasters and boat much torn and bruised. to feel the burden of anxiety. There also began that series The boats were vital to him. of casualties among his skilled Navigation in unknown waters craftsmen which was a far was not possible without the greater peril than the destrucaid of boats sent forward to tion of gear. His gunner broke take soundings, and amid ice a leg, had it cut off by the to land anchors on floes. An surgeon, and died after a long exploring ship, even one of as and painful illness. The gunsmall a bulk and draught as ner's mate wandered off one the Mary, could not live amid day amid the ice, and was the manifold perils which daily never more heard of. beset her without the aid and protection of her boats. James passed through Hudson Strait and reached the north-western shore of Hudson Bay without great difficulty, and then he devoted the early summer months to the exploration of the western and southern shores of the Bay. It strikes one as a curious backward route to take in order to find a north-west passage into the South Sea, and to deliver royal letters to the Emperor of Japan; yet Foxe followed much the same general programme. Both In October the Mary reached Charlton Island, deep down in James Bay-little farther north than London, yet with the desperate cold of Labrador,— and preparations were begun for passing the winter. The island was well provided with wood, and in a sheltered nook the carpenter set to work to construct a "mansion-house "as distinct from a cooking or store-house-and to roof it with the main course borrowed from the ship. Snow came down thickly, and the cold was so intense that everything froze hard a few feet from the fire. Six months had passed, the vessel had sailed with victuals for eighteen months, and a survey taken every week showed that consumption had been kept within the estimates. James, a careful man, who looked after all details himself, reckoned to save and put by for the uncertain future one month's provision in six. It was at Charlton Island that the gunner died, an honest and strong-hearted man, who lay a-dying with a bottle of sack at his head to comfort his passage. During his last few days he was allowed to drink sack "altogether," and so passed in a pain-drugged stupor. By this time the long boat, as well as the shallop, had been lost, and the Mary herself was in the gravest peril. She had been pushed into shallow water where the rise of tide was normally not over three feet, but when the wind rushed down between north-east and northwest there came a great heaping up of waters against the shore, which buffeted the ship most grievously. So James, with the advice of his carpenter -a man ingenious and faithful yet a true English pessimist, resolved to thrust the ship firmly ashore, so that she might be frozen hard in during the winter, and as a a means of getting home again should the Mary be lost-of which the carpenter had no doubts-began to put in hand a pinnace. This word pinnace is loosely employed in ship lists and tales of old sea voyages to describe a small sailing vessel or a large boat. It always, I believe, signified a craft with oars, either as auxiliary to sails or as the principal means of propulsion. Thus a large pinnace would be a sailing vessel with equipment for sweeps; a small pinnace would be an oared vessel in which one or more sails could be set. It was the carpenter, a pessimist who was taking no chances, who pressed on with the pinnace. It seemed, indeed, as if the worst forebodings of the carpenter would be justified, and that, in default of a pinnace, the whole party must perish slowly and miserably; for the heavy gales lashing down from the Arctic circle beat the Mary continually against the ground and tore off her rudder. In this emergency James, with the concurrence of all his officers, determined to sink his ship so thoroughly that she could not rise and beat when the water piled up against her. The ice was thickening fast, but it was not yet strong enough to enclose the ship in its grip. So all the provisions in the lower hold which could be reached were got out and landed, and holes were deliberately drilled in the ship's bottom. She settled down, though not fast enough for the anxious wreckers. wreckers. With every incoming wave the Mary lifted and hammered until the bulkheads of bread-room, powder-room, and forepeak were smashed to not live to see the astonishing feat in execution. Just then, in the autumn of 1631, Captain James had as little of hope left as had the rest of the party, and it was because like them he had no hope that his conduct and theirs shines down to us gloriously through the centuries. pieces, and the seams above carpenter and some others did the water-line opened so that one could look through them. What was happening down below none could say, though the carpenter did not hide his opinion. At last the end sought after was achieved. The Mary, half filled with water, settled hard aground, the ice began to form about her stiffening body, and the peril, lest she would break up and scatter abroad the victuals upon which all depended, had ceased to be of immediate urgency. Picture to yourselves this little company of men of our race marooned on a bare lonely island in the frozen North, their ship a wreck, and with no prospect of ever seeing home and friends again unless by their poor efforts they could survive the coming winter and put together a frail pinnace. Provisions they had in abundance-though the beer had been frozen in with the ship-but with scurvy already upon them, and with no resources in scurvy grass, sorrel, or anti-scorbutic vegetables, they might well starve of appropriate nourishment in the midst of apparent plenty. And they very nearly did. James was now able to leave the ship and withdraw to the house ashore. There he took the opinion again of his officers, and found them with courage undimmed, yet with all hope gone. It is a fine story. The carpenter, an excellent fellow and steady as a solid English rock to the day of his death, discoursed with a wealth of expert detail, and almost with an air of expert satisfaction, upon the completeness of the smash-up. He said that the Mary had foundered-she had been scuttled by his own hand, poor dear-and would never be serviceable again. Her joints were loose and her seams open. Moreover, her rudder was gone, and he had no ironwork to hang another. The others were of much the same opinion. I specially emphasise this, because James the following summer did actually salve and sail "My Masters and faithful home in his terribly crazy Companions," said Captain ship-which by all the rules James, "be not dismayed for ought to have shed her bottom any of these disasters, but let on Charlton Island-though the us put our whole trust in God. Picture to yourselves, I say, this small desperate company, not a man of whom had seen a winter in the icy North, and who were already shuddering under the first breath of that which was to come, and listen to their leader, who was by Foxe declared to be "no Seaman," a mere "Practitioner of the Mathematicks." 66 If it be our fortunes to end our their word. As for the carpenter he "cheerfully" undertook to build that pinnace and be damned to it, and I am sure that he did not need the spur of the rewards which James offered to bestow upon him. He had enjoyed his thoroughly English grouse, and was now ready for work. So," says Captain James, "we resolved to build us a new Pinnace with the timber we should get upon the land, that so, in the spring, if we found not the ship serviceable, we might tear her (the ship) up, and plank her with the Ship's planks. And so, for this night, we settled ourselves close about the fire, and took some rest till daylight." It was well that they should rest while they could, for their troubles were no more than beginning. days here we are as near Heaven as in England; and we are much bound to God Almighty for giving us so large a time of repentance. I make no doubt that he will be merciful to us both here on earth and in His blessed Kingdom. He doth not in the meantime deny but that we may use all honest means to save and prolong our natural lives withall; and in my Judgment we are not yet so far past hope of returning into our native Countries but that I see a fair way by which we may effect it. Admit the ship be foundered (which God forbid; I hope the best), yet have those of our own nation, and others, when they have been put to these extremities, even out of the wreck of their lost ship, built them a Pinnace and recovered to their friends again. If it be objected that they have happened into better Climates, both for the temperateness of the air and for pacific and open seas, and provided withall with abundance of fresh victual, yet there is nothing too hard for courageous minds, which hitherto you have shown, and I doubt not will still do to the uttermost." In this fashion James spoke, breathing lessons of faith and endurance, and to his appeal his officers and men responded in tones which showed them worthy of their leader and of their country. They pledged themselves to support him "to the uttermost hazard of their lives," and gallantly they kept It was now the 30th of November (old style), and well into December by our modern reckoning. James, a far-seeing man, had his own and his men's faces shaved and their hair cut short, so that while working in the open they might not become matted with icicles. For the cold was already intense, and their breath froze as it issued even within their hut around the fire. The master and coxswain, with their assistants, were directed to empty the ship of provisions and removable gear (sails, ropes, and ironwork), while the carpenter looked about for trees suitable in form and texture for the construction of the pinnace. Timber for the keel and stern-post was fortunately So the men were rubbed and discovered, and and one of the washed-one may almost say greatest difficulties in emergency ship construction surmounted. For if a wooden craft is to hold together under the stress of wind and water, its chief members must be fashioned of timber in their natural form of growth. By the end of December the cold was So savage that it raised blisters on the men's faces as big as walnuts, and all the sack, vinegar, oil, and other liquids were frozen solid within a yard of the fire in their mansion - house. Their well by the encampment also froze, and could not be cleared; but, by great good fortune, a spring was found within threequarters of a mile which could always be depended upon. Scurvy, the terrible pest of old mariners, laid its heavy hand upon them, and long before the winter was passed two-thirds of the company were down with it. Though James, a man of science as science was understood in his day, did not talk in terms of vitamins, he realised that his men were rotting for lack of fresh vegetables, which he had no present means to come by. All that he could do, with the aid of his surgeon-both captain and surgeon appear fortunately to have been proof against the disease was to keep up the hearts of the sufferers and to keep them moving. If a man, writes James, lay in bed for two whole days he never rose again. boiled-every day to bring some faint hint of suppleness into their stiffening joints, and the dead flesh about their gums and around those frost blisters was carefully cut away. Among those down with scurvy was the invaluable carpenter, though the excellent fellow still managed to potter about collecting timber for his pinnace and marking down suitable trees for felling. Little could be done in their small frozen world except to prepare for the spring. Wood could not be cut until first it had been thawed, and trees of manner of growth conformable to the mould of the pinnace's hull had often to be dragged for miles through the heavy snow. What was even worse, the carpenter's tools began to fail. Of the two axes one was spoiled while cutting down wood for the hut-it was built of tree trunks interlaced with boughs, a kind of rough wattle-and the helve of the other had been shivered near the socket. James took precautions which, while adding to the immediate sufferings of his men from cold, did at least offer them a chance of survival in the spring. He locked up one of the carpenter's axes and the cooper's best hatchet, and safeguarded the employment of the others, insisting that they should be repaired every day. It is significant of his men's belief in him that James never had any trouble with them. They |