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Lawrence, through the icy way of the straits of Belle Isle, in latitude 52 Degrees N. Yet he never recognized by word or deed the voyage or discovery of Verrazzano. If any one in France could have known of them, surely it would have been he who had sent forth the expedition.
His correct course, on Kempenfelt's principle, would have been to hang on De Ruyter so as to prevent his doing anything, and to have slowly fallen back, drawing the Dutch after him till his loosened concentration was closed up again. If De Ruyter had refused to follow him through the Straits, there would have been plenty of time to mass the fleet.
It was a happy decision; for nothing could exceed the weird impressive splendour of this portion of the Straits. We were passing through a deep gloomy mountain gorge, with high perpendicular cliffs on either side. Below, all was wrapped in the deepest shade.
It was so near to the great gun, that the heat almost blistered the men who worked it, and for awhile their magazine was in great peril. The soldiers did all in their power to extinguish the flames; but both church and house burned to the ground. Night came once more, and the Americans were reduced to the sorest straits.
A little farther on, toward the end of June, he was astonished to meet a Spanish brig and schooner exploring the straits. Don Galiano and Don Valdes told him of the Fraser, which he had missed, and how the Straits of Fuca led out to the North Pacific.
Next time the Ellen B. puts in here I'll libel her for damages." Yet in the face of this threat the Ellen B. cast off her hawsers, spread her sails, and stood up the lake bound Chicagoward through the Straits with Blue Blazes still on board. Not a man-jack of the crew would venture into the fore-hold, where Blue Blazes was still harnessed to the capstan bars.
In this active exercise of real sailor-work, the time, though long for an ordinary passage, passed quickly and pleasantly away, so that when we hauled round the massive promontory guarding the western entrance to Foveaux Straits, we were almost surprised to find ourselves there so soon. This, then, was the famous and dreaded Solander whaling ground.
We were thus passing rapidly through the straits without experiencing any accident worthy of notice, when I inquired of our captain, one evening, how soon he expected to make the Island of Akpatok. He replied, "To-morrow morning about nine o'clock."
For this great purpose, and in full expectancy of success in it, the whole coast of the New World on each side, from Newfoundland on the northeast, curving westward on the south, around the whole sweep of the Gulf of Mexico, thence to Magellan's Straits, and thence through them up the Pacific to the Straits of Behring, was searched and researched with diligence.
Never till that moment, extreme as was his poverty, had he been so dolorously sensible of the straits to which he had brought himself for the lack of those riches he had spent on such disorderly wise.