L. Track of His Majesty's armed brig Lion from England to Davis's Streights and Labrador, with observations for determining the longitude by Sun and Moon and error of common reckoning; also the variation of the compass and dip of the needle, as observed during the said voyage in 1776
We anchored in Porcupine Harbour, where we staid until the 26th of September, and from thence proceeded to England; which being a common rout, I shall conclude with a few general observations on this part of the world, so little known and so terribly represented by people who, in order to raise their own merit, make dangers and difficulties of common occurrences; merely because the places are unknown, and there is little or no probability of their ever being contradicted. I do not mean this as a personal reflexion; but having discoursed with many of the masters of Greenland vessels, as well as their employers, and heard such dreadful stories of those who from a laudable principle would be benefactors to their country, but are deterred from it by such representations; and I appeal to shoe series of facts for the truth of my assertion. The weather in Davis's Sraits is, in the spring and autumn, boisterous; the seas run irregular, like the Gulph of Lions, and other places I could instance (that is short and high); occasioned (I imagine) by the narrowness of the Straits, the many impediments it meets with from the ice, and its being open to the southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean. As the south winds are always the strongest, bring thick weather, and the greatest sea, so the northern ones bring find clear weather, and are seldom strong. I shall here finish these observations, with the particulars of them, &c. and shall communicate observations on the ice, the atmosphere, the land of Forbisher, and the probability of a north west passage, in a short time.