Voyage towards the North Pole

Abstract

It was Daines Barrington, FRS, the wealthy lawyer, antiquarian and naturalist, who was instrumental in originating Phipps's voyage to the Arctic. Barrington studied the accounts of former voyages to the Arctic region and the records of the master whalers who had fished there, convincing himself in the process that there existed at the North Pole an open sea which was navigable and under a climate less severe than generally thought. Barrington argued that a Northwest Passage to India could be achieved by sailing from Spitsbergen over the North Pole and south through the Bering Strait into the Pacific. Phipps was instructed to find the North Pole and to turn back at 90. The young Horatio Nelson was a midshipman on board the Carcass and his encounter with a polar bear during this voyage became an important incident in Nelson's hagiography.

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