to Bourdeaux and Verdun, at which depôt he continued nearly five years.
Mr. Back returned home, via Dieppe, May 6th, 1814; and afterwards served under Captains Archibald Dickson and Charles Bullen, in the Akbar 60, bearing the flag of Sir T. Byam Martin, at Flushing, in 1815, and subsequently employed on the Halifax station[1]. He passed his examination in seamanship at Bermuda, July 21st, 1816; and in mathematics, at the Royal Naval College, Feb. 5th, 1817. His next ship, in which he continued from Mar. 1817 until Jan. 1818, was the Bulwark 76, bearing the flag of Sir Charles Rowley, commander-in-chief in the Medway.
On the 14th Jan. 1818, Mr. Back joined the Trent hired brig, Lieutenant (now Sir John) Franklin fitting out for a voyage of discovery in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen, under the orders of Captain David Buchan, whose proceedings have been related in Vol. III. Part I. p. 86 et seq. In the beginning of 1819, he was selected to accompany the former officer in an expedition over land, from Hudson’s Bay to the Copper-mine River. The narrative of this perilous and unprecedentedly daring enterprise is one of the most interesting that ever issued from the press; and the repeated acts of self-command, genuine courage, and intrepidity, recorded of Mr. Back, are in the highest degree honorable to him, and truly creditable to his perseverance and talents[2]. His journey on foot, in the depth of winter, from Fort Enterprise to Fort Chipewyan and back, is among the many instances of extraordinary exertion and determined perseverance which this expedition afforded. The following is a copy of his official report to Captain Franklin on rejoining him, “after an absence of nearly five months, during which time he had travelled 1104 miles, on snow-shoes, and had no other covering at night, in the woods, than a blanket and deer-skin, with the thermometer frequently at –40°, and
