that a subscription should be opened with the view of purchasing a piece of plate for “the Explorer of the Polar Sea.” On the 24th Mar. 1821, he was presented with the freedom of the city of Bath, in a box of oak, highly and appropriately ornamented. One-half of the parliamentary reward, for penetrating to the meridian of 110° west longitude within the arctic circle, was distributed in the following proportions:–
Captain Parry, 1,000l; Lieutenant Liddon, 500l.; Lieutenants Beechey and Hoppner, Captain Sabine, and Messrs. Allison and Fife, each 200l. The other moiety was divided among the remaining officers and men, in shares proportioned to their several ranks and ratings. We should here observe also that Messrs. Nias, Reid, Dealy, Palmer, and Skene, midshipmen, and the assistant surgeons of the Hecla and Griper, were promoted, on the paying off of those ships in Dec. 1820.
The discoveries made by the late expedition being such as to afford a strong presumption in favor of the existence of a N.W. passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific, the Lords of the Admiralty were pleased to honor Captain Parry with the command of another, to be equipped at Deptford, for the purpose of exploring Repulse Bay, and every bend or inlet to the north of Wager River. The ships employed on this occasion were the Fury bomb, for which he received his commission on the 30th Dec. 1820; and the Hecla, commanded by Captain George Francis Lyon, the friend and late companion of Ritchie, the celebrated African traveller. The other officers, &c. attached to the new expedition were, in the Fury, Lieutenants Nias and Reid; Mr. Allison, Greenland master; Mr. John Bushnan, assistant-surveyor, of whom a biographical notice is given in the Index to the Annual Obituary and Biography for 1825; Mr. George Fisher, astronomer and acting chaplain; Mr. Edwards, surgeon; Mr. Hooper, purser; Messrs. James Clark Ross, John Henderson, and Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, midshipmen; Mr. James Skeoch, assistant-surgeon; and Mr. Halse, captain’s-clerk:– in the Hecla, Lieutenants Hoppner and Charles Palmer; Mr. Fife, Greenland master: Mr. Alexander
