The discovery of a north-west passage had “been always a favourite object with the British nation; and the voyages to which it gave birth, such as those of Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, Hudson, and others, exhibiting as they do incontestable proofs of perseverance and great nautical skill operating with slender means, reflect, perhaps, more credit on those who undertook them, than many voyages which were attended with brilliant discoveries. When the late war was at an end, and the British government had time to employ some portion of its marine in the labours of peace, it was determined to send an expedition to explore Baffin's Bay, in the hope that the examination of the shores of that great sea might detect the long-wished for north-west passage. For this purpose the Isabella and the Alexander were fitted out, and placed under the command of captain Ross, an officer well experienced in the navigation of northern seas: the Alexander was commanded by lieutenant Parry, a young officer whose name has since become honourably associated with north-western discoveries.

The ships put to sea on the 18th of April, 1818. On their arrival on the western coast of Greenland they found the ice abundant; and the governor of one of the Danish settlements told, them, that for some years he had found that the winters were growing uniformly more severe. From observations made at the Island of Wygat, it appeared that this coast was erroneously laid down in all the charts; the error in longitude in those of the admiralty amounting to more than 5°.