Towards the close of the year 1814, a young naval officer, Lieutenant Chappell, of his Majesty’s ship Rosamond, who had recently returned, for the second time, from an expedition to the North-eastern coast of America, brought to Cambridge a collection of the dresses, weapons, &c. of the Indians inhabiting Hudson’s Bay[1]; requesting that I would present these curiosities to the Public Library of the University. This Collection so much resembled another which the Russian Commodore Billings brought to Petersburg from the North-western shores of the same continent, and part of which Professor Pallas had given to me in the Crimea, that, being desirous to learn whether the same customs and language might not be observed over the whole of North America, between the parallels 50° and 70° of north latitude, I proposed to Lieutenant Chappell a series of questions concerning the natives of the North-eastern coast; desiring to have an answer to each of them, in writing, founded upon his own personal observations. In consequence of this application, I was entrusted with a perusal of the following Journal. It was written by himself, during his last expedition: and having since prevailed upon him to make it public, it is a duty incumbent upon me to vouch for its authenticity, and to make known some particulars respecting its author, which may perhaps give an additional interest to his Narrative. The Letters, indeed, which have accompanied his communications with regard to his late voyage, are strongly tinged with the “infandum jubes renovare dolorem;” because, to the ardent spirit of a British seaman, no service can be more depressing than that which, during war, banishes him from the career of glory, to a station where no proof of skill or of intrepidity, no enterprise of fatigue or of danger, is ever attended with honour or reward[2]. Lieutenant Chappell was twice ordered upon this station; after exploits in the navy, which, at a very early period of his life, obtained for him the rank he now holds.

In 1805, he assisted in cutting out the Spanish privateer-schooner, Isabella La Demos, from under the batteries of a small bay in South America[3]. In 1806, after witnessing the battle of St. Domingo, he was with the boats which burned the Imperiale of 120 guns, and the Diomede of eighty guns. In the latter end of the same year, his ship, the King’s Fisher, having towed Lord Cochrane’s frigate from under the batteries of L’Isle d’Aix, near Rochfort, assisted in the capture of Le President of forty-four guns. In 1808, he was at the capture of the Danish islands, St. Thomas and St. Croix, in the West Indies. In 1808, or 1809, he was in the Intrepid of sixty-four guns, when she engaged two French frigates, and was very severely handled. Afterwards, he was at the capture of the Saints, and of the Island of Martinico, when he was employed on the shore, in fighting the breaching batteries. In 1810, he commanded a gun-boat during the siege of Cadiz. The conduct of the gun-boats upon this occasion requires no comment: it was then that he received a severe wound in the thigh, and was made Lieutenant. In 1812, he assisted in landing the Expedition, under General Maitland, in Murcia. In 1813, he was employed in protecting the fisheries upon the coast of Labrador. In 1814, he made the voyage to Hudson’s Bay, whereof the following pages contain his unaltered Narrative. In 1815, being First Lieutenant of his Majesty’s ship Leven, he was employed in assisting the Chiefs of La Vendee, and in reinstating the Prince Tremouille in the Captain-generalship of the Department de Cotes d’Or.

Such have been the services of this meritorious officer, now only twenty-five years of age; but, owing to the termination of the war, dismissed, with many other of his gallant comrades, from the active duties in which they were engaged. These circumstances, as it must be obvious, are by no means querulously introduced: nor is the following Narrative made public with the slightest intention of reproaching the Admiralty with the hard lot to which one of its naval heroes was exposed, in being twice employed in such a service:—it is a lot that must fall somewhere; and the present Publication will shew, that the person upon whom it devolved is able to give a satisfactory account of the manner in which this part of his duty was performed.

EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE.