PARRY

From Agepedia

PARRY, William Edward, captain. This active officer, whose name will be enrolled with those of Baffin, Hudson, Forbisher, and other great navigators, is the son of doctor Parry, of Bath, and was born in 1790. The rudiments of his education he received at the grammar school of Bath, and, at the age of twelve, he was placed on board the Ville de Paris;' and, from 1803 to 1806, he continued on board the same ship, employed in blockading the French fleet in Brest. During this time, he attended closely to geometry, navigation, French, and other useful branches of learning. His behavior was exemplary: admiral Cornwallis said of him, "He has been the pattern of good conduct to all our young people." From the Ville de Paris he removed, in May, to the Tribune frigate, which, during 1806, 1807 and 1808, was constantly blockading or cruising, and encountered some of the heaviest gales which had be"n experienced by the oldest seamen. In January, 1807, he was sent in a boat by his commander, to reconnoitre in Concarneau bay, and he executed his commission with such courage as to approach close to *a French lineofbattle ship, and such ability as to remain undiscovered by her. In April, 1808, the Tribune was sent into the Baltic, to which sea she returned in the following year. This service was a fatiguing and perilous one, which, never theless, did not acquire for those who were engaged in it ail the credit that they deserved. The swarms of Danish gun boats which issued from the ports of Den mark were most formidable enemies, being of a low construction, and having, in action, the power of attacking a shipofwar in whatever direction they chose, and with an overwhelming number of guns, while she could reply with only a few, and those, in some instances, not capable of carrying a shot so far as the long guns of the enemy. At the age of nineteen, Mr. Parry passed his examination, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, through the interest of lord Lowther. He joined the Alexandria frigate in 1810, and served that year in the Baltic, where he was several times engaged with Danish schooners and gunboats. In 1811 and 1812, he was on the Leith station, employed in protecting the Greenland whale fishery. During his leisure moments, he was not inactive. He prepared charts of the Baltic navigation ; he spent part of the night in studying the situation of the principal fixed stars in our hemisphere ; and he made a survey of Baltic sound, and the Voe, in Shetland, an excellent harbor, which was little known. The description of his mode of observing the stars, in order to obtain the latitude and longitude at sea by night, he at first distributed in manuscript among the junior officers, and afterwards printed. In 1813, under a promise of promotionof which, however, circumstances prevented the performancehe sailed to Halifax, and was occupied on board the La Hogue, in cruising in pursuit of commodore Rogers. In 1816, he obtained a first lieutenancy in the Niger, which was stationed off Halifax, and the river St. Lawrence and Quebec. Early in 1817, he obtained leave to return to England. When the first expedition of discovery towards the north pole was fitted out, lieutenant Parry was so strongly recommended to the admiralty, that he was appointed to the command of the Alexander, under the orders of captain Ross, in the Isabella. It is well known that the sudden resolution of captain Ross (q. v.) to return to England, adopted in consequence of his supposing that he saw land at the bottom of Lancaster sound, excited general dissatisfaction. The reasons for believing captain Ross to have been mistaken were so strong, that a second expedition was resolved upon, the command of which was intrusted solely to Mr. Parry, who was allowed to select his own ship, and was consulted as to the appointment of his officers. The ships departed in May, 1819, and returned in November, 1820, after having penetrated into the Polar sea as far as the 110th degree of west longitude, and wintered on one of the newly discovered islands. The officers and crews thus became entitled to the parliamentary reward of £5000. (See North Polar Expeditions.) In the arduous situation in which he was placed, Mr. Parry displayed not merely the skill of an officer, but the qualities of a man of talent. The means which he devised to keep the men in health and spirits, by preventing their bodies from sinking into inaction, and their minds into listlessness and torpor, were such as prove him to possess a more than common intellect. On his return, he was promoted to the rank of commander. For the manuscript journal of this expedition he received from the publisher £1000 sterling. In 1821, in company with captain Lyon, he undertook a third expedition to discover a northwest passage, and returned in 1824. Our knowledge of the coasts, bays and islands of the Arctic ocean has been much extended by his Journal of a second Voyage for the Discovery of the NorthWest Passage, performed in the Years 1821, 1822 and 1823, in his Majesty's Ships Fury and Hecla (with engravings, London, 1824, 4to.), together with an Appendix, containing the Natural History, &c. In the summer of 1824, captain Parry undertook his fourth northwestern expedition; and, in October, 1825, he was obliged to return in the Hecla, having lost the Fury among the icebergs of the Arctic seas. He had spent the winter, with both his vessels, in Prince Regent's bay, at lat. 71° N.See his Journal of a third Voyage, &c, 1824-25 (London, 1826, 4to.).One of the most important results of these expeditions was the examination of the straits whicl? separate America from Greenland, called Barrow *s straits, in honor of Barrow the geographer who planned the voyages. March 25,1827, he set out on a fourth expedition with the Hecla, intending to advance from Spitzbergen to the pole on sledges; but, in October of the same year, he returned, without having accomplished his purpose.See his Narrative of an Attempt to reach the North Pole (London, 1828).