The charts and drawings were made by Lieutenant Back and the late Lieutenant Hood.  Both these gentlemen cheerfully and ably assisted me in making the observations and in the daily conduct of the Expedition.  The observations made by Mr. Hood on the various phenomena presented by the Aurora Borealis* will it is presumed present to the reader some new facts connected with this meteor.  Mr. Back was mostly prevented from turning his attention to objects of science by the many severe duties which were required of him and which obliged him to travel almost constantly every winter that we passed in America; to his personal exertions, indeed, our final safety is mainly to be attributed.  And here I must be permitted to pay the tribute due to the fidelity, exertion and uniform good conduct in the most trying situations of John Hepburn, an English seaman and our only attendant, to whom in the latter part of our journey we owe, under Divine Providence, the preservation of the lives of some of the party.

(Footnote.  Given in the Appendix to the Quarto Edition.)

I ought perhaps to crave the reader’s indulgence towards the defective style of this work, which I trust will not be refused when it is considered that mine has been a life of constant employment in my profession from a very early age.  I have been prompted to venture upon the task solely by an imperious sense of duty when called upon to undertake it.

In the ensuing Narrative the notices of the moral condition of the Indians as influenced by the conduct of the traders towards them refer entirely to the state in which it existed during our progress through the country; but lest I should have been mistaken respecting the views of the Hudson’s Bay Company on these points I gladly embrace the opportunity which a Second Edition affords me of stating that the junction of the two Companies has enabled the Directors to put in practice the improvements which I have reason to believe they had long contemplated.  They have provided for religious instruction by the appointment of two Clergymen of the established church under whose direction schoolmasters and mistresses are to be placed at such stations as afford the means of support for the establishment of schools.  The offspring of the voyagers and labourers are to be educated chiefly at the expense of the Company; and such of the Indian children as their parents may wish to send to these schools are to be instructed, clothed, and maintained at the expense of the Church Missionary Society which has already allotted a considerable sum for these purposes and has also sent out teachers who are to act under the superintendence of the Reverend Mr. West, the principal chaplain of the Company.

We had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman at York Factory, and witnessed with peculiar delight that great benefit which already marked his zealous and judicious conduct.  Many of the traders and of the servants of the Company had been induced to marry the women with whom they had cohabited; a material step towards the improvement of the females in that country.