In 1809 he was made a Swedish knight for a brief period of service to the Swedish admiral.
Explored the Northwest Passage
Ross was a good navigator, skilled at surveying land, and the inventor of a new type of sextant known as the Royal William. A sextant is an instrument that measures angular distances and is often used by navigators to determine latitude and longitude. He was also a believer in phrenology, a popular pseudoscience of the time that deduced a person's character from the shape of the skull.
In 1812 he was promoted to a naval commander and took the helm of a series of ships in the Baltic, North Sea, and the White Sea. In January 1818 he was appointed commander of the ship Isabella, which joined with the ship Alexander, commanded by Lieutenant Edward Parry, to explore the Northwest Passage through Davis Strait.
In The Arctic Grail, Pierre Barton wrote, "This stocky, red-haired Scot. . . seemed the best choice for an Arctic adventure. Not yet forty-three, he had three decades of sea experience. He was undeniably brave, having been wounded no fewer than thirteen times in battle--'scarred from head to foot' in the words of a future polar explorer, Elisha Kane."
The two ships were merely refitted transports not specially built for the rigors of the Arctic.
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