eer" remained, unable to move, in Wellington
Channel; a northerly gale came on, after a short breeze from the S.E.;
and imagine, kind reader, our dismay, in finding the vast expanse, over
which the eye had in vain strained to see its limit--imagine this field
suddenly breaking itself across in all directions, from some unseen
cause, farther than (as appeared to us) a northerly gale blowing over
its surface, and our poor barks, in its cruel embrace, sweeping out of
Wellington Channel, and then towards Leopold Island. At one time, the
probability of reaching the Atlantic, as Sir James Ross did, stared us
disagreeably in the face, and blank indeed did we all look at such a
prospect.

A calm and frosty morning ushered in the 9th of September. The pack was
fast re-knitting itself, and we were drifting with it, one mile per
hour, to the S.E., when Penny's brigs, that had been seen the day
before crossing to the northward of us, were observed to be running
down along the western shore, with the American squadron ahead of them,
the latter having just escaped from an imprisonment in Barlow Inlet.
About the same time, a temporary opening of the pack enabled the
steam-power again to be brought to bear, and never was it more useful.
The pack was too small and broken for a vessel to warp or heave
through, there was no wind "to bore" through it, and the young ice in
some places, by pressure, was nigh upon six inches thick; towing with
boats was, therefore, out of the question.

The "Resolute" fast astern, with a long scope of hawser, the "Pioneer,"
like a prize-fighter, settled to her work, and went in and won. The
struggle was a hard one,--now through sludge and young ice, which
gradually checked her headway, impeded as she was with a huge vessel
astern--now in a strip of open water, mending her pace to rush at a bar
of broken-up pack, which surged and sailed away as her fine bow forced
through it--now cautiously approaching a nip between two heavy floe
pieces, which time and the screw wedged slowly apart--and then the
subdued cheer with which our crews witnessed all obstacles overcome,
and the Naval expedition again in open water, and close ahead of the
Government one under Penny, and Commander De Haven's gallant vessels,
who, under a press of canvas, were just hauling round Cape Hotham. A
light air and bay-ice gave us every advantage.

[Headnote: _ALL THE VESSELS MEET._]

Next day, in succession, we all came up to the "Assista