had been much
damaged. However, about high water, the ice very opportunely slacking,
the Hecla was hove off with great ease, and warped to a floe in the
offing, to which we made fast at midnight. The Fury was not long after
us in coming off the ground, when I was in hopes of finding that any
twist or strain by which her leaks might have been occasioned, would, in
some measure, close when she was relieved from pressure and once more
fairly afloat. My disappointment and mortification, therefore, may in
some measure be imagined, at being informed by telegraph, about two A.M.
on the 2d, that the water was gaining on two pumps, and that a part of
the doubling had floated up. Presently after, perceiving from the
masthead something like a small harbour nearly abreast of us, every
effort was made to get once more towards the shore. In this the ice
happily favoured us; and, after making sail, and one or two tacks, we
got in with the land, when I left the ship in a boat to sound the place
and search for shelter. The whole shore was more or less lined with
grounded masses of ice; but, after examining the soundings within more
than twenty of them, in the space of about a mile, I could only find two
that would allow the ships to float at low water, and that by some care
in placing and keeping them there. Having fixed a flag on each berg, the
usual signal for the ships taking their stations, I rowed on board the
Fury, and found four pumps constantly going to keep the ship free, and
Captain Hoppner, his officers and men, almost exhausted with the
incessant labour of the last eight-and-forty hours. The instant the
ships were made fast, Captain Hoppner and myself set out in a boat to
survey the shore still farther south, there being a narrow lane of water
about a mile in that direction; for it had now become too evident that
the Fury could proceed no farther without repairs, and that the nature
of those repairs would in all probability involve the disagreeable, I
may say the ruinous, necessity of heaving the ship down. After rowing
about three quarters of a mile, we considered ourselves fortunate in
arriving at a bolder part of the beach, where three grounded masses of
ice, having from three to four fathoms water at low tide within them,
were so disposed as to afford, with the assistance of art, something
like shelter. Returning to the ships, we were setting the sails in order
to run to the appointed place, when the ice closed in and prev