ndividual on board. The main object of our
enterprise now appeared almost within our grasp, and everybody seemed
anxious to make up, by renewed exertions, for the time we had
unavoidably lost. The ship was towed and warped in with the greatest
alacrity, and at 1.40 A.M. on June 20th, we dropped the anchor in Hecla
Cove, in thirteen fathoms, on a bottom of very tenacious blue clay, and
made some hawsers fast to the land-ice, which still filled all the upper
part of the bay. After resting a few hours, we sawed a canal a quarter
of a mile in length, through which the ship was removed into a better
situation, a bower-cable taken on shore and secured to the rocks, and an
anchor, with the chain-cable, laid out the other way. On the morning of
the 21st we hauled the launch up on the beach, it being my intention to
direct such resources of every kind to be landed as would render our
party wholly independent of the ship, either for returning to England or
for wintering, in case of the ship being driven to sea by the ice; a
contingency against which, in these regions, no precaution can
altogether provide. I directed Lieutenant Foster, upon whom the charge
of the Hecla was now to devolve, to land without delay the necessary
stores, keeping the ship seaworthy by taking in an equal quantity of
ballast; and, as soon as he should be satisfied of her security from
ice, to proceed on the survey of the eastern coast; but, should he see
reason to doubt her safety with a still farther diminution of her crew
to relinquish the survey, and attend exclusively to the ship. I also
gave directions that notices should be sent, in the course of the
summer, to the various stations where our depots of provisions were
established, acquainting me with the situation and state of the ship,
and giving me any other information which might be necessary for my
guidance on our return from the northward. These and other arrangements
being completed, I left the ship at five P.M. with our two boats, which
we named the Enterprise and Endeavour, Mr. Beverly being attached to my
own, and Lieutenant Ross, accompanied by Mr. Bird, in the other. Besides
these, I took Lieutenant Crozier in one of the ship's cutters, for the
purpose of carrying some of our weight as far as Walden Island, and also
a third store of provisions to be deposited on Low Island, as an
intermediate station between Walden Island and the ship. As it was still
necessary not to delay our return beyond