ontinuance
of the thick weather, and to avoid passing any opening that might
occur in it to the southward. We were, in the course of the
evening, within four or five miles of the same spot where we had
been on the same day and at the same hour the preceding year; and,
by a coincidence perhaps still more remarkable, we were here once
more reduced to the same necessity as before, of steering the
ships by one another for an hour or two; the Griper keeping the
Hecla ahead, and our quartermaster being directed to keep the
Griper right astern, for want of some better mode of knowing in
what direction we were running. The fog froze hard as it fell upon
the rigging, making it difficult to handle the ropes in working
the ship, and the night was rather dark for three or four hours.

At a quarter past three on the morning of the 30th, we bore up to
the eastward, the wind continuing fresh directly down Barrow's
Strait, except just after passing Prince Leopold's Islands, where
it drew into Prince Regent's Inlet, and, as soon as we had passed
this, again assumed its former westerly direction; affording a
remarkable instance of the manner in which the wind is acted upon
by the particular position of the land, even at a considerable
distance from it. The islands were encumbered with ice to the
distance of four or five miles all found them, but the Strait was
generally as clear and navigable as any part of the Atlantic.

Having now traced the ice the whole way from the longitude of 114 deg.
to that of 90 deg., without discovering any opening to encourage a
hope of penetrating it to the southward, I could not entertain the
slightest doubt that there no longer remained a possibility of
effecting our object with the present resources of the expedition;
and that it was therefore my duty to return to England with the
account of our late proceedings, that no time might be lost in
following up the success with which we had been favoured, should
his majesty's government consider it expedient to do so. Having
informed the officers and men in both ships of my intentions, I
directed the full allowance of provisions to be in future issued,
with such a proportion of fuel as might contribute to their
comfort; a luxury which, on account of the necessity that existed
for the strictest economy in this article, it must be confessed,
we had not often enjoyed since we entered Sir James Lancaster's
Sound. We had been on two thirds allowance of bread betw