ffin's Bay, in
latitude 67 deg. On the shortest tack she was twelve hundred miles from
where Captain Kellett left her.

There was work enough still to be done. The rudder was to be shipped,
the rigging to be made taut, sail to be set; and it proved, by the way,
that the sail on the yards was much of it still serviceable, while a
suit of new linen sails below were greatly injured by moisture. In a
week more they had her ready to make sail. The pack of ice still drifted
with both ships; but on the 21st of October, after a long northwest
gale, the "Resolute" was free,--more free than she had been for more
than two years.

Her "last voyage" is almost told. Captain Buddington had resolved to
bring her home. He had picked ten men from the "George Henry," leaving
her fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American coast drawn on a
sheet of foolscap, with his lever watch and a quadrant for his
instruments, he squared off for New London. A rough, hard passage they
had of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of the tanks;
she was top-heavy and under manned. He spoke a British whaling bark, and
by her sent to Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners
news that he was coming. They had heavy gales and head winds, were
driven as far down as the Bermudas; the water left in the ship's tanks
was brackish, and it needed all the seasoning which the ship's chocolate
would give to make it drinkable. "For sixty hours at a time," says the
spirited captain, "I frequently had no sleep"; but his perseverance was
crowned with success at last, and on the night of the 23d-24th of
December he made the light off the magnificent harbor from which he
sailed; and on Sunday morning, the 24th, dropped anchor in the Thames,
opposite _New_ London, ran up the royal ensign on the shorn masts of the
"Resolute," and the good people of the town knew that he and his were
safe, and that one of the victories of peace was won.

As the fine ship lies opposite the piers of that beautiful town, she
attracts visitors from everywhere, and is, indeed, a very remarkable
curiosity. Seals were at once placed, and very properly, on the
captain's book-cases, lockers, and drawers, and wherever private
property might be injured by wanton curiosity, and two keepers are on
duty on the vessel, till her destination is decided. But nothing is
changed from what she was when she came into harbor. And, from stem to
stern, every detail of her equipment is a c