eir errand of mercy. In July, the party was in Baffin's
Bay, and here the brigs remained embedded in the ice for twenty-one
days. On the 29th of July, by a sudden movement of the floe, an
opening at the north presented itself; a north-east breeze sprang up
at the same time, and with press of sail the brigs were able to force
their way into clear water.

For a month afterward there was continual battling with the ice, and
slow progress northward. On August 27th, Lieutenant De Haven, having
in the mean time fallen in with several English relief expeditions,
decided to make a search on the shores adjacent to a Lancaster Sound.
Here were found three graves, and various signs that Franklin and his
companions had spent a winter somewhere thereabouts; but there were no
indications of the course his vessels, the "Erebus" and the "Terror,"
had taken when they had sailed away. Throughout the winter the search
was continued, and the "Rescue" and the "Advance" were often in
imminent danger of destruction in the masses of ice which pressed
against the sides of the ships with enormous force. "Every moment,"
said Lieutenant De Haven, in his report, "I expected the vessels would
be crushed or overwhelmed by the masses of ice forced up far above our
bulwarks." But at last, on June 6th, they forced their way again into
the open sea; and as the instructions had been not to spend a second
winter in the Arctic regions, sail was set for home, and late in the
summer of 1851 the brigs arrived at New York.

The sending of the frigate "Mississippi," commanded by Captain Matthew
G. Perry, to the coast of Halifax, in 1852, averted what threatened to
be serious trouble. A dispute had arisen among the American and
Canadian fishing schooners in those waters, and seven American vessels
had been seized by the British cruisers.

This caused intense indignation in New England; but Captain Perry
poured oil upon the troubled waters, and in 1854, as a result of his
visit, a reciprocity treaty between the United States and Canada was
signed, and this lasted for ten years.

Captain Perry performed his most important services for the
government, however, in Japan. The early fifties were an era of
exploring expeditions for the navy. There were trips up the rivers
into unknown regions of South America and Africa. The Isthmus of
Darien was explored, and an ambitious scheme to cut a ship-channel
through was found to be impracticable. It was very natural, durin