Having now reached the situation in which I was directed, by my instructions, to clear the Nautilus of our stores, I gave Lieutenant Scrymgour his instructions to return to England; and at one A.M. on the 1st of July he parted company, while the Fury and Hecla stood in towards the ice.  A whaler, deeply laden, and apparently homeward bound, was at this time in sight to the eastward.

At seven P.M., Tuesday, 3d July, the ice opposed our farther progress to the westward, covering the whole sea as far as the eye could reach in that direction; the ships were therefore, of necessity, hove to, in order to await some change in our favour.  The ice here consisted principally of large though loose masses of broken floes, none covering more than a quarter of an acre, and few so much, but having many high hummocks, and drawing a great deal of water.  We counted also above thirty bergs in sight at one time, and observed that many of them were carried about by the tides with great rapidity.

The wind shifted to the southeastward in the night of the 5th, with a strong breeze and heavy rain; and, on the following morning, when the ebb-tide opened the ice a little, a considerable swell was admitted from the sea, causing the ships to strike violently and almost constantly on the masses of ice alongside of them.  In this situation they continued for several hours so completely beset as to render it impossible to extricate them, and drifting about at random with the tides.  The Hecla was, by a different set of the stream, separated five or six miles from the Fury, while both ships were equally hampered.

On the 13th, both ships’ companies were exercised in firing at a target on the ice, as well for the purpose of giving them occupation as of finding out who were the best shots.  On the same afternoon we saw two ships beset to the northward, which we supposed to be those bound to the Hudson’s Bay factories.  They were joined the next day by a third ship, which afterward proved to be, as we conjectured, the Lord Wellington, having on board settlers for the Red River.

The ice being rather less close on the morning of the 16th, we made sail to the westward at 7.45 A.M., and continued “boring” in that situation the whole day, which enabled us to join the three strange ships.  They proved to be, as we had supposed, the Prince of Wales, Eddystone, and Lord Wellington, bound to Hudson’s Bay.  I sent a boat to the former to request Mr. Davidson, the master, to come on board, which he immediately did.  From him we learned that the Lord Wellington having on board one hundred and sixty settlers for the Red River, principally foreigners, of both sexes and every age, had now been twenty days among the ice, and had been drifted about in various directions at no small risk to the ship.  By the Prince of Wales we sent our last letters for our friends in England.