Soon after midnight the ice pressed closer in upon the Hecla than before, giving her a heel of eighteen inches towards the shore, but without appearing to strain her in the slightest degree.  By four P.M. the pressure had gradually decreased, and the ship had only three or four inches heel; in an hour after she had perfectly righted, and the ice remained quiet for the rest of the day.

Every moment’s additional detention now served to confirm me in the opinion I had formed as to the expediency of trying, at all risks, to penetrate to the southward whenever the ice would allow us to move at all, rather than persevere any longer in the attempts we had been lately making, with so little success, to push on directly to the westward.  I therefore gave Lieutenant Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the eastward whenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should that ship be still detained; and to look out for any opening in the ice to the southward which might seem likely to favour the object I had in view, waiting for me to join him should any such opening occur.

The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice was beginning to separate and to drift away from the shore; and, being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him.  As I soon perceived, however, that she made little or no way, the wind drawing more to the eastward on that part of the coast, and as the clear water was increasing along the shore to the westward much farther than we had yet seen it, I made the signal of recall to the Griper, with the intention of making another attempt, which the present favourable appearances seemed to justify, to push forward without delay in the desired direction.  At five A.M., therefore, as soon as the snow had cleared away sufficiently to allow the signal to be distinguished, we cast off and ran along shore, the wind having by this time veered to the E.b.N., and blowing in strong puffs out of the ravines as we passed them.  We sailed along, generally at the distance of a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the beach, our soundings being from ten to seventeen fathoms; and, after running a mile and a half in a N.W.b.W. direction, once more found the ice offering an impenetrable obstacle to our progress westward, at a small projecting point of land just beyond us.  We therefore hauled the ship into a berth which we were at this moment fortunate in finding abreast of us, and where we were enabled to place the Hecla within a number of heavy masses of grounded ice, such as do not often occur on this steep coast, which, compared with the situation we had lately left, appeared a perfect harbour.  In the mean time, the wind had failed our consort when she was a mile and a half short of this place; and Lieutenant Liddon, after endeavouring in vain to warp up to us, was obliged, by the ice suddenly closing upon him, to place her in-shore, in the first situation he could find, which proved to be in very deep water, as well as otherwise so insecure as not to admit a hope of saving the ship should the ice continue to press upon her.