On the 5th of May, being in latitude 73 deg. 30’, and longitude 7 deg. 28’ E., we met with the first straggling mass of ice, after which, in sailing about 110 miles in a N.N.W. direction, there was always a number of loose masses in sight; but it did not occur in continuous “streams” till the morning of the 7th, in latitude 74 deg. 55’, a few miles to the eastward of the meridian of Greenwich.  On the 10th several whalers were in sight, and Mr. Bennett, the master of the Venerable, of Hull, whom we had before met in Baffin’s Bay in 1818, came on board.  From him I learned that several of the ships had been in the ice since the middle of April, some of them having been so far to the westward as the island of Jan Mayen, and that they were now endeavouring to push to the northward.  They considered the ice to offer more obstacles to the attainment of this object than it had done for many years past.[017] None of the ships had yet taken a single whale, which, indeed, they never expect to do to the southward of about 78 deg.

In the afternoon, after waiting for some time for the ice to open, we again entered it, in company with all the whalers, and by the following morning had succeeded in pushing about fifty miles farther to the northward, though not without some heavy blows in “boring” through the ice.

At five A.M. on the 14th we passed Magdalena Bay, and by ten o’clock had arrived off Hakluyt’s Headland, round which we hauled to the southeastward, to look, for anchorage in Smerenburg Harbour.  In this, however, we were disappointed, the whole place being occupied by one unbroken floe of ice, still firmly attached to the land on each side.  Here we made fast, though not without considerable difficulty; the wind, which was now freshening from the southward, blowing in such violent and irregular gusts off the high land that the ship was scarcely manageable.  Walruses, dovekies, and eider-ducks were very numerous here, especially the former; and four reindeer came down upon the ice near the ship.

We now prepared a quantity of provisions and other stores to land at Hakluyt’s Headland, as a supply for my party on our return from the northward; so that, in case of the ship being obliged to go more to the southward, or of our not being able at once to reach her, we should be furnished with a few days’ resources of every kind.  Our intentions were, however, frustrated for the present; for we had scarcely secured our hawsers, when a hard gale came on from the southward, threatening every moment to snap them in two, and drive us from our anchorage.  We held on for several hours, till, at nine P.M., some swell having set in upon the margin of the ice, it began to break off and drift away.  Every possible exertion was instantly made to shift our stream cable farther in upon the floe; but it broke away so quickly as to baffle every endeavour, and at ten the ship went adrift, the wind blowing still harder than before.  Having hauled in the hawsers and got the boats on board,