the southward began to open out the ice from the point near which we lay.  As soon as the channel was three or four hundred yards wide, we warped into the clear water, and, making sail, rounded the point in safety, having no soundings with twenty fathoms, at one third of a mile from a small rocky islet lying off it.  In the mean time the wind had been driving the ice so fast off the land as to form for us a clear communication with the open water before seen to the eastward; and thus we were at length liberated from our confinement, after a close and tedious “besetment” of twenty-four days.

The weather continued so thick, that, impatient as we were to stand in towards the eastern land, we could not venture to do so till eleven A.M. on the 10th, when we made sail towards Brandywine Bay, the wind being now from the W.S.W., or nearly dead upon that shore.  The weather clearing up at 1.15 P.M., we saw the eastern land, and soon after discovered the grounded ice off Low Island; Walden’s Island was also plainly in sight to the N.E.  The bay seemed deeply indented, and very likely to afford nooks such as we wanted; and where so large a space of open water, and, consequently, some sea, had been exerting its influence for a considerable time, we flattered ourselves with the most sanguine hopes of now having access to the shores, sufficiently near, at least, for sawing into some place of shelter.  How, then, shall I express our surprise and mortification in finding that the whole of the coast, from the islands northward to Black Point, and apparently also as far as Walden’s Island, was rendered inaccessible by one continuous and heavy floe, everywhere attached to the shores, and to the numberless grounded masses about the island, this immense barrier being in some places six or seven miles in width, and not less than twelve feet in thickness near the margin.

The prospect from our masthead at this time was certainly enough to cast a damp over every sanguine expectation I had formed, of being soon enabled to place the Hecla in security; and more willingly than ever would I, at this period, have persuaded myself, if possible, that I should be justified in quitting her at sea.  Such, however, was the nature of this navigation, as regarded the combined difficulties arising from ice and a large extent of shoal and unsurveyed ground, that, even with our full complement of officers and men on board, all our strength and exertions might scarcely have sufficed, in a single gale of wind, to keep the ship tolerably secure, and much less could I have ensured placing her ultimately in any proper situation for picking up an absent party; for, if once again beset, she must, of course, be at the mercy of the ice.  The conclusion was, therefore, irresistibly forced upon my mind, that thus to leave the ship would be to expose her to imminent and certain peril, rendering it impossible to conjecture where we should find her on our return, and, therefore, rashly to place all parties in a situation from which nothing but disaster could reasonably be expected to ensue.