Under such circumstances, to which may be added the uncertainty of the Hecla’s liberation from the ice to the southward before the close of the season, I no longer considered it prudent or justifiable, upon the slender chance of eventual success now before us, to risk the safety of the officers and men committed to my charge, and whom it was now my first wish to reconduct in good health to their country and their friends.  Having communicated my intentions to the officers and ships’ companies, I directed several additions to be made to their ordinary allowance of provisions, particularly in the various antiscorbutics, which had hitherto been reserved for cases of emergency; and then beating up to our winter station, which I named Turton Bay, we anchored there in the afternoon in ten fathoms, and immediately commenced our preparations for lightening the Fury.  Seven months’ provisions, a bower anchor, and a few other stores, were received by the Hecla, some of her water, before filled as ballast, being started to make room for them; and such other arrangements made as circumstances would permit for improving the stowage of the Fury’s hold.  The bay was now entirely clear of ice in every part; and so changed was its appearance in the course of the last four-and-twenty hours, that it was scarcely possible to believe it the same place that we had been accustomed daily to look upon for the ten preceding months.

The conveyance and stowage of the stores had scarcely been completed, when some loose ice drifting into the bay with the tide on the night of the 10th, obliged us hastily to get under way and stand out.  On the following morning I ran across to the main land in the Fury, for the purpose of erecting, in compliance with my instructions, a flagstaff fifty-six feet in height, having at its top a ball, made of iron hoops and canvass, ten feet in diameter, and a cylinder buried near its foot, containing a parchment with some account of our visit to this place.  In the mean time, I requested Captain Lyon to stand over to the point of Igloolik, where our walruses had been landed, and to bring off these, as well as our boats and tents remaining there.  The ice soon after coming in upon the point, it was not without risk of the Hecla’s being dangerously beset that Captain Lyon succeeded in bringing off everything but one boat.  This was, indeed, no great loss to us, though a great acquisition to the Esquimaux; for, being almost worn out, I had intended to break her up previously to leaving the ice.  Besides this, we purposely left our sledges, and a quantity of wood in pieces of a convenient size for bows, spears, and paddles, distributing them about in several places, that one or two individuals might not make a prize of the whole.