When all these measures were decided upon, and every man had provided himself with what was most essential for his safety and sustenance, they began their perilous journey at half-past one o’clock, P.M.  By three o’clock, every one had left the ship, except Captain Wallis, and he then followed the party, accompanied by Lieutenant Ridley, of the Marines.

To describe the dangers and difficulties the crew of the Proserpine had to encounter is almost impossible.  The snow was still falling heavily, driving against their faces, and adhering to their hair and eyebrows, where in a few minutes it became solid pieces of ice.  Sometimes they had to clamber over huge blocks of ice, and at other times were obliged to plunge through snow and water reaching to their middle.

As the wind blew from the direction in which they were proceeding, the large flakes of snow were driven into their eyes, and prevented them from seeing many yards in advance.  This caused them to deviate from their proper course, and to travel in a direction which, if continued, would have carried them off the shoal and field of ice into the sea, or at least have taken them so far from any place of shelter, as to have left them to perish in the ice and snow during the night.

This dreadful calamity was, however, prevented, by one of the party having in his possession a pocket compass.  Fortunately, bearings had been taken previous to their leaving the wreck.  The course they were pursuing was examined, and to their surprise it was discovered that they had been deviating widely from the direct line which they ought to have pursued.  This, however, enabled the party to correct the march, and after a toilsome journey of six miles, they at length reached Newark.

In the course of their hazardous journey, a striking instance was afforded of the inscrutable ways of Providence.  Two females were on board the Proserpine when she was stranded,—­one a strong healthy woman, accustomed to the hardships of a maritime life:  the other exactly the reverse, weak and delicate, had never been twelve hours on board a ship until the evening previous to the frigate’s sailing from Yarmouth.  Her husband had been lately impressed, and she had come on board for the purpose of taking farewell.  Owing to a sudden change of the weather, and the urgency of the mission for which the Proserpine had been despatched, she had been unable to quit the ship.  The poor creature was upon the eve of her confinement, and naturally being but ill prepared to combat with the inconvenience of a ship at sea, in the course of the day she was delivered of a dead child.  The reader can well imagine the sufferings endured by this helpless woman, with but one of her own sex to tend her, in a vessel tossed about in the stormy seas of the Northern Ocean.

But this was little compared with what she had yet to undergo.  Before many hours the frigate stranded:  the night was passed in torture of mind and body, and then was she compelled, with others, to quit the ship, and travel through masses of snow and ice, and to combat with the bitter north wind, hail, and sleet.