At eight in the morning of the 21st, the wind freshening, and the fog clearing away, we saw the American coast to the S.E., at the distance of eight or ten leagues, and hauled in for it; but were stopped again by the ice, and obliged to bear away to the westward, along the edge of it.  At noon, the latitude, by account, was 69 deg. 34’, and longitude 193 deg., and the depth of water twenty-four fathoms.

Thus a connected solid field of ice, rendering every effort we could make to a nearer approach to the land fruitless, and joining as we judged to it, we took a last farewell of a N.E passage to Old England.  I shall beg leave to give, in Captain Clerke’s own words, the reasons of this his final determination, as well as of his future plans; and this the rather, as it is the last transaction his health permitted him to write down.

“It is now impossible to proceed the least farther to the northward upon this coast (America); and it is equally as improbable that this amazing mass of ice should be dissolved by the few remaining summer-weeks which will terminate this season; but it will continue, it is to be believed, as it now is, an insurmountable barrier to every attempt we can possibly make.  I therefore think it the best step that can be taken, for the good of the service, to trace the sea over to the Asiatic coast, and to try if I can find any opening, that will admit me farther north; if not, to see what more is to be done upon that coast; where I hope, yet cannot much flatter myself, to meet with better success; for the sea is now so choaked with ice, that a passage, I fear, is totally out of the question.”

[21] Krusenstern substantially admits the correctness of Captain King’s
    statement respecting the Russian hospital, &c. by saying, expressively
    enough, things are not quite so bad at present.  It is evident,
    however, from his remarks, that the change to the better is almost to
    the full amount of being imperceptible, notwithstanding the zeal of
    some individuals whose exertions he is anxious to eulogize, and his
    own disposition to believe that their well-meant exertions have not
    been entirely fruitless.  The change, it would seem, consists in the
    greater quantities of medicine sent to Kamtschatka, and not in the
    greater practicability of judiciously applying them.  This, most
    persons of discernment will shrewdly suspect, is several degrees worse
    than problematically a change to the better.  At least one could
    scarcely help desiring rather to accept peaceably the warrant of a
    natural death, than to risk the enhancement of a conflict on the
    doubtful aid of a bungling doctor, whose chief recommendation,
    perhaps, if he would but allow himself to be favoured by it, consisted
    in his avowed ignorance securing his neutrality.  In such a case,
    indeed, and it seems on the whole to be almost the very one which K.