been but
too much reason to apprehend; the scurvy having within the last three
weeks continued to increase considerably upon him. It is proper for me,
however, both in justice to the medical officers under whose skilful and
humane care he was placed, and to the means with which we were in this
way so liberally supplied, to state, that during a part of that time Mr.
Fife had taken so great a dislike to the various antiscorbutics which
were administered to him, that he could seldom be induced to use any of
them. The disease, in consequence, reduced him to a state of extreme
debility, which at length carried him off almost without pain. The Hecla
being at the time closely beset, and in a situation of great danger
among the shoals off Winter Island, Captain Lyon caused the remains of
the deceased to be committed to the sea with all the solemnity which
circumstances would permit.

In the night of the 6th, the ships, which had before nearly closed each
other, were again separated to the distance of several miles, though no
motion was perceptible in the masses of ice about them. On the evening
of the 11th, however, the wind at length began to freshen from the
northwest, when the ice immediately commenced driving down the inlet at
the rate of a mile an hour, carrying the Fury with it, and within half a
mile of the rocks, the whole way down to Cape Martineau, but keeping
her in deep water. In the mean time the Hecla had been swept into much
more dangerous situations, passing along the east and south sides of
Winter Island; and, after driving nearly up to Five-hawser Bay, being
carried near some dangerous shoals about Cape Edwards, where Captain
Lyon expected every other tide that she would take the ground.

On the 15th, when the ships had closed each other within a mile, we
could see the clear water from the masthead, and the Hecla could now
have been easily extricated. Such, however, are the sudden changes that
take place in this precarious navigation, that not long afterward the
Fury was quite at liberty to sail out of the ice, while the Hecla was
now, in her turn, so immoveably fast set, and even cemented between
several very heavy masses, that no power that could be applied was
sufficient to move her an inch. In this situation she remained all the
16th, without our being able to render her any assistance; and the frost
being now rather severe at night, we began to consider it not improbable
that we might yet be detained for