circumstance of his dying in 1823, worth 31,000_l._, leads me to suspect
that his associate Tassard greatly exaggerated the value of the
treasure. I am assured that he lived very quietly, and that the lady he
married, who bore him two children, both of whom died young, was of a
nunlike simplicity of character and loved show and extravagance as
little as her husband. Hence there is no reason to suppose that he
squandered any portion of the fortune that had in the most extraordinary
manner ever heard of fallen into his hands. I have ascertained that he
very substantially discharged the great obligation that his relative
Mason laid him under, and that his three men received a thousand pounds
apiece. It is possible, then, that the pirates were themselves deceived,
that what they had taken to be gold or silver ingots were not all so; or
it might be that the case of jewellery was less valuable than the
admiring and astonished eyes of a plain sailor, who admits that he had
never before seen such a sight, figured it. Be this, however, as it may,
it is nevertheless certain, as proved by Mr. Rodney's last will and
testament, that he did uncommonly well out of his adventure on the ice.

Whatever may be thought of his story of the Frenchman's restoration to
life, in other directions Mr. Rodney's accuracy seems unimpeachable. It
is quite conceivable that a stoutly-built vessel locked up in the ice
and thickly glazed, should continue in an excellent state of
preservation for years. The confession of his superstitious fears
exhibits honesty and candour. It is related that a Captain Warren,
master of an English merchant-ship, found a derelict (in August, 1775)
that had long been ice-bound, with her cabins filled with the bodies of
the frozen crew. "His own sailors, however, would not suffer him to
search the vessel thoroughly, through superstition, and wished to leave
her immediately." A pity they did not try their hands at thawing one of
the poor fellows: the result might have kept Mr. Rodney's strange
experience in countenance!

Accounts of vast bodies of ice, such as that which Mr. Rodney fell in
with, will be found in the South Atlantic Directory. For instance:--

"Sir James C. Ross crossed Weddel's track in Lat. 65 deg. S., and where he
had found an open sea, Ross found an ice-pack of an impassable
character, along which he sailed for 160 miles; and again, when only one
degree beyond the track of Cook, who had no occasion to ente