o open water any where in
sight. At five in the morning, the pilots having expressed a wish to
get, if possible, farther out, the ships companies were set to work,
that they might cut away the ice, and warp through the small openings to
the westward. They found the ice so very deep, that they were often
obliged to saw through pieces twelve feet thick; and, after toiling in
this manner the whole day, with all their utmost efforts, had not been
able to move the ship above three hundred yards to the westward, through
the ice. They had, in the mean time, been driven, with the ice field
itself to which they were fast, to the north-east and eastward, by the
current; which had also forced the loose ice from the westward between
the islands, where it became what the Greenlandmen call packed, or one
piece thrown up above another to a considerable height, and as firm as
the main body.

On the 4th, it was quite calm, till the evening; when they were
flattered with a light air to the eastward, which produced no favourable
effect.

On the 5th, the probability of getting the ships out appearing every
hour less, and the season being already far advanced, some speedy
resolution became necessary for the preservation of the people. As the
situation of the ships prevented them from seeing the state of the ice
to the westward, by which, their future proceedings must be in a great
measure determined, Captain Phipps sent Mr. Walden, one of his
midshipmen, with two pilots, to an island twelve miles off, since
distinguished, in the charts, by the name of Walden's Island, to see
where the open water lay.

On the 6th, in the morning, Mr. Walden and the two pilots returned;
with an account that the ice, though close all about the ships, was open
to the westward, round the point by which they had got in. They also
remarked that, on the island, they had the wind very fresh to the
eastward, though it had been almost calm the whole time where the ships
lay. This circumstance considerably lessened the hopes, hitherto
entertained, of the immediate effect of an easterly wind in clearing the
bay. Having now only one alternative; either patiently to wait the event
of the weather on the ships, in hopes of getting them out, or to betake
themselves to the boats. The ships had at this time driven into shoal
water, having only fourteen fathom; and, should either the ships, or the
ice to which they were fast, take the ground, they must be inevitably
lost, a