southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to
prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower latitude. I was
the more inclined to make this attempt, from its having long
become evident to us that the navigation of this part of the Polar
Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional openings
between the ice and the shore; and that, therefore, a continuity
of land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this
purpose. Such a continuity of land, which was here about to fail
us, must necessarily be furnished by the northern coast of
America, in whatsoever latitude it may be found; and, as a large
portion of our short season had already been occupied in fruitless
attempts to penetrate farther to the westward in our present
parallel, under circumstances of more than ordinary risk to the
ships, I determined, whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to
put into execution the plan I had proposed.

At seven P.M. we shipped the rudder and crossed the top-gallant
yards in readiness for moving; and then I ascended the hill and
walked a mile to the westward, along the brow of it, that not a
moment might be lost after the ice to the westward should give us
the slightest hope of making any progress by getting under way.
Although the holes had certainly increased in size and extent,
there was still not sufficient room even for one of our boats to
work to windward; and the impossibility of the ships' doing so was
rendered more apparent, on account of the current which, as I have
before had occasion to remark, is always produced in these seas
soon after the springing up of a breeze, and which was now running
to the eastward at the rate of at least one mile per hour. It was
evident that any attempt to get the ships to the westward must,
under circumstances so unfavourable, be attended with the certain
consequence of their being drifted the contrary way; and nothing
could therefore be done but still to watch, which we did most
anxiously, every alteration in the state of the ice. The wind,
however, decreasing as the night came on, served to diminish the
hopes with which we had flattered ourselves of being speedily
extricated from our present confined and dangerous situation.

The weather was foggy for some hours in the morning of the 11th,
but cleared up in the afternoon as the sun acquired power. The
wind increased to a fresh gale from the eastward at nine P.M.,
being the second time that it had done s