Under such circumstances, it evidently became expedient to endeavour, by
sawing, to get the ships as close in-shore as possible, so as to secure
them either to grounded ice, or by anchoring within the shelter of a bay
at no great distance inside of us; for it now seemed not unlikely that
winter was about to put a premature stop to all farther operations at
sea for this season. At all events, it was necessary to consult the
immediate safety of the ships, and to keep them from being drifted back
to the eastward. I therefore gave orders for endeavouring to get the
ships in towards the bay, by cutting through what level floes still
remained. So strong had been the pressure while the ice was forcing in
upon us, that on the 20th, after liberating the Hecla on one side, she
was as firmly cemented to it on the other, as after a winter's
formation; and we could only clear her by heavy and repeated "sallying."
After cutting in two or three hundred yards, while the people were at
dinner on the 21st, our canal closed by the external pressure coming
upon the parts which we had weakened, and in a few minutes the whole was
once more in motion, or, as the seamen not inaptly expressed it,
"alive," mass doubling under mass, and raising those which were
uppermost to a considerable height.
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