The prospect from our masthead at this time was certainly enough to cast
a damp over every sanguine expectation I had formed, of being _soon_
enabled to place the Hecla in security; and more willingly than ever
would I, at this period, have persuaded myself, if possible, that I
should be justified in quitting her at sea. Such, however, was the
nature of this navigation, as regarded the combined difficulties arising
from ice and a large extent of shoal and unsurveyed ground, that, even
with our full complement of officers and men on board, all our strength
and exertions might scarcely have sufficed, in a single gale of wind, to
keep the ship tolerably secure, and much less could I have ensured
placing her ultimately in any proper situation for picking up an absent
party; for, if once again beset, she must, of course, be at the mercy of
the ice. The conclusion was, therefore, irresistibly forced upon my
mind, that thus to leave the ship would be to expose her to imminent and
certain peril, rendering it impossible to conjecture where we should
find her on our return, and, therefore, rashly to place all parties in a
situation from which nothing but disaster could reasonably be expected
to ensue.
After beating through much ice, which was all of the drift or broken
kind, and had all found its way hither in the last two days, we got into
an open space of water in-shore, and about six miles to the northward of
Low Island; and on the morning of the 13th stretched in towards Walden
Island, around which we found, as we had feared, a considerable quantity
of fixed ice.
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