358 STATE OF CHANNEL ICE. \_AllffUst, 



mind the advantage of decision : if the Captain is not fit 

 to command, he should not be selected ; the lives of all 

 are in his keeping, one false step, and no one survives 

 to tell the tale ! The great evil entailed on this service, 

 at a period when no great experience entitled the Com- 

 mander to be decisive, and he had Ice-masters to help 

 him, was the referring to Council, or, as I now view the 

 case, to relieve himself from the responsibility of any un- 

 fortunate event which was liable to be contested by those 

 under him. At that period the Expedition was composed 

 of officers of nearly the same rank ; the case is now far 

 different, nor do I require any such protection. 



The position we had lately occupied was now closed 

 in with heavy, hummocky, pressed-up ice, and no trace 

 of floe, such as we left. Probably the ice to which we 

 were then fast, and having a very wide crack, leading 

 possibly miles easterly, now formed part of the piled-up 

 masses on Dundas or Margaret Islands, or, if it escaped 

 these, passed up the Queen's Channel ! I felt grateful 

 that the pressure had not been tested by the vessels 

 under my command ; for there I do not believe that life 

 would have been saved. Easterly, the coast was lined 

 with larger masses of ice than we had before noticed, 

 grounding in three fathoms and a half, and pressed so 

 heavily in upon the shoal line that it interfered much 

 with my purpose of making my escape between them 

 and the land. Viewing the coast westerly up to Cape 

 Majendie, we had to be thankful that we were not cast 

 upon that unpromising iron-bound coast. Such then 

 being our own escape, my thoughts naturally reverted 

 to the case of the missing ships ; any similar casualty 



