FINDING OF THE RESOLUTE. 537 



that could move from its place had moved. Everything 

 between decks was wet ; everything that would mould 

 was mouldy. "A sort of perspiration" had settled on 

 the beams and ceilings. The whalemen made a fire in 

 Kellett's stove, and soon started a sort of shower from 

 the vapor with which it filled the air. The Resolute 

 had, however, four fine force-pumps. For three days 

 the captain and six men worked fourteen hours a day 

 on one of these, and had the pleasure of finding that 

 they freed her of water, that she was tight still. 

 They cut away upon the masses of ice ; and on the 23d 

 of September, in the evening, she freed herself from her 

 encumbrances, and took an even keel. This was off the 

 west shore of Baffin's Bay, in latitude 67. On the short- 

 est tack, she was twelve hundred miles from where Kel- 

 lett left her. 



There was work enough still to be done. The rudder 

 was to be shipped, the rigging to be made taut, sail 

 to be set ; and it proved, by the way, that the sail on 

 the yards was much of it still serviceable, while a suit of 

 new linen sails below were greatly injured by moisture. 

 In a week more, she was ready to make sail. The pack 

 of ice still drifted with both ships ; but, on the 21st Octo- 

 ber, after a long north-west gale, the Resolute was freo 



Capt. Buddington had resolved to bring her home. 

 He had picked ten men from the George Henry, and 

 with a rough tracing of the American coast, drawn on a 

 sheet of foolscap, with his lever watch and a quadrant 

 for his instruments, he squared off for New London. 

 A rough, hard passage they had of it. The ship's bal- 

 last was gone, by the bursting of the tanks ; she was 

 top-heavy and undermanned. He spoke a British whal- 

 ing-bark, and by her sent to Captain Kellett his 

 epaulets, and to his own owners news that he was 

 coming. They had heavy gales and head winds, and 



