PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 13 



collecting our anxiety for the health, comfort, 

 safety, and ultimate credit of yourself, your 

 officers, and your crew. In like manner you 

 will have to repose a similar confidence on 

 those officers to whom you entrust the command 

 of the detached parties ; but you will endeavour 

 to guide them by the most explicit instructions 

 which it may be in your power to give. 



" You will assist them by a minute exposition 

 of all the resources which you have derived 

 from the fruits of your own experience, and you 

 will give them peremptory injunctions to return 

 to the ship at a definite fixed period. 



"The foregoing instructions have been framed 

 with the intention, and in the full belief, that this 

 service may be duly and faithfully performed 

 in the course of the present season, and that this 

 Arctic Expedition maybe distinguished from all 

 others by the promptitude of its execution, and 

 by escaping from the gloomy and unprofitable 

 waste of eight months' detention : it is therefore 

 our distinct orders, that every effort shall be 

 made to return to England in the fall of this 

 year. Difficulties may however occur, which 

 we cannot foresee ; some of the detachments may 

 have been detained by uncontrollable events, 

 or may have been visited by accidents requiring 

 assistance at a considerable distance ; and in 

 these cases you may find yourself compelled to 



