322 HON. CAPTAIN PHIPPS. 



a.d. by keeping a press of sail on the ships, they 

 managed to get them past the Launch ; and the 

 progress of the ships now exceeding that of the 

 boats, they were all got on board. 



Hopes of a speedy liberation were now mo- 

 mentarily increasing ; all sail was kept on the 

 vessels, which began to move briskly through 

 the water, and to make their own way through 

 the ice, by turning aside pieces which would 

 have resisted a less forcible impetus; in doing 

 this the Racehorse lost her best bower anchor, 

 by the stock coming in contact with a large piece 

 of ice, which broke it in the shank. By noon on 

 the 10th the ships had cleared the ice, and the 

 crews enjoyed the indescribable gratification of 

 once more finding themselves in a navigable sea. 

 The next day, Captain Phipps put into the port 

 of Smeerenberg, and anchored off the low point 

 of Amsterdam Island, where, as he had antici- 

 pated, he found four Dutch whalers ; so that had 

 he been obliged to abandon his own ships, he 

 would thus have been provided with the means of 

 returning to England. 



Being now convinced, from his experience 

 amongst the ice, that it was quite impossible to 

 penetrate the great icy barrier, which he had 

 found extending from the northeastern point of 

 Spitzbergen, round by the Seven Islands to the 



