3G CAPTAIN il'CLURE'S DESPATCHES. 



close of the season to embrace every opportunity of getting to some 

 place of security, our course was continued with easy canvass, when, 

 under other circumstances, vve should have most assuredly secured for 

 the night, and at 7.30 p.m., with the lead going, went from 15 fathoms 

 upon a mud bank, having only six feet under the bow, and at the 

 distance of 10 feet from the stern only 18 inches, while the stern was 

 in five fathoms. The stream anchor and cable were laid out, — which 

 service was well performed by ^lessrs. Wynniatt, Sainsbury, and Court, 

 it requiring four boats in consequence of tlie freshening N.W. gale and 

 pieces of loose ice with snow, which, caking as it reached the water, 

 formed so thick a coating over its surface, and offered such resistance, 

 that it was scarcely possible to j)ull through. However, with clearing 

 the forehold and warrant- officers' store-rooms, and bringing all the 

 weight abaft the mizen-mast, at 10 ]).m. we were enabled to heave off, 

 and brought up with both bowers in six fathoms and a half. The re- 

 mainder of the night was occupied in restowing the holds, weighing the 

 stream-anchor, &c., so that at daylight of the 24th we were in perfect 

 readiness to move. On a view of our position, we found that we were 

 on the N.W. side of a large bay, the eastern limit of which bore N.E. 

 eight miles (which we subsequently found formed the western point of 

 Banks's Land), and running to the S.S.W. about seven, which was 

 rapidly filling up with ice flowing in before a fresh gale from the Polar 

 Sea. Still wishing to see if any possibility remained of getting down 

 Barrow's Strait, we weighed, and stood as far as the ice would allow to 

 the N.E., when, observing from the crow's-nest no water in that direc- 

 tion, I determined to make this our winter quarters, and, having re- 

 marked upon the south side of the bank on which we had grounded a 

 well protected bay, Mr. Court was despatched to sound it ; and, shortly 

 making the signal that there was sufficient water, we bore up, and at 

 7.45 a.m. we anchored in four and a half fathoms, and that niglit were 

 firmly frozen in, in what has since proved a most safe and excellent 

 harbour, which, in grateful remembrance of the many perils that we 

 had escaped during the passage of that terrible Polar Sea, we have 

 named the " Bay of jNIercy," thus finally terminating this short season's 

 operations, havino- been actually only five entire days under way. Pie- 

 parations were now made for housing in, and everything was com})Ieted 

 by October 1, except hauling over the cloth, which was not done that 

 the daylight should be enjoyed as long as possible, and a saving in 

 lights effected. On that day, as a precautionary measure, the crew 

 were placed upon two-thirds allowance of all species of provisions. 

 Upon the 4th, Mr. Court was sent with a travelling party to connect 

 our position with that visited by Lieutenant Cresswell in May last, 

 from which vve were only distant ]H miles. On the 7th he returned, 

 which service completed the search around the entire coast line of this 

 island ; he reported open water a few miles from the shore, which, 

 gradually extending, reached the cliffs of Banks's Land. Upon the 

 lith, as, with two men, he was examining a few miles to the south- 

 eastward of his tent, the current detached the heavy grounded land ice 

 from its base, drifting the whole i)arty off shore to the N.W. ; fortu- 

 nately, being unencumbered with the sledge, they succeeded with diffi- 

 culty and by nmch agility, jumping from i)iece to jjiece, in regaining 

 the shore, and that evening no ice could be remarked in the Strait, the 

 whole being set into the Polar Sea. 



