THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



Captain Burdick said little about this first meeting with Captain Davis. The 

 log of the Huntress does not disclose whether or not one of the shallops was 

 the mysterious visitor at Bense Harbor. It merely reports that the crew became 

 busily employed in repairing the schooner's sails and that they "cut 2 feet off 

 mains'l, there not being hoist for it." But at some time during the next four 

 days, the two shipmasters, Burdick and Davis, entered into an "agreement," 

 whereby they were to sail in company to the South Shetlands, including the 

 Huron's shallop, the little schooner Cecilia, and at the islands join their crews 

 and hunt seals as a joint enterprise. 



The little fleet — ship Huron, schooner Huntress and shallop Cecilia — left 

 Hope Harbor and the Falklands on November 22, 1820, and the log of the 

 Huntress notes that they took their departure from Cape Percival (New 

 Island) latitude 51° 47' south and longitude 61° IT west, the compass vari- 

 ation then being 22° east. Three days later, at 8 o'clock in the morning, they 

 sighted Staten Land and took another land departure in latitude 54° 48' south. 



The course was now set for the South Shetlands, four hundred miles to the 

 south-southeast of Cape Horn. 



[24] 



