THE NARRATIVE OF CHARLES WILKES. 383 
of shipping the rudder troublesome. By meridian, they were again ina 
situation to make sail to extricate themselves from a bay some thirty 
miles in extent, which, with the exception of the small opening by 
which they had entered, was apparently closed by the barrier. 
Shortly afterwards, the wind becoming fair, they made all sail for 
the outlet. The weather proved fine and the winds moderate. At mid- 
night they found the only opening left, which was not more than a 
quarter of a mile wide; they succeeded in passing through this, by 
2a.m., in a snow-storm, and felt grateful to God for their providential 
escape. 
Captain Hudson now came to the conclusion of returning north. 
« After,” ashe says, “ thoroughly turning over in my own mind the state 
of the ship—with the head of the rudder gone, hanging by two braces, 
and in such a state that we could hardly hope to make it answer its 
purposes again, in encountering the boisterous weather we should have 
to pass through before reacbing the first port; the ship considerably 
strained ; her starboard spar-deck bulwarks gone as far forward as the 
gangway ; the gripe off, and the stern mutilated —fully satisfied from this 
state of things that she was perfectly useless for cruising among ice- 
bergs, and the accompanying dangers, in thick, foggy weather, to which, 
in these latitudes, we should be more or less subject, and where rapid 
evolutions were often necessary, in which the rudder must perform its 
part; and that the ship would require extensive repairs before being 
employed in surveying operations; and feeling that the season was 
rapidly coming round when our services would be required in that duty, 
T held a council of the ward-room officers, and required their opinions as 
to making any further attempts to cruise in these latitudes. 
“There was but one opinion as to the necessity of the ship’s returning 
north, with the exception of Mr. Emmons and Mr. Baldwin, who thought 
the rudder might stand, provided we did not get near the ice or fall in 
with icebergs. This, of course, would be to effect little or nothing, and 
result only in a loss of time. I accordingly put the ship’s head north, 
determined to proceed at once to Sydney to effect the necessary repairs, 
so as to be ready at the earliest possible day to join the squadron.” 
Such were the dangers and difficulties from which the Peacock, by 
the admirable conduct of her officers and crew, directed by the consum- 
mate seamanship of her commander, was enabled at this time to escape. 
There still, however, remained thousands of miles of a stormy ocean to 
be encountered, with a ship so crippled as to be hardly capable of 
working, and injured to such an extent in her hull as to be kept afloat 
with difficulty. The events of this perilous navigation must, however, 
be postponed, until I shall have given the narrative of the proceedings 
of the other vessels of the squadron, while tracing out the position of 
the icy barrier and following along the newly discovered continent. 
