SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 



431 



he could seldom be induced to use any of them. The disease, in conse- I s23 - 



Sept. 



que nee, reduced him to a state of extreme debility, which at length carried <^v— 

 him off almost without pain. The Hecla being at the time closely beset, 

 and in a situation of great danger among the shoals off Winter Island, Cap- 

 tain Lyon caused the remains of the deceased to be committed to the sea 

 with all the solemnity which circumstances would permit. I cannot close 

 this melancholy notice without expressing my most sincere regret, to which 

 I may venture to add that of Captain Lyon and the other officers, for the 

 loss of this very deserving individual, whose qualities as a seaman and navi- 

 gator, had it pleased God to spare his life, would have rendered him an 

 ornament to the naval service, into which he was to have been admitted as a 

 Master on the return of the ships to England. Mr. Crawford, the mate of 

 the Fury, was appointed, for the present, to act as Master of the Hecla in 

 the room of Mr. Fife. 



In the night of the 6th, the ships, which had before nearly closed each 

 other, were again separated to the distance of several miles, though no 

 motion was perceptible in the masses of ice about them. The Hecla was 

 now carried towards Winter Island, and the Fury up Lyon Inlet, so that on 

 the 10th we had reached the islands off Five-hawser Bay within three-quar- Wed. 

 ters of a mile, where the Hecla was barely visible from the mast-head. On 

 the evening of the 11th, however, the wind at length began to freshen fromThur.il. 

 the north-west, when the ice almost immediately commenced driving down 

 the inlet at the rate of a mile an hour, carrying the Fury with it and within 

 half a mile of the rocks, the whole way down to Cape Martineau, but keep- 

 ing her in deep water. In the mean time the Hecla had been swept into 

 much more dangerous situations, passing along the east and south sides of 

 Winter Island ; and after driving nearly up to Five-hawser Bay, being carried 

 near some dangerous shoals about Cape Edwards, where Captain Lyon 

 expected every other tide that she would take the ground. Indeed for the 

 last ten or twelve days the situation of the Hecla had been one of imminent 

 danger, and every exertion to remove her from it had proved unavailing. 

 From this time, however, the ice continued to drive to the southward and, 

 by some means or other, the ships once more closed each other. It was 

 now observable, as on a former occasion in this neighbourhood, that the ice 

 did not carry the ships in the direction opposite to the wind, but much more 

 towards Southampton Island; so that on the 14th we were once more off Sun. 14. 

 Fife Rock, and had, by great exertions in warping, nearly rejoined the 



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