33 
as far as the eye could reach from the summit of Beechey Island, which, 
with Cape Riley, I ascended on the day of my arrival; the season an un- 
usually open one ; with little or no ice, and the wind blowing from the southward 
and eastward fresh and fair, — there was nothing to have prevented us from 
doubling Cape Sir John Franklin, and proceeding round by Jones Sound into 
Baffin Bay, before the north-westerly gales set in, which at a later period we 
met with, those winds would have proved fair for our return down Jones' Sound, 
sheltered under the lee of the land, round by Lancaster Sound and Barrow 
Strait to Beechey Island, thus completing the circumnavigation of North 
Devon, and an entire examination of its shores. Subsequent events have proved 
that all this might have been accomplished in the season. 
When we were enabled to get away from the ship winter had already, the day 
before, set in. After an absence of three weeks' exposure to a succession of 
north-westerly gales, and altogether the most boisterous weather that I ever 
before experienced, as described in the preceding narrative, I, however, had 
the satisfaction of setting the Baring Bay question at rest; viz., that there is 
no communication whatever between that bay and Jones' Sound. 
After my return I wrote a letter to the commander of the expedition early in the 
spring, offering to explore Smith Sound into the Polar Ocean as far as the season 
would permit of, if I was given the command of the " Mary" yacht, a decked 
boat of twelve tons, cutter-rigged, and well adapted for such a service ; as, in 
addition to the greater quantity of provisions and stores which she would stow 
for a prolonged search, she would also possess the advantage of greater safety 
in a sea that might endanger an open boat, more especially if deeply laden, as 
the " Forlorn Hope" was. My former boat's crew having volunteered to accom- 
pany me again, and cheerfuUy expressed their willingness to follow me wherever 
I led them, it was my intention to have brought the " Mary" across the 
Atlantic home, after completing provisions and fuel at some one of the depots 
at Pond's Bay, or the southern shores of Lancaster Sound, instead of risking her 
getting beset for the winter in the heavy packs with which Barrow Strait was 
filled this season. 
My object in the voyage up Smith's Sound was to have made as near an 
approach to the Pole as the state of the ice would have permitted. I believe 
that if ever the North Pole is reached, it will be on the meridian of Smith 
Sound. 
I may here offer a few suggestions on the probable fate of the missing ships and 
their crews ; having myself entertained sanguine hopes of discovering some 
traces of them in the higher latitudes which it was my intention, if possible, to 
have reached, had the command of the " Mary" been given me. This, however, 
was declined by the Commodore, and in the answer which I received from him 
to my offer, dated on board the " Assistance," 26th July 1 853, the reason assigned 
was that, " Nothing now remains undone in that vicinity." Every hope of 
making myself further useful in the cause being now at an end, I had no other 
alternative left me than to return home in the " Phoenix," having done all that 
it was in my power to do. 
There are several ways by which a ship may be destroyed — by fire, by 
foundering, by collision with ice, or by being driven on shore. Either of the 
first two casualties might easily enough happen to a single ship ; but as it is in 
the highest degree improbable that two ships should together share the same 
fate, these two modes of accounting for the loss of the Polar ships may at once 
be disposed of. The third, by collision with ice, carries with it a greater 
amount of probability. Even this, however, in the case of the " Erebus" and 
" Terror" seems to me a very unlikely catastrophe to have happened to two 
ships so strongly built and so well additionally fortified by the stoutest doubling 
as those ships were, rendering them capable of resisting an amount of pressure 
from ice truly astonishing, as I can, from my own personal observation, vouch 
for. Having seen them beset in the immense packs of ice in the Antarctic seas, 
consisting of floes mostly of great thickness and density, the latter quality being 
greatly increased from the temperature never rising above the freezing point 
within the Antarctic circle even at midsummer, consequently exerting no 
thawing influence on those vast fields of ice, which, when put in motion during 
the agitation of the great southern ocean by heavy gales, I have often seen the 
strength of the " Erebus" most severely tested between huge dense masses of 
blue ice, violently grinding past her sides, tearing and rolling up her stout 
E 
