216 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
the seas swept them fore and aft, while streams of heavy 
ice kept driving down upon the ship. The wind increased 
to a hurricane and all the cables parted. The trysails 
were set, but the fore trysail gaff went and could not be 
lowered, every rope being encrusted with a thick coating 
of ice. They were still 80 miles from Repulse Bay, with 
no hope of ever reaching it, and accordingly Captain Lyon 
reluctantly decided on returning to England. He bore 
up with a sad heart on the 15th September. Yet such 
a grand story of the pluck and endurance of British 
seamen so admirably told is worth much more than 
the journey from Repulse Bay to Cape Turnagain, if 
it could have been accomplished. Captain Lyon, so 
enthusiastic, so dauntless, so able and so beloved, is one 
of the greatest ornaments of polar history 1 . 
Parry thought that Fury and Hecla Strait opened 
upon a sea which communicated with Prince Regent's 
Inlet, and here again he was right. His idea was in 
a third voyage to take that route, and there was a pros- 
pect of co-operation. Franklin was again exploring the 
northern coast, while Captain Beechey, Parry's old 
first Lieutenant, was conducting a scientific voyage in 
H.M.S. Blossom in the direction of Bering Strait, and 
extending discovery from the Icy Cape of Captain Cook 
to Cape Barrow. 
At that period there was no lack of enthusiasm, and 
expedition followed on expedition in rapid succession. 
The Hecla was commissioned by Captain Parry, and the 
Fury by his old and faithful comrade in all his northern 
voyages, Captain Hoppner, on January 17th, 1824. Of 
Parry's old shipmates in former voyages, besides Hoppner, 
there were Sherer and James Ross, now Lieutenants ; 
Crozier and Bird, still midshipmen ; and Mr Hooper, the 
purser. The most distinguished of the new officers were 
Lieut. Foster, the Assistant Surveyor 2 , and Horatio 
T. Austin, first Lieutenant of the Fury. 
1 Captain Lyon served on board the Albion at the battle of Algiers. 
He made an important journey from Tripoli to Mouzourk and wrote an 
excellent account of a very little known country. In 1825 he married 
Lucy, daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who died in 1826. In 1828 
he published a journal of travels in Mexico. This accomplished and 
much beloved officer died in 1832. 
8 Henry Foster, son of the Rev. Henry Foster of Woodplumpton near 
