302 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. which was rapidly closing the shore, the Alexander, then under my com- 
mand, touched the ground just at the critical moment when it was necessary 
to push through the narrow and uncertain passage. It being nearly calm, 
the boats were sent a-head to tow, but the little way which they could give 
the ship was not sufficient to have rescued us in time from the approaching 
danger, and nothing less than the wreck of the ship was every moment to 
be expected. Several sail of whalers were following astern ; but seeing the 
dangerous situation in which the Alexander was placed, and the impossibility 
of getting through themselves, they instantly put about into the clear water 
which we had just left, and, before we had time to ask for assistance, no 
less than fourteen boats, many of them with the masters of the ships them- 
selves attending in them, placed themselves promptly a-head of the Alex- 
ander, and by dint of the greatest exertion towed her off into clear water, at 
the rate of three or four miles an hour, not one minute too soon to prevent 
the catastrophe we had anticipated. 
The opening of a new whale-fishery on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay, 
which constitutes an important era in the history of that trade, and for which 
the country is indebted to the researches of the expedition of 1818, under 
the command of Captain Ross, will, perhaps, render expedient a new mode 
of proceeding in the annual visits of our ships to this part of the Polar 
regions. It has hitherto been customary for a certain number of those 
intended for the Davis’ Strait fishery, to occupy the early part of the season in 
what is called “ the south-west,” which is that part of the sea immediately 
to the eastward of Resolution Island, and in that neighbourhood. The ships 
frequently appear on this ground as early as the first of April, when the 
nights are long, the weather extremely cold and inclement, and with a 
heavy sea occasionally rolling in upon them from the Atlantic, making this, 
perhaps, upon the whole, the most severe fishery which is any where used 
by our whalers. They generally remain upon this coast, as near as the ice 
will permit them, till about the first or second week in June, not without 
considerable wear and tear to the ships, and the most harassing fatigue to 
the men, but seldom with a proportionate degree of success to repay their 
toil. After this, they strike over to the eastern or Greenland side, and 
prosecute the fishery on that coast in the usual way. I cannot but consider, 
that this “ south-west” fishery might now be advantageously dispensed with 
altogether, and the expense of wages, provisions, and wear and tear, for the 
months of April, May, and June, entirely saved to the owners, or employed 
