I 
84 VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. believe that we should find them, if still living, at a considerable distance to 
the westward, and some parties were just about to set out in that direction, 
when the trouble and anxiety which this mistake would have occasioned us 
were prevented by the arrival of another of the searching parties, with the in- 
formation that Mr. Fife and the two men were on their way to the ships, being 
about five miles to the eastward. Some fresh hands were immediately sent to 
bring them in, and they arrived on board at ten P.M., after an absence of 
ninety-one hours, and having been exposed, during three nights, to the incle- 
mency of the first wintry weather we had experienced. Almost the whole of 
this party were much exhausted by cold and fatigue, and several of them were 
severely frost-bitten in their toes and fingers ; but, by the skill and unremitted 
attention of our medical gentlemen, they were in a few days enabled to return 
to their duty. 
Before midnight we had still greater reason than ever to be thankful for 
the opportune recovery of our people ; for the wind increased to a hard gale 
about half-past eleven, at which time the thermometer had fallen to 15° ; 
making altogether so inclement a night, as it would have been impossible for 
them, in their already debilitated state, to have survived. In humble gra- 
titude to God for this signal act of mercy, we distinguished the headland to 
the westward of the ships, by the name of Cape Providence. 
Tues. 14. Soon after midnight, the land-ice which was interposed between the Hecla 
and the beach, and to which the ship was partly secured, broke adrift, and 
floated off the ground ; fortunately, however, we were prepared to cut the 
shore hawsers, by which means we avoided the danger of being carried off 
the shore, being well secured to the little berg a-head of us, which appeared 
to be firmly aground in ten fathoms’ water. The stream cable was afterwards 
taken to the beach, and I determined, should the berg go adrift, to cut away 
our hawsers from it ; and, having checked the ship by the stream-cable till 
she swung into five fathoms, at the distance of forty or fifty yards from 
the shore, to let go a bower anchor, till the wind should moderate. I com- 
municated my intention to Lieutenant Liddon during the day, and directed 
him, in case of necessity, rather to run the Griper on the soft beach near us, 
than to risk being driven back to the eastward. Fortunately, however, it was 
not necessary to resort to this measure, as the ice held fast on the ground, 
notwithstanding the violence of the wind, and some sea which got up from 
the westward, as the space of open water between the land and the ice 
increased in that direction. At three A.M. this morning, the thermometer 
