They sailed from the Nore on June 4th; on the 6th of the following month they were in latitude 79° 56´ 39´´, longitude 9° 43´ 30´´ E. The next day, about the place where most of the old discoverers had been stopped, the _Racehorse_ was beset with ice; but they hove her through with ice anchors. Captain Phipps continued ranging along the ice, northward and westward, till the 24th; he then tried to the eastward. On the 30th he was in latitude 80° 13´, longitude 18° 48´ E., among the islands and in the ice, with no appearance of an opening for the ships. The weather was exceedingly fine, mild, and unusually clear. Here they were becalmed in a large bay, with three apparent openings between the islands which formed it; but everywhere, as far as they could see, surrounded with ice. There was not a breath of air, the water was perfectly smooth, the ice covered with snow, low and even, except a few broken pieces near the edge, and the pools of water in the middle of the ice fields just crusted over with young ice. On the next day the ice closed upon them, and no opening was to be seen anywhere, except a hole or lake, as it might be called, of about a mile and a half in circumference, where the ships lay fast to the ice with their ice anchors. They filled their casks with water from these ice-fields, which was very pure and soft. The men were playing on the ice all day; but the Greenland pilots, who were further than they had ever been before and considered that the season was far advancing, were alarmed at being thus beset.