In consequence of the delay by this and other causes induced, it was not without very great efforts that the Fame was got ready for the fishery of the ensuing season, 1818. The requisite preparations however, were completed, whilst there was yet time for the adventure, and the ship, for the first attempt, being put under my command, sailed from Liverpool on the 2nd April. Having obtained, for the season, which was not a prosperous one, a good cargo, we returned, August the 18th, (as had been arranged) to Whitby. In the following spring my Father re-assumed his habitual occupation in command of the Fame; but the great draught of water and somewhat sharp build of the ship, rendering the tide-harbour, to which, in this first instance, she had resorted, both inconvenient and unsafe, her port was again changed for Hull, to which, with but a moderate cargo, she returned. The next voyage, that of 1820, was, for the somewhat unfavourable season, a very successful one; that of 1821 was moderately good; that of 1822 returned only an average cargo; and the attempt of 1823 was prematurely arrested by the unfortunate destruction of the ship by fire. The Fame had been fitted out for this contemplated voyage with unusual care and expense,—considerable alterations and improvements, independent of repairs, having been made; she had proceeded northward as far as the Orkneys, where she had taken up an anchorage for the completion of her crew with boatmen, when the catastrophe, which summarily frustrated the undertaking, brought my Father’s Arctic adventures at the same time to a sudden termination; for after so long a pursuance of his arduous enterprises, and the acquisition of a handsome and ample competency, there were much stronger motives for inducing him now to remain on shore, “for the enjoyment of the fruits of his labours,” than to stimulate to further efforts in any new undertaking. The summary of these two latter enterprises, it will naturally have been anticipated, does not correspond with that of the three-and-twenty years of all but continuous successes. For though the cargoes obtained in his six last voyages were, on the whole, considerably above the ordinary average, yet they by no means maintained the claim to superiority.