The Resolution was moored to a flat sheet of ice, surrounded by streams and open drift ice, on the 30th of April, 1808. It blew fresh, and the weather was cold. In the evening a whale was harpooned, which ran out about the length of a mile and a half of line from the fast-boat. Other harpoons, and several lances, were then struck, and no doubt remained with the pursuers but that it would speedily become their prize. But this expectation signally failed. A tremendous and convulsive throe of the whale produced an extraordinary effect: one of the lines, and also a harpoon were broken, and the other two harpoons drawn out simultaneously, when, to the astonishment of the beholders, the imagined capture was found, in one moment, to have become free. It dived and escaped! A storm meanwhile had commenced. Five boats, with their crews, remained for the getting in of the long length of line run out from the first fast-boat, whilst two, myself in one of them, returned to the ship, in aid of the inadequate residue of men—for any nautical operation—left on board. Thick snow set in, the storm increased, and the ship, being fast to a _light_ piece of ice, drifted rapidly to leeward, and away from the boats. We became distressfully anxious about the safety of the absent men. At one the next morning the mooring was cut, and the ship being got under way, was worked on short tacks to windward, in the supposed direction of the boats. At three we were rejoiced by the appearance of three of the boats, which, with crews unharmed, we got safely on board. The remainder, they reported, might be expected by the same track in half an hour. Cheered by this hope, we continued making every effort to get the ship to windward. But, long after the time of their expected return, no other boat appeared. Hour after hour of anxiety and distress passed over whilst we navigated, off and on, among troublesome and dangerous ices. Guns were fired occasionally, and at every unoccupied interval all hands were engaged in the one object which sympathy urged—the straining of their eyes in the hope of discerning the boats of their comrades through the obscurity of the snow. The obscurity was not attenuated; the storm raged, and the sea increased, whilst a foreboding gloom appeared in every countenance, darkening and keeping pace with the dismalness of the night. The loss of one-half of the Ipswich’s crew on a similar occasion was yet fresh on our minds, and low whisperings of expressions of fear, and shuddering responses, indicated a prevailing dread of a similar fate to their comrades. At length, happy moment! a little after eight in the morning, a sudden shout of joy announced the discovery of the boats, and in a few minutes we had the undescribable satisfaction of seeing them alongside. Aided by those on board with ropes and hands, they were all, twelve to fourteen in number, received safe on board, and welcomed with the most heartfelt greeting by their truly exulting shipmates.