Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849Gilly, William O. S.
History
Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849
Gilly, William O. S.
Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 18th century; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 19th century; Shipwrecks
ice was drifting in towards the shore, I was under the painful
necessity of recalling the party at the pumps, rather than incur the
risk, now an inevitable one, of parting company with them altogether.
Accordingly Mr. Bird, with the last of the people, came on board at
eight o'clock in the evening, having left eighteen inches water in
the well, and four pumps being requisite to keep her free. In three
hours after Mr. Bird's return, more than half a mile of closely packed
ice intervened between the Fury and the open water in which we were
beating, and before the morning this barrier had increased to four or
five miles in breadth.
'We carried a press of canvas all night, with a fresh breeze from the
north, to enable us to keep abreast of the Fury, which, on account of
the strong southerly current, we could only do by beating at some
distance from the land. The breadth of the ice inshore continued
increasing during the day, but we could see no end to the water in
which we were beating, either to the southward or eastward. Advantage
was taken of the little leisure now allowed us to let the people mend
and wash their clothes, which they had scarcely had a moment to do for
the last three weeks. We also completed the thrumming of a second sail
for putting under the Fury's keel, whenever we should be enabled to
haul her off the shore. It fell quite calm in the evening, when the
breadth of the ice inshore had increased to six or seven miles. We did
not, during the day, perceive any current setting to the southward,
but in the course of the night we were drifted four or five leagues to
the south-westward, in which situation we had a distinct view of a
large extent of land, which had before been seen for the first time by
some of our gentlemen, who walked from where the Fury lay. This land
trends very much to the westward, a little beyond the Fury Point, the
name by which I have distinguished that headland, near which we had
attempted to heave the Fury down, and which is very near the southern
part of the coast seen in the year 1819. It then sweeps round into a
large bay, formed by a long, low beach, several miles in extent,
afterwards joining higher land, and running in a south-easterly
direction to a point which terminated our view of it in that quarter,
and which bore from us S. 58 deg. W., distant six or seven leagues. This
headland I named Cape Garry, after my worthy friend, Nicholas Garry,
Esq., one of the most active members of the Hudson's Bay Company, and
a gentleman most warmly interested in everything connected with
northern discovery. The whole of the bays which I named after my much
esteemed friend, Francis Cresswell, Esq., as well as the land to the
southward, was free from ice for several miles; and to the southward
and eastward scarcely any was to be seen, while a dark water-sky
indicated a perfectly navigable sea in that direction; but between us
and the Fury there was a compact body of ice eight or nine miles in
breadth.
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