A calm and frosty morning ushered in the 9th of September. The pack was fast re-knitting itself, and we were drifting with it, one mile per hour, to the S.E., when Penny's brigs, that had been seen the day before crossing to the northward of us, were observed to be running down along the western shore, with the American squadron ahead of them, the latter having just escaped from an imprisonment in Barlow Inlet. About the same time, a temporary opening of the pack enabled the steam-power again to be brought to bear, and never was it more useful. The pack was too small and broken for a vessel to warp or heave through, there was no wind "to bore" through it, and the young ice in some places, by pressure, was nigh upon six inches thick; towing with boats was, therefore, out of the question. The "Resolute" fast astern, with a long scope of hawser, the "Pioneer," like a prize-fighter, settled to her work, and went in and won. The struggle was a hard one,--now through sludge and young ice, which gradually checked her headway, impeded as she was with a huge vessel astern--now in a strip of open water, mending her pace to rush at a bar of broken-up pack, which surged and sailed away as her fine bow forced through it--now cautiously approaching a nip between two heavy floe pieces, which time and the screw wedged slowly apart--and then the subdued cheer with which our crews witnessed all obstacles overcome, and the Naval expedition again in open water, and close ahead of the Government one under Penny, and Commander De Haven's gallant vessels, who, under a press of canvas, were just hauling round Cape Hotham. A light air and bay-ice gave us every advantage. [Headnote: _ALL THE VESSELS MEET._] Next day, in succession, we all came up to the "Assistance" and "Intrepid," fast at a floe edge, between Cape Bunny and Griffith's Island. That this floe was not a fixed one we were assured, as the "Intrepid" had been between it and Griffith's Island, nearly as far as Somerville Island; but, unhappily, it barred our road as effectually as if it were so. Penny, with his squadron, failed in passing southward towards Cape Walker; and Lieutenant Cator, in the "Intrepid," was equally unsuccessful.