Three days after the departure of the _Espirito Santo_, the _Hersilia_ appeared. Captain Sheffield had found nothing and seen nothing, except the cold, gray sky, and the long, ceaseless heaving of the Southern Ocean’s mighty breast, a few stray, hungry, screeching albatross, and once in a while, for a moment, a whale, with smooth, glistening back, spouting jets of feathery spray high in the keen, misty air, then sounding among the caverns of the deep. He had returned, like so many other credulous mariners, empty-handed, but he found his young second mate in a white heat of enthusiasm as he reported to his commander what he had learned, and finally, with the hopefulness of youth, declared his belief that “we can follow that _Espirito Santo_, and find her, too.” And they did, for in a few days she was discovered lying at anchor in a bay off the South Shetlands, islands at that time unknown in North America, though soon to become famous as the home of seals. The officers and crew of the _Espirito Santo_ greeted them with surprise, while their admiration took the substantial form of assisting to load the _Hersilia_ with ten thousand of the finest sealskins, with which she returned to Stonington. This exploit spread like wildfire through New England whaling ports, and secured Captain Palmer at the age of twenty, command of the Stonington sloop _Hero_, “but little rising forty tons,” on board of which he sailed again for the Antarctic seas, as tender to the _Hersilia_, in 1819. Upon this voyage, after calling at the Falkland Islands for water and provisions, they again steered for the South Shetlands, and the _Hersilia_ and _Hero_ returned to Stonington with full cargoes of sealskins. In 1821, Captain Palmer again sailed in the _Hero_ upon an expedition to the South Shetlands, composed of six vessels commanded by Captain William Fenning of the brig _Alabama Packet_. By this time, however, the seals had been nearly exterminated, and Captain Palmer sailed farther south in search of new sealing-grounds, until he sighted land not laid down on any chart. He cruised along the coast for some days and satisfied himself that it was not an island, and after anchoring in several bays without finding any seals, although the high cliffs and rocks were covered by multitudes of penguin, he steered away to the northward with light winds and fog.