We had not stood long to the north-east before we found ourselves embayed by the ice, and were obliged to tack and stretch to the south-west, having the field or loose ice to the south, and many huge islands to the north. After standing two hours on this tack, the wind very luckily veering to the westward, we tacked, stretched to the north, and soon got clear of all the loose ice, but not before we had received several hard knocks from the larger pieces, which, with all our care, we could not avoid. After clearing one danger we still had another to encounter; the weather remained foggy, and many large islands lay in our way; so that we had to luff for one, and bear up for another. One we were very near falling aboard of; and if it had happened, this circumstance would never have been related. These difficulties, together with the improbability of finding land farther south, and the impossibility of exploring it on account of the ice, if we should find any, determined me to get more to the north. At the time we last tacked, we were in the longitude of 159° 20ʹ W. and in the latitude of 66° 0ʹ S. Several penguins were seen on some of the ice islands, and a few antarctic peterels on the wing. We continued to stand to the north, with a fresh gale at west, attended with thick snow showers till eight o’clock in the evening, when the wind abated, the sky began to clear up, and, at six o’clock in the morning of the 16th, it fell calm. Four hours after, it was succeeded by a breeze at north-east, with which we stretched to the south-east, having thick hazy weather, with snow showers, and all our rigging coated with ice. In the evening, we attempted to take some out of the sea, but were obliged to desist, the sea running too high, and the pieces being so large, that it was dangerous for the boat to come near them.