On the 12th, the ships commenced their homeward voyage; but they did not finally escape from the ice until the 17th of the following month, after having been almost immoveably beset in it for twenty four days out of the last twenty-six, in the course of which time they had been taken over no leas than 140 leagues of ground, generally very close to the shore, and always unable to do any thing towards effecting their escape from danger. They anchored in Lerwick harbour, Shetland, on the 10th October; and were paid off at Deptford, Nov. 14th, 1823. In his introduction to the account of this voyage. Captain Parry says:–
“That our efforts have not hitherto been crowned with greater success, cannot fail to be a matter of extreme disappointment, as well as of sincere though unavailing regret; but I feel it a duty to stale, that had our progress been in any degree proportionate to the exertions of those under my command, there would ere this have been nothing left to regret, and but little to accomplish; and I am happy therefore, thus publicly to express the high sense I entertain of the laudable zeal and strenuous exertions uniformly displayed by Captain Lyon, the officers, seamen, and marines of both the ships engaged in this service. Of the exemplary conduct of the men it has been my good fortune to command on this occasion, I cannot indeed speak too highly: it has been a happiness to their officers, and a credit to themselves. I was highly gratified to observe the eager assiduity with which, during two successive winters of long and tedious confinement, they followed up the more sedentary occupations of learning to read and write, with which they were furnished; and it is, I confess, with no ordinary feelings of pleasure that I record the fact, that on the return of the expedition to England, there was not an individual belonging to it who could not read his bible.”
The officers of this expedition who were promoted by the Admiralty, either during their absence from England, or soon after their return to the river Thames, were Captains Parry and Lyon, Lieutenant Hoppner, and Messrs. Henderson, Sherer, Ross, Griffiths, Bushman, Skeoch, McLaren, and Halse.
Captain Parry’s post-commission bears date, Nov, 8, 1821. He was appointed acting hydrographer to the Admiralty, Dec. 1, 1823; presented with the freedom of the city of Winchester, on the 20th of the same month; and placed in the
