performance of the service on which we were sent. Individually, I felt most painfully the situation in which I was placed, in a ship but ill adapted, in her present over-loaded state, to navigate in these or any other seas; and my sole support was in the hope that the strictest investigation might be made into the conduct of myself and those under my command, and that the Lords of the Admiralty would again furnish me forth, and allow me an opportunity of shewing, that the failure of this expedition was not to be attributed to any want of zeal on my part, or of support from my valuable officers and men.”
On the 17th of September, an island was discovered to the S.W. of Point Manico, and named after Mr. Tom, in whoso watch it was first seen. Captain Lyon says:–
“As our track from Cape Southampton to the Bay of God’s Mercy, on the 31 St August, lay 30 miles to the eastward of our present position, we must have been actually passing within it at the time when our soundings decreased to 19 fathoms; and it was most fortunate, that on then shoaling the water, we had not kept away to the westward, which must in that case have ran us directly upon it.
Sept. 20th, – I was now much concerned to observe, that in each succeeding gale, the ship’s decks became more leaky, and that the shocks she had received in the Bay of God’s Mercy, with the severe strains experienced whilst at anchor on the 12th and 13th, had loosened her upper works very considerably. The heavy seas which we shipped continually all this day and night, kept our lower-deck and cabins constantly flooded, for the opening of the seams allowed of the water finding its way to the cork-lining, from whence it dropped for many hours after we had ceased to take the seas over all. The lower-deck had not now been dry for three weeks, and was in a most unwholesome state; but we were quite unable to remedy this, for the hatches were of necessity always battened down, and when that was the case the galley-fire would not draw. Sylvester’s stove might, indeed, have been of some use, but we could not try its effect us the square of the main-hatchway, the space in front of the stove, and even its warm air-chamber, were still crowded with small stores, which we had not room to stow elsewhere. On the morning of the 23d, I was much concerned at having some rheumatic cases reported to me, and at learning that the officers’ cabins absolutely leaked in streams.”
On the 23d, the Griper sounded in 40 fathoms, on the tail of that extensive shoal running out from Carey’s Swan’s Nest[1]. On the 25th, the boats brought on board, from a stream of ice lying off Nottingham and Salisbury Islands,
