snow, and the lakes in the neighbourhood of Chamisso Island were all frozen. Next day, at noon, the thermometer was as low as 24°.
“We had received no intelligence of Captain Franklin’s party, nor was it very probable that it would now appear; and we could only hope, as the time had arrived when it would be imperative on us to withdraw from him the only relief he could experience in these seas, that he had met with insurmountable obstacles to his advance, and had retraced his route up the Mackenzie River. Anxious, however, to remain to the last, I again solicited the opinions of the officers as to the state of the season; and finding them unanimous in believing that the ship could not remain longer in Kotzebue Sound with safety, I determined to quit the anchorage the moment the wind would permit.”
It will be seen on reference to p. 67, that Captain Franklin was then safe in England. On the following day, the Blossom worked out of Kotzebue Sound; and on the 14th, took her final departure from the Kamschatkan seas:– the Aleutian Islands were then covered about two-thirds of the way down with snow, and indicated an earlier winter than they had done the year before. She afterwards re-visited Monterey and St. Francisco, in California; examined the Tres Marias and Isabella Islands; surveyed the coast of Mexico from Mazatlan to several miles south of San Blas; determined the position of Cape Corrientes, a remarkable promontory 12,003 feet in height; touched at Acapulco; and proceeded from thence to Valparaiso, where she arrived on the 29th of April 1828.
Here Captain Beechey found orders to convey to Europe the remittances of specie from the different ports in the Pacific; the last of which money, amounting in the whole to upwards of 1,500,000 dollars, was embarked at Coquimbo on the 3d of June. In September following, he arrived at Spithead, after a passage of forty-nine days from Rio Janeiro, bringing home with him the Right Hon. Robert Gordon, late H.M. ambassador to the court of Brazil, and several other passengers. The Blossom was paid off, at Woolwich, on the 12th of the ensuing month.
Captain Beechey married, in Dec. 1828, Charlotte, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Stapleton, of Thorpe Lee, and sister to the lady of the Bishop of Oxford.
Agents.– Messrs. Evans and Eyton.
