By
four P.M. the pressure had gradually decreased, and the ship had
only three or four inches heel; in an hour after she had perfectly
righted, and the ice remained quiet for the rest of the day.
Every moment's additional detention now served to confirm me in
the opinion I had formed as to the expediency of trying, at all
risks, to penetrate to the southward whenever the ice would allow
us to move at all, rather than persevere any longer in the
attempts we had been lately making, with so little success, to
push on directly to the westward. I therefore gave Lieutenant
Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the eastward
whenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should
that ship be still detained; and to look out for any opening in
the ice to the southward which might seem likely to favour the
object I had in view, waiting for me to join him should any such
opening occur.
The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice
was beginning to separate and to drift away from the shore; and,
being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very
unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at
two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him.
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