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To show them that our weapons were in good order, and that we were likely to use them effectually, we every now and then, when we saw any of the natives near, fired a volley in the air. When we had gone down on the beach, on the occasion of the wreck of the schooner, we observed a canoe thrown upon the shore. She was evidently one of those deserted by the savages when the whaler blew up.
On this occasion the impulse was given by William Scoresby, captain of a whaler, who had sailed on the east coast of Greenland as high as the 80th parallel of latitude, and for two successive seasons had found that the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen was free of ice for 18,000 square miles a circumstance which had not occurred before in the memory of man.
Many days and nights passed, and the Hope kept her course steadily toward the coast of North America. Greenland was the first land they hoped to see. Baffin's Bay was the strait through which they hoped to reach the open polar sea. The Hope left England as a whaler, with all the boats, lances, harpoons, lines, and other apparatus used in the whale fishery.
On the 26th they were seen moored to an iceberg, in 74 degrees 48 minutes north latitude, and 66 degrees 13 minutes west longitude, by a Hull whaler, the Prince of Wales, Captain Dannet. The ships had then on board provisions for three years, on full allowance, or even four, with the assistance of such game as they might expect to obtain.
It had been their intention to go in search of it, as soon as they should try out the others that had been captured; and the information now given by Ben Brace to the captain of the whaler would enable the latter the more easily to discover the lost prize, which he estimated at the value of seventy or eighty barrels of oil, and therefore well worth the trouble of going back for.
In the mean time, boats had put off to the Loriotte from our ship and the whaler, and, coming all on board the brig together, they let go the other anchor, paid out chain, braced the yards to the wind, and brought the vessel up.
A letter in the Record Office, London, dated Liverpool, New South Wales, December 15th, 1817, says: "I have just heard a report that Mr. Bass is alive yet in South America. A capt'n of a vessel belonging to this port, trading among the islands to the east, fell in with a whaler, and the capt'n informed him he had seen such a person, and described the person of Mr. Bass. The capt'n, knowing Mr.
"She must have carried away her jury-masts, or her canvas has blown to ribbons, I fear. If not, we shouldn't have lost sight of her." Ralph looked in vain in the direction in which he had last seen the lights of the Concorde, while those of the frigate and the whaler were clearly visible, the former about a mile ahead of the Eagle, and the latter rather further off, astern.
The temperature rose singularly during this terrible night; the thermometer marked fifty-seven degrees, and the doctor, to his great astonishment, thought he saw flashes of lightning in the south, followed by the roar of far-off thunder that seemed to corroborate the testimony of the whaler Scoresby, who observed a similar phenomenon above the sixty-fifth parallel.
But Susie forgot her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie must have written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly, "Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres that's what's the matter."
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