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The day being thus well neere spent, in haste wee retired our companies into our boates againe, minding foorthwith to search alongst the coast for some harborow fit for our shippes, for the present necessitie thereof was much, considering that all this while they lay off and on betweene the two landes, being continually subiect aswell to great danger of fleeting yce, which enuironed them, as to the sodaine flawes which the coast seemeth much subiect vnto.
Which blowing from the sea directly vponn the place of our Streites, hath kept in the yce, and not suffered them to be caried out by the ebbe to the maine sea, where they would in more short time have bene dissolued.
And yet doe I not thinke that this passage or Sea hereabouts is frozen ouer at any time of the yere: albeit it seemed so vnto vs by the abundance of yce gathered together, which occupied the whole place.
In this storme the Anne Francis, the Moone, and the Thomas of Ipswich, who found themselues able to hold it vp with a saile, and could double about the Cape of the Queenes foreland, plyed out to the Seaward, holding it for better policie and safetie to seeke Sea roome, then to hazard the continuance of the storme, the danger of the yce, and the leeshore.
Vpon Thursday being the 22. of this moneth, about three of the clocke in the morning, wee hoysed out our boate, and the Captaine with sixe sayles went towards the shore, thinking to find a landing place, for the night before we did perceiue the coast to be voyde of yce to our iudgement, and the same night wee were all perswaded that we had seene a Canoa rowing along the shoare, but afterwards we fell in some doubt of it, but we had no great reason so to doe.
And to speake somewhat here of the ancient opinion of the frozen sea in these parts: I doe thinke it to be rather a bare coniecture of men, then that euer any man hath made experience of any such Sea. And also all these aforesayd yce, which we sometime met a hundredth mile from lande, being gathered out of the salt Sea, are in taste fresh, and being dissolued, become sweete and holesome water.
The 14. day in the morning wee made our shippe fast to a piece of yce, and let her driue with it. In the meane time wee mended our boate and our steerage; all this day the winde continued Northerly, and here wee had threescore and two fathoms. Thus we lay a drift all the same night. The 15. day we set saile at 6. in the morning, the winde being at Northeast.
But being there becalmed and lying a hull openly vpon the great Bay which commeth out of the mistaken streights before spoken of, they were so suddenly compassed with yce round about by meanes of the swift Tydes which ran in that place, that they were neuer afore so hardly beset as now.
And thus passed we on in that great danger, seeing both our selues and the rest of our ships so troubled and tossed amongst the yce, that it would make the strongest heart to relent. But neuerthelesse we seeing them in such danger, manned our boates and saued all men in such wise, that not one perished: God be thanked.
Before the Sunne hath warmed the ayre, and dissolued the yce, eche one well knoweth that there can be no sailing: the yce once broken through the continuall abode the sunne maketh a certaine season in those parts, how shall it be possible for so weake a vessel as a shippe is, to holde out amid whole Ilands, as it were of yce continually beating on eche side, and at the mouth of that gulfe, issuing downe furiously from the north, and safely to passe, when whole mountaines of yce and snow shall be tumbled downe vpon her?
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