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The Investigator had a remarkably quick passage to Behring's Straits; and after communicating with the Herald, Captain Kellet, off Cape Lisbourne, and exchanging signals with the Plover, which vessel wintered in those seas, she pursued her course easterly along the north coast of North America, and passed Point Barrow under press of sail on the 5th of August.
Since the 5th of August 1850, no tidings had been received of Captain McClure and the Investigator, till the time that Captain Kellet, who last saw him in the west, had once more made his way into the Arctic Ocean from the east, and was now commencing his long winter imprisonment at Bridport Inlet, Melville Island, in September 1852.
Presently he extracted a dirty card and handed it to me, with a bow, which he effected by doubling himself on his stomach over the friendly gamp, and remained in that position, swaying to and fro, for quite ten seconds. I read the card: MR HORATIO BILGER Journalist and Littérateur 4a Kellet Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney
They hurried on, when, to their surprise, they discovered that he was a stranger, his face so blackened by the smoke from the oil-lamp that his features could not be recognised. "Who are you? Where are you come from?" "Lieutenant Pim Herald Captain Kellet," was the answer.
By the letters arrived to-day, we find that Tournay still holds out. There are certainly killed Sir James Campbell, General Ponsonby, Colonel Carpenter, Colonel Douglas, young Ross, Colonel Montagu, Gee, Berkeley, and Kellet. Mr. Vanburgh is since dead. Most of the young men of quality in the Guards are wounded.
The Assistance and Pioneer being likewise frozen in, Captain Kellet received orders from Sir Edward Belcher to abandon his part of the squadron; and on the 26th of August the two last-named ships were also abandoned, the officers and crews arriving safely on board the North Star on the following day at Beechey Island.
"Any attempt to send succour will only increase the evil," were his words. The winter passed rapidly away, but it was not till March that Captain Kellet considered it prudent to send an expedition across the Straits to where he supposed the Investigator was to be found. We will now trace the progress of the Investigator, from the time she was last seen passing Point Barrow under a press of sail.
This awful supplication calmed even that savage rabble, and no further execution took place. Nearly forty years afterwards, Captain Kellet, of Clonard, ancestor of the Arctic discoverer, and others whom he had rescued from the very grasp of the executioner, followed to the grave that revered and devoted minister of mercy!
Mr Miertsching, a Moravian missionary, who had spent five years on the coast of Labrador, was appointed to the Enterprise as interpreter. The vessels sailed from Plymouth on the 20th of January 1850, and reached the Sandwich Islands on the 29th of June. Meantime the Herald, Captain Kellet, had been ordered up from Oahu to Behring's Straits, to assist in the search.
The steamer Diana, on board which several carronades had been placed, with a party of small-arm men, did good service under the command of Lieutenant Kellet. The enemy, not aware of the rapidity of her movements, were overtaken, and upwards of forty of their boats were captured.
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