Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/346

 “The wind and sea increased on the 19th, with a heavy fall of snow, which, together with the uselessness of the compasses, and the narrow space in which we were working between the ice and the land, combined to make our situation for several hours a very unpleasant one. At 2, the weather being still so thick, that we could at times scarcely see the ship’s length a-head, we suddenly found ourselves close under the land, and had not much room to spare in wearing round. We stood off and on during the rest of the day, measuring our distance by Massey’s patent log, an invaluable machine on this and many other occasions; and in the course of the afternoon, found ourselves opposite to an inlet, which I named after my relation, Sir Benjamin Hobhouse. The snow was succeeded by rain at night; after which the wind fell, and the weather became clear, so that, on the morning of the 20th, we were enabled to bear up along shore to the westward. The points of ice led us occasionally within two miles of the land, which allowed us to look into several small bays or inlets, with which this coast appears indented, but which it would require more time than we could afford, thoroughly to survey or examine. Maxwell Bay is a very noble one, having several islands in it, and a number of openings on its northern shore. A remarkable headland, on the western side, I named after Sir William Herschel.

“On the 21st, we had nothing to impede our progress but the want of wind, the great opening, through which we had hitherto proceeded from Baffin’s Bay, being no.y so perfectly clear of ice, that it was impossible to believe it to be the same part of the sea, which, but a day or two before, had been completely covered with ‘floes’ to the utmost extent of our view. In the forenoon, being off a headland, which was named after Captain Thomas Hurd, hydrographer to the admiralty, we picked up a small piece of wood, which appeared to have been the end of a boat’s yard, and which caused sundry amusing speculations among our gentlemen, some of whom had just come to the very natural conclusion, that a ship had been here before us, and that, therefore, we were not entitled to the honor of the first discovery of that part of the sea on which we were now sailing; when a stop was suddenly put to this and other ingenious inductions, by the information of one of the seamen, that he had dropped it out of his boat a fortnight before. I could not get him to recollect exactly the day on which it had been so dropped, but what he stated was sufficient to convince me, that we were not at that time more than ten or twelve leagues from our present situation, perhaps not half so much; and that, therefore; here was no current setting constantly in any one direction. A bay to the northward and westward of Cape Hurd was called Rigby Bay.

“On the following day, we found ourselves abreast another, to which the name of Radstock Bay was given, by Lieutenant Liddon’s desire. It is