Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/467



lingering doubt, of the correctness of my decision to return home, and come out next year strengthened and refitted with steam. If my impulses lead me to try conclusions once more with the ice, my judgment convinces me that it would be at the risk of every thing. As well use a Hudson-river steamboat for a battering-ram as this schooner, with her weakened bows, to encounter the Smith Sound ice.

"I have secured the following important advantages for the future, and, with these I must, perforce, rest satisfied, for the present:—

"1. I have brought my party through without sickness, and have thus shown that the Arctic winter of itself breeds neither scurvy nor discontent.

"2. I have shown that men may subsist themselves in Smith Sound independent of support from home.

"3. That a self-sustaining colony may be established at Port Foulke, and be made the basis of an extended exploration.

"4. That the exploration of this entire region is practicable from Port Foulke,—having from that starting-point pushed my discoveries much beyond those of my predecessors, without any second party in the field to coöperate with me, and under the most adverse circumstances.

"5. That, with a reasonable degree of certainty, it is shown that, with a strong vessel, Smith Sound may be navigated and the open sea reached beyond it.

"6. I have shown that the open sea exists.

"And now, having proven this much, I shall return to Boston, repair the schooner, get a small steamer, and come back as early next spring as I can. The