For some days after this, their patience was tried, and nearly exhausted, by contrary winds, but on the 3d of August a favourable and fresh breeze arose from the eastward.  Advantage was immediately taken of it.  “We all felt,” says Captain Parry, “it was that point of the voyage which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition, according as one or other of the opposite opinions respecting the termination of the sound should be corroborated.  It is more easy to imagine than to describe (he continues) the almost breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while, as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the sound.  The masts’ heads were crowded by the officers and men during the whole afternoon; and an unconcerned observer (if any could have been unconcerned on such an occasion) would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various reports from the crow’s-nest were received, all, however, hitherto favourable to our most sanguine hopes.”

The weather, most fortunately at this interesting and important period, continued remarkably clear; and the ships having reached the longitude of 83 deg. 12’, the two shores of the sound were ascertained to be still at least fifty miles asunder, and what was still more encouraging, no land was discerned to the westward.  In fact, there seemed no obstacle; none of those mountains with which, according to Captain Ross, the passage of the sound was eternally blocked up, nor even any ice, an object of a less serious and permanent nature.  Other circumstances were also encouraging; the whole surface of the sea was completely free from ice, no land was seen in the direction of their course, and no bottom could be reached with one hundred and seventy fathoms of line, so that “we began,” observes Captain Parry, “to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment.  This pleasing prospect was rendered the more flattering, by the sea having, as we thought, regained the usual oceanic colour, and by a long swell which was rolling in from the southward and eastward.”  The first circumstance that threw a damp over their sanguine expectations, was the discovery of land a-head; they were however renewed by ascertaining that this was only a small island:  but though the insurmountable obstacle of a land termination of the sound was thus removed, another appeared in its place; as they perceived that a floe of ice was stretched from the island to the northern shore.  On the southern shore, however, a large inlet was discovered, ten leagues broad at its entrance, and as no land could be seen in the line of its direction, hopes were excited that it might lead to a passage into the Polar Sea, freer from ice than the one above described.  At this period of the voyage a singular circumstance was remarked: