On our return, we found the boats towing the ship toward the village; and at seven we got close to the ice, and moored with the small bower to the N.E., and best bower to the S.W.; the entrance of the bay bearing S. by E., and S. 3/4 E.; and the ostrog N., 1/4 E., distant one mile and a half.  The next morning the casks and cables were got upon the quarter-deck, in order to lighten the ship forward; and the carpenters were set to work to stop the leak, which had given us so much trouble daring our last run.  It was found to have been occasioned by the falling of some sheathing from the larboard-bow, and the oakum between the planks having been washed out.  The warm weather we had in the middle of the day, began to make the ice break away very fast, which, drifting with the tide, had almost filled up the entrance of the bay.  Several of our gentlemen paid their visits to the serjeant, by whom they were received with great civility; and Captain Clerke sent him two bottles of rum, which he understood would be the most acceptable present he could make him, and received in return some fine fowls of the grouse kind, and twenty trouts.  Our sportsmen met with but bad success; for though the bay swarmed with flocks of ducks of various kinds, and Greenland pigeons, yet they were so shy that they could not come within shot of them.

In the morning of the 1st of May, seeing the Discovery standing into the bay, a boat was immediately sent to her assistance; and in the afternoon she moored close by us.  They told us, that after the weather cleared up on the 28th, they found themselves to leeward of the bay; and that when they got abreast of it the following day, and saw the entrance choked up with ice, they stood off, after firing guns, concluding we could not be here; but finding afterward it was only loose drift ice, they had ventured in.  The next day the weather was so very unsettled, attended with heavy showers of snow, that the carpenters were not able to proceed in their work.  The thermometer stood at 28 deg. in the evening, and the frost was exceedingly severe in the night.

The following morning, on our observing two sledges drive into the village, Captain Clerke sent me on shore, to enquire whether any message was arrived from the commander of Kamtschatka, which, according to the serjeant’s account, might now be expected, in consequence of the intelligence that had been sent of our arrival.  Bolcheretsk, by the usual route, is about one hundred and thirty-five English miles from Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s.  Our dispatches were sent off in a sledge drawn by dogs, on the 29th, about noon.  And the answer arrived, as we afterward found, early this morning; so that they were only a little more than three days and a half in performing a journey of two hundred and seventy miles.