As soon as the weather conditions permitted, they attempted to proceed up Melville Channel, but another storm overtook them, and, after consulting with his officers, it was decided to turn the crippled ship for home.
Another expedition that set out about this time (1825) was commanded by Captain Beechey. The _Blossom_ was directed to round Cape Horn and enter the Arctic by way of Behring Strait. In describing this great gateway to the north, Captain Beechey writes:—
“We approached the strait which separates the two great continents of Asia and America, on one of those beautiful still nights well known to all who have visited the Arctic regions, when the sky is without a cloud, and when the midnight sun, scarcely his own diameter below the horizon, tinges with a bright hue all the northern circle.
“Our ship, propelled by an increasing breeze, glided rapidly along a smooth sea, starting from her path flocks of aquatic birds, whose flight, in the deep silence of the scene, could be traced by the ear to a great distance.”
To the north of Cape Prince of Wales, they were visited by Eskimos with whom they bartered and had friendly intercourse. By the 22d of July, the ship reached Kotzebue Sound, and after exploring a deep inlet on its northern shore, which they named Hotham Inlet, they continued their course to Chamisso Island, where they hoped to fall in with Sir John Franklin’s expedition, then in the field. Skirting the coast by Cape Thomson, Point Hope, Cape Lisburn, Cape Beaufort, and Icy Cape, they began to see evidences of the approach of winter, and rather than risk being frozen in, they returned to Kotzebue Sound. From here Captain Beechey despatched the barge in charge of his lieutenants to survey the coast. This they successfully accomplished as far as Point Barrow, a distance of one hundred and twenty-six miles of new shore.
The last of August, 1827, found the _Blossom_ again at Chamisso Island, where intercourse was renewed with the Eskimos. By October, no news having been received of Franklin, Captain Beechey reluctantly shaped his homeward course. Not until the following year, October 12, 1828, did he arrive in England, after an absence of three years and a half.