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We are able to present this illustration
(which forms the frontispiece to Captain M'Cltntock's "Narrative") to our
readers by the kind permission of the publisher, Mr John Murray, who has
also allowed us to transfer to our pages another interesting facsimile,
which will appear in the following Number.—Ed.G.W.
They err, and err
grievously, who allege that in the past field of Arctic research, all is
but unprofitable scattering of precious seed, or who measure only by the
value to the merchant of the at last discovered passage, or to the man of
science of the magnetic or isothermal observations recorded by the
successive voyagers, the gain which has accrued, whether to the nation who
organised them, or to humanity itself, from a series of expeditions
unparalleled in the annals of maritime discovery. Is it nothing to have
lighted amid those dreary wastes a beacon-fire for all ages to come,
around which are echoed from a hundred voices, tales of heroism and
adventure as stirring as those of Greece or Rome? Is it nothing to have
shewn how courage may go hand in hand with Christian faith and trust in
God, and win from these its strength and power?—how the bravest of our
heroes have also been the best— the simplest-minded, the most reliant on
His hand, whose wonders in the mighty deep they, most of all men, had
learnt to know and understand? If the time shall ever come, as who can
tell how soon it may, when perils from foes more deadly still than the
iceberg or the snow-drift, shall menace our own shores, the lessons learnt
by them in their hard-fought fields, and taught through their example to
thousands of kindred hearts at home, shall not be found to have been
barren and unfruitful; the flag under which they earned their hard-won
laurels shall not wave less triumphant, because in times of peace, it was
not furled in an inglorious rest, but floated over those who sought in a
voluntary conflict with powers such as, to the heated imaginings of the
Portuguese explorers, took visible form as they rounded the Cape of
Storms, that physical and moral training supplied in former times by a
warfare against men of like fashion with themselves. For this, were it for
nothing else, these annals should have a precious value in our eyes, while
to the believer in the faith which upheld them in their severest trials,
they have bequeathed associations not soon forgotten; as with full heart
he turns over the record of their wanderings: musing, it may be, on the
"Scripture Help" of Hood, preserved through all his weary journey to drop
from his hand in death, as the Indian's bullet struck him down within a
few hours of deliverance;["Franklin's First Voyage to the Polar Sea." P.
455.] the Bible, marked and underlined in almost every page, in that
lonely boat with its ghastly occupants, on the shores of Victoria Strait;
["M'Clintock's Narrative." Page 295.] the murmured prayer of Kane as the
band he had perilled his life to save stood round the snow hut that had
all but been their tomb; ["Kane's Arctic Regions. 2d Voyage." Vol. i. p.
193.] the daily worship in the little brig, when the cry of "Lord, prosper
our undertaking," was changed to, "Lord, restore us to our homes."
["Kane's Arctic Regions. 2d Voyage." Vol. ii. p. 93.]
Even, however, were the
charge to which we have referred, held true of Arctic discovery in itself,
there is, at least, one series of the voyages in question to which it can
in no case be applied; we mean that long succession of attempts to reach
and rescue Sir John Franklin and his associates, which the voyage of
Captain M'Clintock has closed within the last few mouths. Whether or not
it were right for Government to despatch the expedition of 1845, it was
undoubtedly right, when that expedition was felt to be in peril of
destruction, that every effort should be made to rescue the brave men of
whom it was composed. And nobly was the duty fulfilled. From 1848, when
fears first began to be entertained for the safety of Franklin's crews,
seventeen different attempts have, up to the present time, been made to
save them, and when rescue seemed all but hopeless, to ascertain at least
their fate. The melancholy knowledge has at last been gained, and the
volume before us records the voyage in which it was acquired. We propose
briefly to repeat the story, than which we know none more touching in the
history of modern adventure.
On the 26th of May 1845,
Sir John Franklin sailed from England in command of her Majesty's ships,
the Erebus and Terror, already well tried in the expedition to the
Atlantic Ocean, under Sir James Ross. He was accompanied by Captain
Crozier, whose experience in the Arctic Seas had been gained under Parry
and Ross, and by a picked body of officers and men numbering in all one
hundred and thirty-four persons. His orders were to endeavour to force his
way through Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait to the longitude of Cape
Walker, and thence to seek a passage to Behring Strait in a southerly
direction: or, in the event of the ice not permitting him to adopt this
route, to explore the great opening to the north, called Wellington
Channel, and endeavour to pierce westward in a higher latitude. The naval
service had none better fitted for so responsible and arduous a post. The
courage and the nerve of Franklin had been tried in the actions of
Copenhagen and Trafalgar; his integrity and fitness for command, in his
administration under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty of the
governorship of Tasmania, where he had displayed besides that power of
gaining the affections of all with whom he came in contact, which had
earned for his vessel in former days from the sailors the title of
Franklin's Paradise, and which bore good fruit years afterwards, in the
liberal contribution of the colonists to the expenses of the search; while
already he had, on three different occasions, conducted—once as second in
command, once in conjunction with Sir John Richardson, and once as
leader—expeditions to the Arctic Sea, and to the northern shores of
America, and acquired a reputation for daring and endurance, tempered with
a sagacity and consideration for the lives of those under his charge,
which, added to his other qualifications, made his name even then, a
household word in the service. No one who has read the thrilling history
of his retreat on the second of these expeditions, ["Franklin's First
Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea." Murray, 1823.] across the wastes
which extend to the east of the Coppermine River, can doubt that, in this
new field, every effort of which humanity is capable, would be made to win
the goal; and when that was no longer possible, to save the remnants of
his crew. And above all, he was a sincere and earnest Christian. "He had a
cheerful buoyancy of mind, which, sustained by religious principle of a
depth known only to his most intimate friends, was not depressed in the
most gloomy times." So writes Richardson, who knew him well, and who,
"during upwards of twenty-five years, had his entire confidence, and in
times of great difficulty and distress, when all conventional disguise was
out of the question, beheld his calmness and unaffected piety."
With such a leader, the
prospect of success seemed doubly bright, and officers and men were alike
sanguine of a speedy and triumphant issue. The letters received from them
from the coast of Greenland spoke in the warmest language of their
admiration of their commander, and their happiness in serving under him.
And he himself—his last utterance as he sailed away into the night which,
for him and them, was never more to know a dawn—was one of strong reliance
on the hand of Him whom he had served through life, and by whom, we may
well feel assured, though no word has come forth from his icy grave to
tell us, he was not forsaken in his time of need.
"Again," he writes to Parry
in, we believe, the last letter received from the expedition, and just a
fortnight before it was seen for the last time—"Again, my dear Parry, I
will recommend my dearest wife and daughter to your kind regards; I know
that they will heartily join with many dear friends in fervent prayer,
that the almighty Power may guide and protect us, and that the blessing of
His Holy Spirit may rest upon us. Our prayers, I trust, will be offered up
with equal fervour for these inestimable blessings to be vouchsafed to
them, and to all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. I humbly
pray that God's best blessing may attend yourself, Lady Parry, and your
family."
The vessels were seen by a
whaler in Baffin's Bay on the 2Cth of June 1845, waiting for an opening in
the ice to permit them to enter Lancaster Sound. They were never seen
again.
In 1847, public anxiety
began to be shewn for the safety of the explorers, and in the following
year two expeditions were despatched in search; the one, consisting of two
vessels, to Behring Strait; the other, under the command of Sir John
Richardson, overland, to the north-eastern shores of America, which in
that and the following year were traced from the extreme west to the
estuary of the Coppermine. In 1849, Sir James Ross, also with two vessels,
examined the shores of Barrow's Strait, and in a sledge excursion, traced
the western coast of North Somerset to the latitude of 72.38 deg., or
within a short distance of the spot where, as we shall see, Captain
M'Clintock wintered on his last voyage, and in the direct track, as it has
since proved, of the missing ships. But next year, on leaving his winter
quarters, he was surrounded by the drift-ice, and carried helplessly
eastward through the whole length of Lancaster Sound, into Davis' Strait,
where he was only released at a period of the year too late to allow of
the resumption of the search.
Meanwhile, however, the
work was being vigorously pursued by other hands; and in 1850 no less than
five distinct expeditions started from England, and two vessels, fitted
out by the munificence of Mr Grinnell, an American merchant, from New
York. Into the details of these several explorations we need not enter,
but two of them, of which the Grinnell expedition was one, divide the
merit of having discovered the first traces of the missing ships. These
were found in Beechy Island, at the mouth of Wellington Channel, where it
was discovered that Franklin had spent the winter of 1845-6, and where the
tomb of three of his men, who had died early in the latter year, remained.
Curiously enough, not one record or indication of any kind was found to
point to the route which had been subsequently pursued by them; but it was
augured by many, though, as the result has proved, with a curious
substitution of what had been already achieved by them for what they were
still to attempt, that they would follow a northern course through
Wellington Channel, and should be sought for on the shores of the great
Polar Ocean, indicated by Penny and by Kane.
In this dubiety as to their
after course, the search went on in various directions. Kane, in command
of the Advance, fitted out by the renewed liberality of Mr Grinnell, made
that wonderful voyage to Smith's Strait, which stands without an equal
even in these stirring annals; Kennedy, accompanied by Lieutenant Bellot
of the French navy, who fell a martyr to his devotion in the cause of
humanity, all but touched the spot where, as we now know, the abandoned
vessels were lying in the ice; Collinson and M'Clure forced their way
along the northern coasts of America—the one to complete in safety the
longest voyage ever known in the Arctic seas; the other—after two winters
spent in the ice, and at last abandoning the vessel in despair—to effect,
on foot, the escape of himself and his crew to another of the ships
engaged in the search, and win the proud distinction of being the first to
pass from west to east across these dreary wastes. Many other attempts
were also made, fifteen vessels in all being engaged in the search between
18S0 and 1853, but all in vain. The stanchion of a ship's ice-plank,
picked up by Dr Rae, and the fragment of an iron bolt and of a hutch
frame, seen by Captain Collinson in the possession of the Esquimaux, were
the only indications that could be connected with Franklin, and even these
were susceptible of other explanations.
But in 1854 the veil was
lifted at last, and the traces of a terrible tragedy dimly disclosed to
the startled seekers. In that year Dr Rae, who, with indefatigable
perseverance, had returned a third time to the search in the vicinity of
King "William's Land, encountered, in the course of his explorations
between Pelly and Inglis Bays, a party of Esquimaux, in whose possession
were found a great variety of articles, and many pieces of silver plate,
known to have belonged to officers both of the Erebus and Terror, Prom
these natives he learned that another party of the same tribe had met, in
the spring of 1850, a band of about forty white men dragging a boat and
sledges along the coast side of King William's Land, and making apparently
for the Great Fish River. None of them could speak the Esquimaux language;
but, from their signs, the natives understood that their vessels had been
crushed in the ice, and that they were then proceeding where they hoped to
find deer to shoot. They had purchased a small seal from the natives, and
from the thin appearance of the men—all of whom, with the exception of
one, who appeared to be an officer, were dragging on the haul-ropes of the
sledge —were thought to be running short of provisions. At a later period
of the same year, the corpses of some thirty persons, as well as some
graves, were found by the Esquimaux on the mainland, and five dead bodies
on an island close by—points agreeing in description with Montreal Island
and Point Ogle, at the mouth of the river above referred to. Some of the
unfortunate band must have survived even as late as May or June, (or until
the return of the wild fowl,) as shots had been heard about that time, and
fresh bones and feathers gathered in the immediate vicinity.
The melancholy news was
verified by the articles received; but the moment it was learned, an
anxious desire was felt to explore the spot where the last moments of the
ill-fated crews had been spent, and which Dr Rae, from the failure of his
provisions and the state of the health of his party, had been unable to
accomplish. Mr Anderson, one of their chief factors, was accordingly
despatched by the Hudson Bay Company in 1855, down the Great Fish River,
to visit the scene of the catastrophe, and endeavour to procure additional
information from a careful search for any records that might have been
deposited, as well as from the tribes in the vicinity. Unfortunately, this
journey had a very imperfect result. The expedition was poorly supplied
with the means of extending its operations. No interpreter could be
procured, and all communication with the tribes had to be carried on by
signs. Numerous traces were indeed discovered of the missing crews, and a
number of additional articles purchased from the Esquimaux, but not a
scrap of paper or record of any kind. The absence, too, of any graves, or
cairn3, or human bones, led many to the inference that the actual spot
referred to by the natives, in their communication with Rae, had not yet
been reached.
Under these circumstances,
an earnest appeal was made to Lord Palmerston in June 1856, by a number of
men of science, and others who had taken a deep interest in Arctic
discovery, and repeated, in an admirable letter addressed to him by Lady
Franklin, in the December of the same year, to despatch a final expedition
to the narrow and circumscribed area now known as that within which the
missing vessels or their remains must lie, and the access to which
appeared to be free from many of the difficulties and dangers which had
hitherto attended the search. The Prime Minister, it is understood, had
personally every desire to carry out the wishes of his memorialists, but
was precluded from acceding to their petition.
Lady Franklin, however, had
resolved that, if the Government declined, she should herself exhaust her
fortune in this last effort; and, aided by the contributions of many tried
friends, she purchased the little screw yacht, the Fox, of 177 tons, and
placed her, in April 1857, under the command of Captain M'Clintock, who
had earned a distinguished name in the Arctic seas under Sir James Ross
and Austin and Kellett. The refitting of the vessel was pressed forward
with the utmost speed at Aberdeen, by her original builders, and a small
body of twenty-five men, seventeen of whom had previously served in the
search, carefully selected for her crew. The difficulty, indeed, was to
know whom to prefer from the number of volunteers who came forward.
"Expeditions of this kind," says M'Clintock, "are always popular with
seamen, and innumerable were the applications made to me; but still more
abundant were the offers 'to serve in any capacity,' which poured in from
all parts of the country, from people of all classes, many of whom had
never seen the sea. It was of course impossible to accede to any of these
latter proposals; yet, for my own part, I could not but feel gratified at
such convincing proofs that the spirit of the country was favourable to
us, and that the ardent love of hardy enterprise still lives amongst
Englishmen as of old, to be cherished, I trust, as the most valuabls of
our national characteristics—as that which has so largely contributed to
make England what she is."
The Government, though
declining to send out an expedition themselves, liberally contributed to
the provisioning of the vessel.
By the end of June, the
preparations were complete; and on the 30th, Lady Franklin, accompanied by
her niece, visited the vessel to bid farewell. The same evening the vessel
set sail.
(To be continued) |
