This intrepid navigator was born at Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, in the
year 1786. In 1800, he went as a midshipman, on board the Polyphemus;
and, in 1802, proceeded with Captain Flinders, to New Holland, in the
Investigator, from which vessel, on its arrival at Port Jackson, in
July, 1803, he was removed, as supernumerary master’s-mate, to the
Porpoise storeship, and was shortly afterwards wrecked on a coral
reef. He then joined the Bellerophon, in which he was engaged at the
battle of Trafalgar; and, some time after, was appointed an acting
lieutenant of the Bedford, in which he accompanied the royal family of
Portugal from Lisbon to South America; and, returning to Europe,
assisted at the blockade of Flushing, where he continued till 1814,
when the Bedford was ordered out as part of the expedition against New
Orleans, where he greatly distinguished himself by his skill and
valor. In 1815, he was made first lieutenant of the Forth; and, in
January, 1818, was appointed to the command of the Trent brig, then
about to accompany Captain Buchan on a voyage to Spitzbergen; and, on
his return, he offered to undertake a journey to the North Pole, from
the shores of the former, by traveling in sledge-boats across the ice.
In the early part of 1819, he was selected to head an expedition, over
land, from Hudson’s Bay, to the Arctic Ocean; and having embarked at
Gravesend, on the 23d of May, arrived at the former place on the 30th
of August; and, on the 9th of September, began to ascend the streams
between York Factory and Cumberland House, a journey of six hundred
and ninety miles, which he performed in about six weeks, having been
nearly killed by an accident, which he thus relates:――‘In the
afternoon, whilst on my way to superintend the operations of the men,
I had the misfortune to slip from the summit of a rock into the river,
betwixt two of the falls. My attempts to regain the bank were, for a
time, ineffectual, owing to the rocks within my reach having been worn
smooth by the action of the water; but, after I had been carried a
considerable distance down the stream, I caught hold of a willow, by
which I held until two gentlemen came in a boat to my assistance.’
From Cumberland House he proceeded along the snow, to Fort Chepywan,
where he arrived on the 26th of March, 1820, after having walked eight
hundred and fifty-seven miles, with a weight on his ancles, the whole
distance, of nearly three pounds; and in the course of which, he
describes the cold to have been so severe, that ‘the tea froze in the
tin pots before it could be raised to the mouth, and even a mixture of
spirits and water became thick by congelation.’ On the 29th of July,
he arrived at Fort Providence, whence he proceeded to the Yellow Knife
River, and directed his course towards the Polar Sea, through a
country never before visited by a European; wintering, on his way
thither, at Fort Enterprise, near the head of the Copper Mine River,
where he remained, in a hut built by the Canadians, till the end of
June, 1821; during which time, he wrote great part of his journal, and
in which year he was made a commander.
On the 7th of July, he reached the westerly part of the Copper Mine
River; a few days afterwards, traversed the Copper Mountains, and
pitching his tent beneath them, sent forward in advance, his two
Esquimaux interpreters, to inform their countrymen of his approach,
and of the object of his expedition. After reconnoitering the mouth of
the Copper Mine River, and giving to one of the neighboring
promontories the name of Cape Hearne, he embarked in a canoe, on the
21st of July, and ‘commenced the navigation of the Arctic Ocean, with
a voyage before him of not less than one thousand two hundred
geographical miles; Fort Churchill, on the western shore of Hudson’s
Bay, being the nearest spot at which he could hope to meet with a
civilized being.’ The tempestuous weather, however, the shortness of
his provisions, and the fears of the Canadians, who were unwilling to
proceed further, compelled him to land at Cape Flinders. Hence he
proceeded along the coast to Point Turnagain, now called the Duke of
York’s Archipelago; and having carried his researches so far as ‘to
favor the opinion of those who contend for the practicability of a
north-west passage,’ he, on the 25th of August, terminated his survey
of the coast, at the mouth of Hood’s River, where he left, in a box,
an account of his proceedings, for the information of Captain Parry,
who was then exploring the Arctic Sea in an easterly direction.
On the 31st of August, Captain Franklin, having broken up his canoes
to make smaller ones, commenced his return to Fort Chepywan, where he
arrived in July, 1822, after one of the most appalling and disastrous
journeys ever recorded. During the time it occupied, his principal
food was tripe de roche, leather, and boiled bones; three of his
companions died of cold and hunger, and two were murdered, and
devoured unconsciously by the remainder. The nights, in addition to
the danger attending them from the frequency of the wolves, were so
chilly, that the tents of himself and his party were, every morning,
surrounded with snow to the height of three or four feet; and the
blankets that covered their bed so hardened with frost that it was
with difficulty they could be folded. Several times Captain Franklin
fainted from fatigue, and the ice on which he kept continually
falling, prevented him from traveling at the rate of more than two or
three miles per day; often had he to wade up to his waist through
water, where the temperature was scarcely above the freezing point;
and, on one occasion, he was upset in his canoe, and only prevented,
by clinging to a rock, from being dashed to pieces in the cataracts of
the rapids. The following extract from his journal, will give some
idea of the sufferings he endured:――‘A partridge being shot, the
feathers were torn off, it was held to the fire a few minutes, and
then divided into six portions. I and my companions ravenously
devoured our shares, as it was the first morsel of flesh either of us
had tasted for thirty-one days; unless, indeed, the small gristly
particles which we found occasionally adhering to the pounded bones
may be termed flesh.’ The delivery of Captain Franklin and his party
from the death with which hunger, fatigue, and disease daily
threatened them, was owing to the assistance of some Indian hunters,
who came to them in their last stage of despair. ‘They treated us,’
says the captain, ‘with the utmost tenderness, gave us their
snow-shoes, and walked without any themselves, keeping by our sides
that they might lift us when we fell. They prepared our encampment,
cooked for us, and fed us as if we had been children: evincing
humanity that would have done honor to the most civilized people.’
On his arrival in England, Captain Franklin was made a post-captain;
he married, in August, 1823, the daughter of William Penden, Esq.,
architect of the king’s stables at Brighton; and, at the end of the
same year, submitted to Lord Bathurst ‘a plan for an expedition
over-land to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and thence, by sea, to
the north-western extremity of America; with the combined object,
also, of surveying the coast between the Mackenzie and Copper Mine
Rivers;’ an expedition which he was permitted to superintend, upon his
showing to government, that ‘in the proposed course, similar dangers
to those of the former over-land expedition were not to be
apprehended.’
[Illustration: CAPTAIN SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, K. H. C.]
Accordingly, on the 16th of February, 1825, he embarked at Liverpool,
having undergone ‘a severe struggle between the feelings of affection
and a sense of duty,’ in taking leave of his wife, whose death, then
hourly expected, took place six days after his departure. On the 29th
of June, he arrived at the Methye River, and, in the following August,
at the left bank of the Mackenzie, whence he proceeded to the mouth of
that river, and, shortly after, found salt water; in commemoration of
which, he landed on an island which he had discovered, and hoisted on
a pole a silk union-jack, sewed and given him by his wife, ‘under the
express injunction that it was not to be unfurled before the
expedition reached the sea.’ On leaving this island, which he called
Garry’s, and where he had deposited, beneath a signal-pole, a letter
for Captain Parry, he commenced his ascent of the Great Bear Lake
River, on the banks of which he remained till the summer of 1826,
when, in spite of many dangers and obstacles, he proceeded to about
half-way between Mackenzie River and Icy Cape, in latitude 70 deg. 26
min. N., and longitude 148 deg. 52 min. W.; at which point he
calculated he could not with safety proceed further. His feelings at
being compelled to return, he thus expresses in his journal: ‘It was
with no ordinary pain that I could now bring myself even to think of
relinquishing the great object of my ambition, and of disappointing
the flattering confidence that had been reposed in my exertions. But I
had higher duties to perform than the gratification of my own
feelings; and a mature consideration of all things, forced me to the
conclusion that we had reached that point, beyond which perseverance
would be rashness, and the best efforts must be fruitless.’
[Illustration: CAPTAIN CROZIER. (“TERROR.”)]
[Illustration: COMMANDER FITZJAMES. (CAPTAIN――“EREBUS.”)]
[Illustration: LIEUT. GRAHAM GORE. (COMMANDER.)]
[Illustration: LIEUT. FAIRHOLME.]
On the 1st of September, 1827, Captain Franklin arrived at Liverpool,
from New York, where he had received every mark of attention both
public and private; and, in the same year, he was presented by the
Geographical Society of Paris, with their annual gold medal, value
twelve hundred francs, and also elected a corresponding member of that
institution. In November, 1828, he married a second time; in the
following year had the honor of knighthood conferred upon him, and
also the degree of D. C. L. by the University of Oxford; and, in 1830,
he was appointed commander of the Rainbow. In both expeditions to the
Arctic Sea, Captain Franklin was accompanied by Dr. Richardson, a
journal of whose discoveries is appended to the former’s second
narrative, which, as well as that containing an account of his first
voyage, combines the most intense interest with the most valuable
information, and is written with great spirit, elegance, and accuracy.
In the course of his perilous journey, by sea and land, Captain
Franklin evinced a contempt of personal danger in the pursuit of his
enterprise, and a degree of kind-heartedness to, and consideration
for, those who accompanied him, that has rendered him equally the
pride of his friends, and an honor to his country.
[Illustration: LIEUT. H. T. D. LE VESCONTE.]
[Illustration: LIEUT. DES VŒUX. (MATE.)]
On the 19th of May, 1845, Sir John sailed from England in search of
the North West Passage. He had two vessels, the Erebus and Terror; the
crews, officers, and men numbered one hundred and thirty-eight. On the
26th of July, sixty-eight days afterwards, they were seen by a whale
ship, moored to an iceberg near the centre of Baffin’s Bay. No special
anxiety was entertained respecting them until the beginning of 1848,
for Franklin had intimated that the voyage would probably continue for
three years, and that they might be the first to announce their own
return. But as month after month passed away without any tidings, an
anxious and painful sympathy sprung up in the public mind, and the
British government determined that a search for the missing vessels
should be made, in three different quarters, by three separate
expeditions fitted out for that purpose.
[Illustration: S. STANLEY. (SURGEON.)]
[Illustration: C. H. OSMER. (PURSER.)]
One quarter, the region known as Boothia, was beyond the scope of
these expeditions, and Lady Franklin determined to organize an
expedition to explore that region. She appropriated all the means
under her control, and a subscription supplied the deficiency. The
Prince Albert, a vessel of ninety tons burthen, was fitted out at
Aberdeen, and Captain Forsyth, of the Royal Navy, offered his
gratuitous services as commander. At about the same time, Mr. Henry
Grinnell, a wealthy merchant of New York, fitted out, at his own cost,
two vessels,――the Advance and the Rescue,――and dispatched them to the
Arctic Seas to aid in the search for Sir John. An exceedingly
interesting narrative of the voyage has been published by Dr. Kane,
the surgeon, naturalist and journalist of the expedition.
Time passed on, and all the vessels of the various expeditions
returned to port without any tidings of the lost ones. In May, 1853,
Mr. Grinnell again fitted out the Advance for the purpose of
continuing the search, if necessary, for two years. She had a company
of seventeen persons, under the command of Dr. Kane. She has been
absent for over two years, and fears are entertained for the safety of
her noble commander and his brave companions.
Subsequent to the departure of the Advance, the fate of Sir John
Franklin and his crew was ascertained. They had perished of hunger and
hardships, in attempting to reach the settlements of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, by an overland journey from the Arctic Seas. Relics of the
ill-starred voyagers were discovered by some agents of the company in
the possession of the Esquimaux Indians. These relics consisted of
philosophical instruments, watches, rings, spoons, etc., bearing the
initials of Sir John and his companions. These had been picked up by
the Indians at the place where the navigators had so miserably
perished.