A FAMOUS ARCTIC EXPLORER.

Evening Star, Issue 14053, 7 May 1909, Page 3

A FAMOUS ARCTIC EXPLORER.

Sir Clements Markham-, in his life of Admiral Sir Leopold M'Clintock, tells the story of the successive navigators who were jsent to discover the fate of Sir John (Franklin. ' i In May, A:845, the Erebus and the Terror, with Franklin in command, sailed from i the Thames on a voyage oi polar research. “ With ail confidence in themselves and their comrades, and declarations of a fixed determination to conquer or die, 129 officers and men, the pick of tlie service, disappeared from mortal ken,” and were not heard of again for years. The nation was tortured with doubt as to tl re fate of the gallant crews, and public opinion was as much in favor of sending Belief to them, if still alive, as it afterwards came to he jon _ relieving Gordon at Khartoum, j Various expeditions were fitte d out by the Government and despatched to the icy , North under several commanders—Ross, j Austin, Kellet, and others —buri they all in ■ turn came home “re infect as Caesar would have saad—that is, without having accomplished their object, and for the simple reason, as it afterwards turned out, that they had all gone the wrong way, and not the way that a certain t Dr King, of-Savile row, had always recommended—another flagrant instance of the tolly of not accepting good advice. — OS the Navy List.—

The Government themselves had grown sick of the bootless quest, and in March," 1854. the names of Sir John Franklin and his officers had been “ quietly removed from the Navy List ” —very quintly, but not‘without a protest from Lady ITranklin, than whom there was never a nobler, or more devoted wife. For when all others appeared to have abandoned hojoe, she continued to keep the flag flying, i But a few weeks later there came tidings which seemed to confirm the nation’s worst fears. Dr Rae, a factor of the Hudson Bay Company, reported that, during a jouriliey to survey the west coast of Boothia, ijs had come across some Eskimos who had told him about a disaster'several years aj-o to a ship’s company at an island off the m outh of the great Fisher River, and that further inquiry had resulted in the discqvery of relics which had undoubtedly belonged to_ the Franklin expedition. For the j Admiralty this was enough. It looked unon the question as now settled, and refused to sanction the giving ol any more public money for an object which was no longer involved in doubt. Not so our leadijig scientists, who impressed upon the Gov-criK ment the, urgency of sending out another expedition to satisfy the honor of jhe conn - try and clear up a mystery which hail excited the sympathy of the civilised world,: Lady Franklin, again, was equally insistent :

Surely, she urged, I may plead for such men that the bones of the dead be sought for, that their records be unearthed, that their last words be saved from destruction. It is a sacred mission, and this final and exhaustive search is all I ask. —A Noble Wife—

' The reply was a cold refusal, which was all the more exasperating to Lady Franklin, and, indeed, to the nation, at large, as it was not only a question of ascertaining the fate of Franklin himself, for there was just the possibility of rescuing some survivors who might have managed to live on among the Eskimos. But the Government stood firm. Then, without any hesitation. Lady Franklin came forward and declared that if the sacred duty was neglected by the Government, she would : undertake- all the expense for the love of her brave husband’s memory,, for the love of what was due to his gallant companions, and for the love of her country’s ; credit. She was ready to incur an expense lof £20,000. 'She purchased the Fox, a screw yacht of 177 tons, and on April IS, 1857, she offered the command of- her expeI dition to Captain M'Clintock, which he at ' once accepted. I M'Clintock had already been with some half a dozen expeditions to the north, and was the very man for the task. On June 30, 1857, he sailed from Aberdeen, and by September 23, 1859, he had returned to Blackwall with quite convincing proofs of the tragic -fate of the entire Franklin expedition. Brft what, then, had been the cause of its disarter?

The answer is, first, erroneous charts; - second, bad provisions- If the Train"; and Terror had hugged the east coast of Boothia they would have made the North-west Passage. But the chart of those days made King William’s Land a peninsula of Boothia. There was, therefore, no alternative but -to attempt a passage round the west coast of King William’s Land, where they were beset in that impenetrable pack from which there was no possibility of escape. . . . The second pause which involved the death of every sot®'on board both ships was the supply-of bad provisions. The Admiralty made a contract with a man named Goldner, whose rascality was not found out until after the expedition sailed. The great pile of condemned tins at Beechey Island told the sad story. A gallows-tree, therefore, for Goldner, and a bust for M'Clintock, an Ulster Scot, in Westminster Abbey.