Death of Sir L. M'Clintock.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13490, 11 January 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

Death of Sir L. M'Clintock.

HIS SEAUCII FOI! Sll! .1. FItANK LIN. Admiral Sir Leopold M< Clintock died on November 17tii. One of tlie brightest names in the Ijtigthy mil ol Art l,:e hero: :> will always be ihat of Admiral Sir F.iap.eis Liopoid Mct'lintock. To th.' younger generations of his conn ttymcn he had become liiile mote than a historic name, and-, indeed, if will lie. news to many (hat !>a has only just, died ; for it is now more than forty years i-:incc h.' performed tlie fo-.u which ranked him with the. greatest achievers of the Victorian age. lint li- was the must shining and applauded figure of hie. day. when, afiei a. coup'e of years spent in the Arctic rcginns. he- n-: tinned home in 1839 wiMi conclusive proof as to the fide of 1 lie Franklin expedition, and ha'l so long been an added myyftry of those terrible Polar par! I 1:. Fro'.r 1847 lo 1857 a continuous succession of search expeditions streamed lo theicy North. England alon? sending no fewer than thirty-.wo v.'ssel.v, while Am.'rica contributed her Kane, and Frence even a Hellot and 1)e Biay. To iiio.f minds thy fate of the Franklin expedition had been sufficiently established by Dr. John Rae. a servant of the Huc'iion's Bay Company. Dr. Hae had undoubtedly i-hown tha: the Franklin expedition had come to grief. But were all its m-enibets dead, above all it.j gallant leader, Sir John, and' might not. soute of them be still found living among the friendly Esquimaux? There was one person in particular who would not rciit- sati.-ified wi ji tlie Rae results. and this was Lady Franklin herself. She Juid already tilted out three «eaieh expeditions, and wit-h the residue of her fottune. as.=ist-erJ by generous coniribttlions from private quarters, and some supplies offered bv the Gove,inment, ehe reeolved to dispatch a, fourth and final one. The choke of a- commander fell on Cap t;i in McClintock. I'.N.. who. bo;n in 1819, at Dundylk. a. cousin of the first Baron Palhdonnel. had already hived nineti Arctic, experience by serving cn tlm*? search expeditions, including that- which had Captain McClure. the discoverer of the North-West, i'a.isago between '52 iind '54. He now offered his gratuitous set vice to Lady Franklin, his noble example being followed by hii; itscoud in command, Lieut. Hobson. his sailing master Captain (afterwards Sir Allen) Young, and Mr David Walker, surgeon; and on July 1, 1857, the steam yacht Fox left Aberdeen to make one more final •effort to dispel the mysteiy of their fate.

In Baffin's Bay the brave little Fox was caught and cooped up in the pack ice for 212 day.-'—a big slice- out of a year, and after some subsequent vagarku it had to winter (1858) in Bellot Strait, the mean tenipeiafure during January and February of 1859 being 65deg. below Ihe freezing point of Wilier. At last, on March 1. almost exactly the magnetic pole, a native was me!, wearing a, Bri.kh -naval button on his dress. It- came, ho said, from sotne white-people who were starved upon an island. Soon thereafter the searcher!-, were vlcdted by the whole Esquinteaux community, who brottgh': for barter si'vet spoons iind other articles which had undoubtedly belonged to Franklin and his people. McClintock v.roie in his diary (June 24) : "1 have visited Montreal Is'and. completed the explor.-iti.ou and circui 1 of King William's Island, pausing on foot throng!; the only feasible north-west pa:.i-::ge, but nil this is- as nothing to the interest attached to the-Franklin lvcon's picked up by Hobson. and now safe in my po:ctts-. sion ! Wo now know the fate of the E:c-i bus and Tenor."' >

Aft<:i* much iiiixioiv- inquiry -McCiintoek bad at laj.t elici'ed from the natives that two ships. after being deserted. had been seen to sink in the deep otl .t off Jving William's Island. fill tii'J people going awav In (lie "large river," taking their boats with them. and in Hie following winter their bones were found there. "They fell down and died as- they walked along,"' said the nativo;. McCiintoek him-, self, on partiug from ibson. and follow-' ing the line of shore by which the retreating crews must have maiohed. came upon n human skeleton which lie inferred from fragments of dress to be that of a steward or officer's servant. About twelve miles- from Cape He.ischel McCiintoek found a i:mall cairn, which the gallant Hobson. who had outmarched liiui, had built. It- contained a. note from the lieutenant. telling Jiow lie .had reached th:, : Point Victory six days before, without having seen anything of the wreck; but he had found' a, record, for which during the past ten years thousands of miles of bleak ice-bound coast had bsen inarched, many hardships endured, and not a. few noble live. 3 ]r>st. On an ordinary ship's paper. "weather-stained. frayed with aus I. and ragged and damp from contact with the lin in which it was enclosed." the secret of the Franklin tragedy wax revealed. The paper, dated May 28, 1847, told how on that dale "all was well." but- round the margin. "with the date April 25. 1848. there had subsequently been wii'tcn that the Krebus and Terror were deserted fin Apiil 22 by their crews, who. u)) to this time, had lost nine ofiiceiii and fifteen men: that Sir John Franklin himself had died on June 11, 1847. iuu? that the survivors, having abandoned their ships, were about to start tinder Captain Ctozier. 111 order to try and reach the Hudson Bay Tenitory by the Great Fish River. Little wonder that. McCiintoek hin:i-;elf was 1 ewarded for his great faith with a knighthood, a grant of public money, the frc-dom of the City of London, and the go'il medal of the Geographical Society. His " Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir .John Franklin" is nurpassP.d in tlnilling interest by 110 record of Aret*: adventure, which has furnislv?d so much enthralling reading to the British public. Resuming hit-:- naval carevr. he became Commodore in charge at .Jamaica, and' was Commander-in-Chief 011 the North American station from 1879 to 1882. after which lit- was elected an I'ilder Brother the Trinity House. In 1375 he had superintended the tilting out of the arctic expe dilion of Captain Nar-s with tic. Alert and l) : t;covery. while lie was equally consulted by Nansen before the- brave Norwegian set out to reach the North Pole: and in 1901 the hale old veteran went down l<; Cowcs to take filial leave of Captain Scott ■ere. lhe new Discovetv weighed anchor for the South Pole. Ht>; voice was ever one of weight and wisdom in the councils and the discussions of tile Royal Geographical Society, and his name, will go down 1o posl-orify ai* one of the gtcatesl. seacaptains <>"f the Victorian age. ■-(" Daily Chronicle."