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1845.

LATEST OFFICIAL LETTER.

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"The transport will sail for England this day. I shall instruct the agent, Lieutenant Griffiths, to proceed to Deptford, and report his arrival to the Secretary of the Admiralty. I have much satisfaction in bearing my testimony to the careful and zealous manner in which Lieutenant Griffiths has performed the service entrusted to him, and would beg to recommend him, as an officer who appears to have seen much service, to the favourable consideration of their Lordships.

"It is unnecessary to assure their Lordships of the energy and zeal of Captain Crozier, Commander Fitzjames, and of the officers and men with whom I have the happiness of being employed on this service.

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The two ships were seen on the 26th of the same month (July) in latitude 74° 48′ N., longitude 66° 13′ W., moored to an iceberg, waiting for a favourable opportunity of entering or rounding the "middle ice" and crossing to Lancaster Sound, distant in a direct westerly line from their position about 220 geographical miles. On that day a boat from the discovery ships, manned by seven officers, one of whom was Commander Fitzjames, boarded the "Prince of Wales," whaler, Captain Dannett. They were all in high spirits, and invited Captain Dannett to dine with Sir John Franklin on the

following day, which had he done, he would doubtless have been the bearer of letters for England, but a favourable breeze springing up he separated from them. The ice was then heavy but loose, and the officers expressed good hopes of soon accomplishing the enterprise. Captain Dannett was favoured with very fine weather during the three following weeks, and thought that the expedition must have made good progress. This was the last sight that was obtained of Franklin's ships.

In January 1847, a year and a half after the above date, Captain Sir John Ross addressed a letter to the Admiralty, wherein he stated his conviction that the discovery ships were frozen up at the western end of Melville Island, from whence their return would be for ever prevented by the accumulation of ice behind them, and volunteered his services to carry relief to the crews. Sir John also laid statements of his apprehensions before the Royal and Geographical Societies, and, the public attention being thereby roused, several writers in the newspapers and other periodicals published their sentiments on the subject, a variety of plans of relief were suggested, and many volunteers came forward to execute them.

The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, though judging that the second winter was too

1847.

VARIOUS OPINIONS.

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early a period of Sir John Franklin's absence to give rise to well founded apprehensions for his safety, lost no time in calling for the opinions of several naval officers who were well acquainted with arctic navigation, and in concerting plans of relief, to be carried out when the proper time should arrive.

A brief review of the replies most worthy of notice may help the reader to form a judgment of the plans that were eventually adopted by the Admiralty for the discovery and relief of the absent voyagers. It is convenient to consider first the notions of those who believe that Sir John Franklin never entered Lancaster Sound, either because the ships met with some fatal disaster in Baffin's Bay, and went down with the entire loss of both crews, or that Sir John endeavoured to fulfil the purposes of the expedition by taking some other route than the one exclusively marked out for him by his instructions. That the ships were not suddenly wrecked by a storm, or overwhelmed by the pressure of the ice, may be concluded from facts gathered from the records of the Davis's Straits whale-fishery, by which we learn that of the many vessels which have been crushed in the ice, in the course of several centuries, the whole or greater part of the crews have almost always escaped with their boats. It is, therefore,

scarcely possible to believe that two vessels so strongly fortified as the "Erebus" and "Terror," and found by previous trials to be capable of sustaining so enormous a pressure, should both of them have been so suddenly crushed as to allow no time for active officers and inen, disciplined and prepared for emergencies of the kind, to get out their boats. And having done so, they would have had little difficulty in reaching one of the many whalers, that were occupied in the pursuit of fish in those seas for six weeks after the discovery ships were last seen. Moreover, had the ships been wrecked, some fragments of their spars or hulls would have been found floating by the whalers, or being cast on the eastern or western shores of the bay, would have been reported by the Greenlanders or Eskimos. Neither are any severe storms recorded as having occurred then or there, nor did any unusual calamity befall the fishing vessels that year.

With respect to Sir John Franklin having chosen to enter Jones's or Smith's Sounds in preference to Lancaster Sound, his known habit of strict adherence to his instructions is a sufficient answer, and the extract quoted above from his letter to Lieutenant Colonel Sabine, which gives his latest thoughts on the subject, plainly says that such a course would not be pursued until a second winter had proved the impracticability of the route laid

VARIOUS OPINIONS.

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down for him. This point is mooted, because Mr. Hamilton, surgeon in Orkney, states that Sir John, when dining with him on the last day that he passed in Great Britain, mentioned his determination of trying Jones's Sound. But Sir John's communication to Colonel Sabine shows that this could be meant to refer only to the contingency of a full trial by Lancaster Sound proving fruitless. Supposing that, contrary to all former experience, he had found the mouth of Lancaster Sound so barred by ice as to preclude his entrance, then, after waiting till he had become convinced that it would remain closed for the season, he might have tried to find a way, by Jones's Sound, into Wellington Sound; but in such a case, we may hold it as certain that he would have erected conspicuous cairns, and deposited memoranda of his past proceedings and future intentions, at the entrance of Lancaster Sound.

Taking it, then, for granted that the expedition entered Lancaster Sound, the most probable conjecture respecting the direction in which it advanced is that Sir John, literally following his instructions, did not stop to examine any openings either to the northward or southward of Barrow's Strait, but continued to push on to the westward until he reached Cape Walker in longitude 98°, when he inclined to the south-west, and steered as

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