254 THE FIRST FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 



The elder Franklin probably looked upon all this as a boyish 

 whim, and wisely fancied that the best way to cure it would be to 

 let the ardent lad have a taste of a sailor's life, thinking that the 

 rough fare and hard work which it involved would cure him of his 

 desire and make him welcome the quiet career proposed for him. 

 He therefore arranged for him to make a voyage in a trading vessel 

 to Lisbon and back. His scheme had not the desired result. The 

 boy came back fuller of the desire to be a sailor than before. As a 

 consequence his father obtained a place for him in the Royal Navy, 

 and he had the happiness to serve under his supreme hero Nelson, 

 at the battle of Copenhagen. He also served under Nelson with 

 distinction in the battle of Trafalgar, and was present at the battle 

 of New Orleans in 1815, where he received a slight wound. 



Franklin's first Arctic experience came in 1818, when he had 

 reached the rank of lieutenant and was second in command of an 

 expedition sent out to find a way through Bering Straits. Two 

 vessels formed the expedition the "Dorothea/' 370 tons, under 

 Captain Buchan, and the "Trent," 250 tons, under Lieutenant 

 Franklin, the latter carrying a crew of ten officers and twenty-eight 

 men. Their instructions were to sail due north, from a point be- 

 tween Greenland and Spitzbergen, making their way, if possible, 

 through Bering Straits. The ships, which would to-day rank 

 only as small coasting craft, were soon imprisoned in the ice and 

 so severely crushed that as soon as the winter passed and escape 

 was possible they were turned towards home. The practical results 

 of the expedition were valueless, and only one circumstance in con- 

 nection with it saved it from being a failure. This was the intro- 

 duction of Franklin to that sphere of work which, during the re- 

 mainder of his life, he was so brilliantly to adorn. 



In the following year (1819) Franklin left Gravesend in a 

 merchant ship of the Hudson Bay Company, his purpose being to 

 explore the northern coast of America in co-operation with Parry, 

 who, as already stated, was despatched to Lancaster Sound. The 



