INSTRUCTIONS. 267 



No. VI. 



A Copy of the Orders from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 

 under which Captain Sir James Clark Ross, R.N., has proceeded 

 on an Expedition in search of Captain Sir John Franklin, R.N. 



By the Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral 

 of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, etc. 



Whereas the period for which Her Majesty's ships Erebus and Terror 

 were victualled will terminate at the end of this summer ; and whereas 

 no tidings whatever of the proceedings of either of those ships have 

 reached us since their first entry into Lancaster Sound, in the year 

 1845, and there being, therefore, reason to apprehend that they have 

 been blocked up by immovable ice, and that they may soon be exposed 

 to suffer great privation ; we have deemed it proper to defer no longer 

 the endeavour to afford them adequate relief. Having, therefore, 

 caused to be prepared and duly eqmpped with extra stores and provi- 

 sions, two suitable vessels, and having had them properly fortified, so 

 as to resist the pressure of the ice, and having the fullest confidence in 

 the skill and experience that you have acquired in those inclement seas, 

 we have thought proper to place them under your command ; and you 

 are hereby required and directed, so soon as they are in all respects 

 ready for sea, to proceed in the ' Enterprise,' under your immediate 

 command, and taking the ' Investigator' (Captain Bird) under your 

 orders, without delay to Lancaster Sound. In your progress through 

 that inlet to the westward, you will carefully search both its shores, as 

 Avell as those of Barrow Straits, for any notices that may have been de- 

 posited there, and for any casual indications of their having been visited 

 by either of Sir John Franklin's ships. 



Should your early arrival there, or the fortunately protracted open- 

 ness of the season, admit of your at once extending a similar examina- 

 tion to the shores of the Wellington Channel, it will leave you at greater 

 liberty to devote yourself more fully afterwards to your researches to 

 the westward. The several intervals of coast that appear in our charts 

 to lie between Capes Clarence and Walker, must next be carefully ex- 

 plored ; and as each of your vessels have been furnished with a launch 

 fitted with a small engine and screw, capable of propelling it between 

 four and five knots, we trust by their means, or by the ships' boats, all 

 those preliminary researches may be completed during the present sea- 

 son, and consequently before it may be necessary to secure the ships in 



