398 SIR EDWARD PARRY'S OPINIONS. 



his companions. Not only has that been the case in the 

 expedition in which Lieut. Gurney Cresswell has been 

 engaged, but I understand it to be the case with Sir 

 Edward Belcher, who has gone up the Wellington Inlet, 

 where I certainly thought traces must be found, because 

 at Beechey Island we knew Franklin passed the first 

 winter when he went out. There we found three graves 

 of his men, and that is, up to the present moment, 

 the only token whatever we have received of him. I 

 do consider it a most mysterious thing, and I have 

 thought of it as much as anybody. I can form but a 

 single idea of the probable fate of Franklin. I do not 

 agree with our friend Gurney Cresswell about the prob- 

 ability of both ships having gone down, and nothing 

 been seen of them, because, although it is true that 

 nothing might have been seen of the ships themselves, 

 I do not believe the crews would have all perished 

 at one moment. I think there is that stuff and 

 stamina in one hundred and thirty Englishmen, that, 

 somehow or other, they would have maintained them- 

 selves as well as a parcel of Esquimaux would. They 

 would have found the Esquimaux, and there would have 

 been something like a trace of them, if they had been on 

 earth. The only thing which I can suggest is this : 

 Wellington Strait was discovered by myself, on the 

 expedition I spoke of. It is a large opening from Lan 

 caster Sound. 



" When I was going up westward from Melville 

 Island, we saw Wellington Strait perfectly free from 

 ice, and so I marked it on my chart. It was not my 

 business to go north as long as I could get west, and, 

 therefore, we ran past and did not examine it ; but it 

 has always been a favorite idea of those who imagined 

 that the north-west passage was to be easily made by 

 going north. That, we know, was the favorite idea of 



