﻿48 VOLUNTEERS. 1847. 



I was almost daily receiving letters from officers of 

 various ranks in the army and navy, and from 

 civilians of different stations in life, expressing an 

 ardent desire for employment in the expedition. 

 It may interest the reader to know that among the 

 applicants, there Avere two clergymen, one justice 

 of peace for a Welsh county, several country gentle- 

 men, and some scientific foreigners, all evidently 

 imbued with a generous love of enterprise, and 

 a humane desire to be the means of carrying relief 

 to a large body of their fellow creatures. But as 

 long as there remained a hope of the return of the 

 discovery ships in the autumn of 1847, it was not 

 thought necessary to take any steps for the appoint- 

 ment of a second officer to the party which I was to 

 command. In November, however, when the last 

 whalers from Davis's Straits had come in, I sug- 

 gested to the late Lord Auckland, then the First 

 Lord of the Admiralty, that Mr. John Rae, chief 

 trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, was fully 

 qualified for the peculiar nature of the service 

 on which we were to be employed. He had re- 

 sided upwards of fifteen years in Prince Rupert's 

 Land, Avas thoroughl}' versed in all the methods of 

 developing and turning to advantage the natural 

 products of the country, a skilful hunter, expert 

 in expedients for tempering the severity of the 

 climate, an accurate observer with the sextant and 



