June, 1857. LADY FRANKLIN'S INSTRUCTIONS. 9 



Aberdeen to bid us farewell, for we purposed sailing in the 

 evening. Seeing how deeply agitated Lady Franklin was on 

 leaving the ship, I endeavoured to repress the enthusiasm of 

 my crew, but without avail ; it found vent in three prolonged 

 hearty cheers. The strong feeling which prompted them 

 was truly sincere ; and this unbidden exhibition of it can 

 hardly have gratified her for whom it was intended more 

 than it did myself. 



I must here insert the only written instructions I could 

 prevail upon Lady Franklin to give me ; they were not read 

 until the ' Fox ' was fairly in the Atlantic. 



,,.„ Aberdeen, June 29, 1857. 



My dear Captain M'Clintock, ' J y ' Jl 



You have kindly invited me to give you "Instructions," but I cannot 

 bring myself to feel that it would be right in me in any way to influence ■ 

 your judgment in the conduct of your noble undertaking ; and indeed I 

 have no temptation to do so, since it appears to me that your views are 

 almost identical with those which I had independently formed before I 

 had the advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours. But had this 

 been otherwise, I trust you would have found me ready to prove the 

 implicit confidence I place in you by yielding my own views to your 

 more enlightened judgment ; knowing too as I do that your whole heart 

 also is in the cause, even as my own is. 



As to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance, I am 

 sure you know that the rescue of any possible survivor of the 'Erebus' 

 and 'Terror' would be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of 

 our efforts. 



To this object I wish every other to be subordinate ; and next to it in 

 importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents of the 

 expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband 

 and his companions. 



And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or in- 



officer was universally respected and beloved. Scarcely had he reached 

 the meridian of life when a protracted and most painful malady terminated 

 his career in 1867, a few days only after his return from Australia, where 

 he held the chief naval command. In 1840 he was most severely wounded 

 at the taking of Sidon. When engaged in arctic service, 1852-3-4, he 

 particularly distinguished himself by his noble forbearance towards the 

 natives at Point Barrow who attacked H.M.S. 'Plover' under his com- 

 mand : his admirable narrative is published in the Appendix to McClure's 

 'North-West Passage.' 



