16 INTRODUCTION. Chap. I. 



of their enterprise, and restore them in health and 

 honour to their country." 



To those who are disposed to doubt the expedi- 

 ency, " if any there be," of the present voyage 

 under Sir John Franklin, I shall state one addi- 

 tional motive for having adopted it, which is this : 

 that to have abandoned any further attempt to ful- 

 fil an object, which has never ceased to occupy the 

 attention of the British Government since the days 

 of our Elizabeth, and more especially, at this par- 

 ticular time to have left it to be completed by a 

 foreign navy, after the doors of the two extremities 

 of the passage had been thrown open by the ships 

 of our own, would have been little short of an act 

 of national suicide ; or, to say the least of it, an 

 egregious piece of national folly. In personal cou- 

 rage the British navy has long held a proud pre- 

 eminence in time of war, and numbers of her offi- 

 cers have no less distinguished themselves, in times 

 of peace, for moral courage and mental fortitude. 

 It would therefore have been an unpardonable 

 omission to have suffered any paltry financial con- 

 siderations to have interfered with the employment 

 of a couple of small barks, for the attainment of an 

 object of such importance. 



Let those, then, who may be disposed to quarrel 

 with the existing expedition, on the score of expense, 

 be assured that, in putting it forth, it was not over- 

 looked that, at the moment, there were two foreign 



