INTRODUCTION. XXIX 



ordered to go, there he should have been sought. This 

 is specious enough, but what are the facts ? Instruc- 

 tions to the leaders of such expeditions can be con- 

 sidered only as advice to be followed under certain 

 assumed conditions ; but in the uncertainties of Arctic 

 navigation, circumstances are almost certain to occur 

 which may render it impossible to act upon instruc- 

 tions, however ably conceived. Franklin was indeed 

 ordered to go to the south-west in the direction of 

 Cape Walker, but none knew what was beyond that 

 cape. If baffled there he was to try the Wellington 

 Channel, only sixty miles to the eastward, which 

 had been seen and pronounced a promising channel 

 by Parry, and which being nearer the open sea is 

 probably always free from ice before the more shel- 

 tered inlets to the westward. In all probability the 

 south-west was tried and found closed ; it is certain, as 

 we know now, that he did ascend the Wellington 

 Channel to 77° N., and finding the outlet westward 

 sealed, returned, wintered at Beechey Island, and later 

 on in the year 1846 succeeded in penetrating to the 

 S.W. beyond Cape Walker ; but a ship's keel leaves 

 no track behind, and no scrap of paper was ever found, 

 or probably ever left, to indicate the course taken by 

 the ' Erebus ; and ' Terror,' until the fatal one dis- 

 covered by M'Clintock's parties on King William's 

 Land, which recorded the abandonment of the ships 

 and thus revealed the sad story that all must probably 

 have perished ten years before. 



The only clue ever found by the searching ships 

 previous to this — the three graves on Beechey Island at 

 the entrance to Wellington Channel — a significant clue 

 indeed — probably led those who followed, in a direction 

 at once in the track of the lost expedition, and at the same 



