206 THE SEA. 



Sir John Franklin, a native of Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, was destined for the Church by his 

 father, who purchased an advowson for him. While at the Louth Grammar School, during a 

 holiday walk, he first saw the sea. This was the turning-point of his life, and he determined 

 henceforth to be a sailor. In the hope of disgusting him his father sent him on a trial 

 voyage in a merchantman to Lisbon, but this trip only confirmed his decision, and he joined 

 the Polyphemus, in the year 1800, the vessel which, under Captain Lawford, led the line 

 in the glorious battle of Copenhagen. Two months after this engagement he was trans- 

 ferred to the Investigator, commanded by his relative, Captain Flinders, and set out on 

 his first voyage of discovery to Australia, where he obtained a correctness in astronomical 

 observations and a skill in surveying that became of the greatest service to him in his 

 future career. Returning home in the Porpoise, he was wrecked on a coral reef, and, 

 with ninety-four persons, remained on a narrow bank of sand only four feet above tho 

 level of the water for fifty days, until Captain Flinders, who made the voyage of 250 

 leagues to Port Jackson in an open boat, returned to their rescue. On reaching England 

 Franklin joined the Bellerophon, and performed the duties of signal- midshipman with the 

 greatest coolness, in the memorable battle of Trafalgar, where all his companions on 

 the poop were, with exception of four or five, killed or wounded. In his next ship, 

 the Bedford, he attained the rank of lieutenant, served in the blockade of Flushing, 

 and was wounded in the disastrous attack on New Orleans. Shortly afterwards he entered 

 on that career in the Arctic regions with which his name is so intimately identified, and 

 which has been recorded. We now come to the last sad closing scene of that grand life. 



In 1845 a new expedition was organised by the Admiralty to make one more attempt 

 at the North-west Passage. For more than a year previously many of the leading 

 scientific men and old Arctic explorers had been urging it upon the attention of the 

 Government, and many were the volunteers who desired to join it. The late Admiral 

 Sherard Osborn, Franklin's biographer, tells us that it was at one time intended that 

 Fitzjames, whose genius and energy marked him for no common officer, should have the 

 command; but just about this time Sir John Franklin was heard to say that he 

 considered it his birthright, as the senior Arctic explorer in England. He had then only 

 recently returned from Tasmania, where he had been acting as Lieutenant- Governor, and 

 where he had held an unthankful post, owing to some unmerited and disagreeable treat- 

 ment from the then Secretary for the Colonies. "Directly it was known," says Osborn, 

 "that he would go if asked, the Admiralty were, of course, only too glad to avail 

 themselves of the experience of such a man; but Lord Haddington, with that kindness 

 which ever distinguished him, suggested that Franklin might well rest at home on his 

 laurels. 'I might find a good excuse for not letting you go, Sir John/ said the peer, 

 'in the telling record which informs me that you are sixty years of age/ ' No, no, 

 iny lord/ was Franklin's rejoinder, 'I am only fifty-nine/ Before such earnestness all 



vllle Island) and Back's Great Fish Eiver, unexplored, and Franklin did undoubtedly complete this missing- 

 link. M'Clure, ae we shall afterwards see, made the passage successfully and independently, and his discoveries were 

 published long before the world knew anything of Franklin's fate or the extent of his last voyage. The late Sir 

 Roderick Murchison considered Franklin ' ' the first real discoverer of the North-west Passage," and the inscription 

 on his monument bears witness to the same effect. 



