June, 1857. LADY FRANKLIN'S INSTKUCTIONS. 13 



I must "here insert the only written instruc- 

 tions I could prevail upon Lady Franklin to 

 give me ; they were not read until the ' Fox ' 

 was fairly in the Atlantic. 



Aberdeen, Juno 29, 1857. 



My dear Captain M'Clintock, 



You have kindly invited me to give you " In- 

 structions," but I cannot bring myself to feel that it 

 would be right in me in any way to influence yoiu- 

 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 con- 

 firm, du-ectly or inferentially, the claims of my hus- 

 band's expedition to the earliest discovery of the 



