1855.] 



THE ARCTIC EXPEDITIONS. 



335 



Tike Arctic Sxpcflitious. 



The Select Committee apjjointcd to inquire into tlie circumstances of 

 the Expedition to the Arctic Seas, commanded by Captain JM'Clure, of 

 the Royal Navy, with a view to ascertain whether any and what reward 

 may be due for the services rendered on that occasion, and who were 

 further instructed to examine into the claims of Captains Collinson and 

 Kellett, with a view to ascertain whether any and what reward may 

 be due to them for the services rendered on the occasion of that expe- 

 dition ; having examined some of the most distinguished explorers of 

 the Arctic regions, including those who were ordered to relieve or 

 ascertain the fate of the lamented Sir John Franklin ; having also had 

 before them the evidence of others well acquaint-d with the Polar Seas, 

 and also the report and evidence of Captain M'Clure, have considered 

 the other matters to them referred, and agreed to a report of which the 

 following paragraphs are the most interesting and important : — 



" The attempt to discover a water communication through the Arctic 

 Regions between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans is one which has 

 engaged the attention of maritime nations, and especially that of Great 

 Britain, for a period now extending over nearly three centuries. It 

 has fallen to the lot of Captain M'Clure, his ofScers and crew, to set 

 at rest this question. They are undoubtedly the tirst who have passed 

 by water from sea to sea, and have returned to this country a living 

 evidence of the existence of a north-west passage. 



" On the 30th July, 1850, the Investigator parted company from Her 

 Majesty's ship Herald, Captain Kellett, ofiF Cape Lisburne, and stood 

 to the northward until the morning of the 2d of August, when the ice 

 was first fallen in with, in lat. 72° 1', long. 166° 12' W. Captain 

 M'Clure worked along its edge until midnight of the 5th, when Point 

 Barrow was rounded in open water ; from this point his progress was 

 beset with difficulties and anxieties of no ordin.ary character, having to 

 .traverse an ice-encumbered sea hitherto considered impracticable for 

 navigation. In this sea the Investigator continued her course along 

 the north coast of America, and on the 30th of August reached Cape 

 Bathurst, having in the interval threaded her course amid sandbanks 

 and heavy masses ofice, a great portion of that time enveloped in 

 thick fog, where the lead was the only guide. 



" Here, finding that the ice pressed upon the shore, barring any 

 further advance. Captain M'Clure anchored till the 1st of September, 

 when the ice slightly moving enabled him to round the Cape, crossing 

 Franklin Bay, and on the morning of the 6th high land was observable 

 to the N.E., and on the 7th Captain M'Clure landed on its southern 

 extremity, taking possession, in the name of Her Most Gracious 

 Majesty, with the usual ceremonies, naming it Baring's Land, 

 after the First Lord of the Admiralty. Proceeding to the N.E., through 

 continuous fogs, until the morning of the 9th, when it clearing a little, 

 high land was remarked, to which he gave the name of Prince Albert ; 

 and on the 10th two small islands were passed, which were called after 

 her Iloyal Highness the Princess Royal ; the further advance of the 

 Investigator was then impeded by ice setting in from the N.E., which 

 beset her, and in which she drifted about the straits in great peril, 

 attached to a small piece of ice, drawing eight fathoms of water, until 

 the 30th of Sept., when she was firmly frozen in. Captain M'Clure, 

 entertaining a strong impression that the waters in which the Investi- 

 gator then lay communicated with those of Barrow's Strait, and that 

 the important question of a north-west passage might now be solved, 

 set out with a sledge and a few men on the 21st of October for the 

 purpose of testing this conviction, having previously left instructions 

 for the guidance of the commanding officer, in the event of any dis- 

 ruption of the ice, or other casualities, preventing kis return to the 

 ship. 



" On the 26th of October, Captain M'Clure and his party reached 

 I'oint Russell, and having ascended an elevation of about 600 feet, 

 commanding a very extensive view, had the gratification of finding that 

 their arduous and mcst fatiguing journey had not been in vain, for 

 beneath them lay the frozen waters of Parry or Melville Sound, proving 

 beyond doubt that ' a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific Ocean existed.' 



"In honour of this event. Captain Jl'Clure named the strait in 

 which he had left the Investigator after his Royal Highness the Prince 

 of Wales. 



"The party reached the ship again on the ."Slst of October, and 

 remained frozen in until the l-Uli of July, 1851, when the ice broke up. 

 Every etfort was tlien nmde to get to Parry Sound ; but, in conse- 

 quence of the quantity of ice coming in from the northward, these 

 efforts wore not attended with success. 



"The ship's furthest advance being lat. 73.14 N., andlong. 115.32 W., 

 Captain M'Clure therefore determined on bearing up, and attempted a 

 passage into Parry Sound, to the westward, and along the shore of 

 Baring's Land, wliich he was induced, from apparent cu'cumstances, 

 to consider an island. 



" On the I4th of August he accordingly returned southward, and, 

 rounding Nelson's Head, made his way along the west shore of that 

 island, accomplishing what Captain M'Clure, in his published des- 

 patches, has styled, ' The terrific passage of that terrible Polar sea ;' 

 and on the 24th of September, after several proridential escapes, suc- 

 ceeded in bringing the Investigator into a bay on the northern coast, 

 which, in thankfulness for his preservation, he has appropriately 

 named the Bay of Mercy, and in the same night was firmly frozen in. 

 " It being now evident that the Investigator had taken up her winter 

 quarters, and her release upon the following season being doubtful. 

 Captain M'Clure thought it advisable to place himself, his officers, and 

 crew upon two-third allowance of all species of provision, and this was 

 rigidly adhered to during the period of 20 months, in a climate where a 

 greater supply of food is required to sustain men in a healthy condition 

 than in others more temperate. These privations were borne by the 

 crew with uncomplaining fortitude, notwithstanding their effects became 

 painfully visible as their third winter drew towards a close, in all by 

 their altered personal appearance, and in some by their weakened 

 mental faculties. 



"On the 11th of April, 1852, Captain M'Clure proceeded with a 

 party by sledge to Winter Harbour, in Melville Island, depositing a 

 cylinder containing a summary jif his proceedings, and returned to the 

 ship on the 9th of May, where he remained for 11 months. 



"On the 6th of April, 1853, Captain M'Clure received a communica- 

 tion, brought by Lieutenant Pim, who had been dispatched from 

 Melville Island by Captain Kel'ett, who had found the record left there 

 by Capt. M'Clure in April, 1852, and on the 7th crossed that portion of 

 the Arctic Sea now called Banks's Strait, to that officer's ship, at Dealy 

 Island, a small island off Melville Isiand, which he reached on the 19th, 

 and arranged with Captain Kellett, that if 20 volunteers could be found 

 to remain with him, in the hope of extricating the Investigator during 

 the navigable season of 1853, he had his permission to do so, if not. 

 Captain M'Clure and his crew were to abandon their ship and join 

 the Resolute, Captain Kellett. 



" About this period Lieutenant Cresswell, of the Investigator, was 

 despatched by Captain M'Clure to England to report the position of 

 that ship. 



" Captain M'Clure rejoined the Investigator on the lOtli of May, and 

 finding that a sufficient number of men would not volunteer to remain, 

 he was compelled to leave the Investigator in the Bay of Mercy, which 

 he did on the 3rd of June, and reached the Resolute on the 21st. 



" On the 18th of August Captain M'Clure, his officers and crew, 

 quitted Dealy Island in the Resolute, and were again frozen south-west 

 of Cape Cockburn, and remained there until the 10th of April, 1854, 

 when Captain M'Clure and his crew proceeded by sledge 180 miles to 

 join the North Star at Beechey Island, which they reached on the 27lli. 

 "On the 26th of August they proceeded in her down Ban-ow's 

 Straits, across Baffin's Bay, to Disco, on the west coast of Greenland, 

 where Captain jM'Cluro was transferred, early in September, to the 

 Pha2nix, under the command of Captain Inglefield, a very distinguished 

 Arctic navigator, who in another direction had penetrated by Smith's 

 Sound to the 78° 36' N. degree of latitude. They arrived safe at Cork 

 on the 30tli of the same month, having been four years and eight 

 months in effecting a passage between the Great Pacific and Atlantic 

 oceans, performing what has been so graphically described by an 

 American writer of some celebrity, Lieutenant Maury, of the United 

 States' navj', ' That Captain M'Clvire and his followers were the first 

 to put a girdle round the great continent of -Vmerica. 



"The evidence places beyond doubt that to Captain M'Clure incon- 

 tcstably belongs the distinguished honour of having been the first to 

 perform the actual passage over water along the northern coast of 

 America, between the two great oceans that encircle the globe. By 

 this achievement he has demonstrated the existence, and traced the 

 course of that connexion between these oceans, which, under the name 

 of the North-west Passage, has so long been the object of perilous 

 search and deep interest to the nations of the civilized world. 



" In addition to the completion of a north-west passage. Captain 

 M'Clure and his officers have explored about 2,000 miles of coast line 

 where a blank has hitherto existed in our charts. 



" In the accomplishment of this exploit Captain M'Clure exhibited 

 those high qualities of enterprise, heroism, and cndurnncc, which have 



