386 FRANKLIN'S LAST AND FATAL EXPEDITION— \Mo. 



explorers ; and when on the 19th they weighed anchor and passed slowly 

 down the Thames, they carried with them the nation's fervent hopes of a 

 speedy, safe, and successful return. Little did the well-wishers suspect, as 

 they watched the sails grow dim over the flat reaches of the Thames, that 

 the adventurers had gone for ever ; that already the dark curtain of fate 

 was lowering above them ; that not one man among the gallant company 

 still faintly cheering in the distance — captain, officer, or seaman — ^Avould 

 ever return to England again. They had gone in the pride of their youth 

 and strength and hope to die of disease and want for the honour of their 

 officers and of their country ; and their fate of itself was such as to plunge 

 the nation in grief But we are too proud of them to mourn for them. No 

 company of more truly noble hearts ever left the shores of England. Officers 

 and men, comrades from the first in the unity of their hopes and aims, had 

 become brothers before the dread end of all in the kinship of common suf- 

 fering — ^in the fellowship of those who together wait for death, yet cheer 

 each other gallantly till the shadow shall come over the snow. No 

 murmur was heard ; no mutinous outbreak disturbed the grandeur of the 

 closing scenes. Like the heroes of the " Birkenhead," they went down on 

 duty. No greater instance of British discipline illumines the annals of the 

 country. The last officer that fell still bore the insignia of his rank ; and it 

 was only to drop on the snow and swoon away into fatal sleep that the last 

 man paused in his duty. 



It would have been hard indeed to have parted for ever with Franklin 

 and his heroes on our own shores, but fortunately we are able, by means of 

 the journal of Commander Fitzjames, and the letters of Franklin and Fair- 

 holme, to be with them — in spirit, at least — as they cross the Atlantic, to 

 receive their last messages at Disco, and even to descry their last waved 

 farewells, as, a week later, they are preparing to enter the "middle ice," and 

 cross over to Lancaster Sound. 



Commander Fitzjames's " Journal," consisting only of a few pages, printed 

 for private circulation, and now very rare, is of inestimable value for its racy 

 descriptions of the officers of the "Erebus," and of the excellent feeling 

 which pervaded all ranks of the expedition. It was written on board ship 

 mainly for the amusement of a lady, Mrs Coningham, wife of Mr Coning- 

 ham, sometime M.P. for Brighton, and one of the writer's earliest and 

 dearest friends. But it was a too valuable memorial of an excellent officer 

 and true man — a too valuable record of an enterprise in which the whole 

 nation had an absorbing interest, to be retained for the gratification of a 

 single family. Mr Coningham accordingly edited a privately printed edition 

 of it for distribution among the relatives of the writer and the other officers 

 of the expedition. The editor also presented a copy of the " Journal " to 

 Charles Dickens, with permission to make what use of it he pleased. No 



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