THE FEANKLm EXPEDITION 451 



recording the names of those who perished in the Admiralty 

 expedition under Sir Edward Belcher. There also is placed 

 a small tablet to the memory of the lamented Lieutenant 

 Bellot, of the French N"avy, who lost his life in August, 1853, 

 while engaged in carrying an official despatch from his own 

 captain to Admiral Belcher, near the entrance of Wellington 

 Channel. 



" After the finding of the relics on Beechey Island, the 

 eastern commanders largely forgot or overlooked Section v. 

 of Franklin's Admiralty instructions, who was thereby 

 urged, after reaching Cape Walker, in proceeding ' from that 

 point to use every endeavour to penetrate to the southward 

 and westward, in a course as direct towards Behring's Strait 

 as the position and extent of the ice or the existence of land 

 at present unknown may admit.' There can be little doubt 

 that this action on the part of the leaders of the later 

 employed search ships, while it added considerably to the 

 geographical knowledge, yet prevented them from proceed- 

 ing in the direction in which their energetic efforts might 

 have resulted in the possible rescue of a few survivors, or at 

 all events, in an earlier and more satisfactory discovery of 

 the fate and the recovery of many valuable records of the 

 lost expedition." 



Before giving a brief account of the second Franklin 

 relics discovery, made by Dr. Rae in the spring of 1854, I 

 would now refer to his boat voyage of August, 1851, when 

 he actually got within fifty miles of the spot where the 

 Erebus and Terror were abandoned in .the ice three years and 

 four months previously. He unfortunately failed in his 

 efforts to cross Victoria Strait to King William Land, which 

 was in sight, else he might then have secured some of the 

 Franklin records, discovered the stranded ship, and learned 

 the fate of the party four years earlier than he did. The 

 Franklin ships and Dr. Rae's boats thus made the nearest 

 approach by sea to the only practicable ISTorth-west passage. 

 A year later, as already mentionec!, Collinson found himself 



