350 MM. C. Borgen and R. Copeland's Short Account of the 



The unfortunate termination of this expedition is well known. 

 Although the history of the last desperate attempt to escape 

 contains many doubtful and unexplained points, we may obtain 

 much information upon the earlier part of the expedition from 

 the short report which was left on King William's Land by Cro- 

 zier and Fitzjatnes, and discovered by Lieutenant Hobson, who 

 accompanied the last searching expedition under M'Clintock. 



The portion of this short report which is particularly interest- 

 ing to us relates to the number of deaths, and runs as follows : — 



"25 April, 1848 Sir John Franklin died on the 11th 



of June 1847, and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has 

 been to this date nine officers and fifteen men." When the ex- 

 pedition sailed in the summer of 1845 the entire crew consisted 

 of 129 people, officers and men, deducting the few who were 

 sent back from Baffin's Bay on account of illness. The provi- 

 sions were calculated for three years ; but unfortunately a great 

 part of them was supplied by the marine purveyor Goldner, who 

 sought by the most shameful fraud to make a fortune, and filled 

 the preserved-meat cases with completely useless offal instead of 

 with eatable materials. By this means the provision was con- 

 siderably diminished; but as Sir John Franklin wrote from 

 Baffin's Bay full of hope that, if necessary, he should be able 

 to hold out for five or even seven years by renewing his stores 

 from the produce of the chase, we may assume that, notwith- 

 standing the loss of what was useless, the provision was sufficient 

 for three years in case of need. 



The ships were abandoned in April 1848 ; and we may sup- 

 pose that want had not then reached any very high degree. Up 

 to this moment the expedition had hardly been in any worse po- 

 sition than that under Ross, for example, after the same lapse of 

 time; and the number of deaths reported up to this period, 

 although doubtless considerable, is by no means very surprising, 

 especially when we consider that three of them occurred as early 

 as the first winter (1845-46), on Beechey Island. What became 

 of the 105 who were still living after the abandonment of the 

 ships, will probably always remain in obscurity. 



The apprehensions as to the fate of Franklin and his compa- 

 nions gave rise to a long series of searching expeditions, which 

 are known in the history of arctic voyages as the Franklin-expe- 

 ditions. To go through all the numerous expeditions singly 

 would lead us too far. In M'Dougai's account of the voyage 

 of the ( Resolute' in the years 1852-54*, there is an account of 

 the numbers of the crews who wintered and the deaths which 



* The eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship * Resolute ' to the Arctic 

 Regions in search of Sir John Franklin, bv George F. M'Dougall (London, 

 1857), p. 498. 



