FATE OF FRANKLIN. 



577 



the scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a 

 powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain 

 resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels 

 whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin 

 to their command, — the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain 

 Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all 

 told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and reso- 

 lute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, 

 with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' 

 Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her pro- 

 visions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's 

 Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and fol- 

 low Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. 

 Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible 

 now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and 

 directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which 

 separate that point from Behring's Strait, — a region which it 

 was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not 

 to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push 

 resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the 

 Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on 

 the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in 

 Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships 

 were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th 

 of July : they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored 

 to an iceberg and waiting for open water. 



Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, 

 the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The 

 Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out 

 three several expeditions in 1848. The two first — one overland 

 to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by 

 Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover — totally 

 failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition 



that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in 

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