36 
expanse of open water to the northward, or at any rate absence of land to 
obstruct his progress in that direction, he might reach a very high latitude, 
and gain a good offing of the Parry Islands, before he shaped a south-Avesterly 
course for Behring's Strait. As the season for navigation remaining after the 
first of September, avouM be, however, necessarily a very short one, he was 
probably overtaken by winter, perhaps some six or seven hundred miles from 
Oape Lady Franklin, in a high latitude, and possibly well to the westward. 
Having thus attempted to follow up the track of the unfortunate ships so far, 
by something like inductive reasoning, founded on inferences drawn from a 
knowledge of the object they had in view, and the most probable events and 
incidents likely to beset them in their path to mar its attainment, we now 
enter upon a field of speculation, wide enough indeed to fill a volume of itself. 
Having already extended these remarks to a greater length than I had intended, 
I will wind them up with a few words on the conclusion I have come to in my 
own mind, as to the fate of our gallant countrymen. Speculative as any opinion 
upon this subject, I am aware, must necessarily be, I have not arrived at 
mine either prematurely or hastily. No one but those who may have near 
relatives in the expedition, can possibly have felt deeper interest in this hapless 
search from first to last than I have, unless it is my friend Mr. Barrow, whose 
untiring exertions and devotion in this noble causp stand unequalled. Various 
associations combined to enlist my own sympathies in this search. They were 
my old ships, and engaged in a field of discovery to which I have long been 
ardently devoted, and in which my thoughts have been centred from my earliest 
youth, in addition to which there were those on board of both ships who were 
well known to me. 
My own impression is, that on the closing in of their second winter, the ships 
were either driven into some inlet, where they may have been blocked up ever 
since by the Polar pack, as happened to the " Investigator" in Mercy Bay ; or 
that they have been driven on shore by the strong currents which set from the 
north-westward, when helplessly beset in the pack, drifting about in the 
narrow straits whi(;h separate one island from another in this Arctic archipelago. 
They may, possibly, have reached even as far west as that large tract of land 
whose mountainous and lofty granitic peaks v/ere seen by the " Herald," thus 
barring their further progress westward. But, under any of these circumstances, 
it does not follow that the lives of those on board would be necessarily involved 
in immediate destruction, even where the ships stranded on some shore. They 
would, in all probability, be able to save the greater part of their provisions and 
stores (as Sir Edward Parry did in the loss of the " Fury," on Fury beach ; and 
which, years afterwards, proved the happy means of preserving the lives of Sir 
John Ross and his party). They might build huts and supply themselves with fuel 
from the wreck, and linger out an existence as long as their resources lasted. But 
here however, reluctantly, I must at the same time acknowledge, that there would 
be but little prospect of adding much to these in the region in which their disaster 
would be likely to happen. In proof of this, I have only to add, that had I 
lost my boat and the provisions when up the Wellington Channel, my boat's 
crew and myself could not have existed — although numbering only seven — on 
the produce of our guns, for one month ; and I had two or three good shots in 
my party, besides being myself an old sportsman, and rarely threw away a 
shot without obtaining something for it. Wild fowl, doubtless, migrate to the 
very Pole itself to rear their young ; but this occupies only a short period of the 
season ; and the supplies to be obtained from such an uncertain source would 
be inadequate even for present wants, far less so to form a Avinter's store for a 
ship's company. 
Sad as the reflection must be, it is in vain to deny that the time has arrived 
when, indeed, it is " hoping against hope," and which suggested to me the 
name of " Forlorn Hope " for my boat. Nearly nine years have noAv elapsed 
since our countrymen left these shores ; and, although I have been to the last one 
of the most sanguine in my hopes, I cannot help feeling now, that traces of their 
fate is all, unhappily, I have too much reason to fear, that remains to be dis- 
covered of them. But even this in my opinion will never be accomplished by 
ships. Nought else than the disastrous fate of the gallant Frankhn and his 
followers can be possibly anticipated as the result of any attempt made by ships. 
11. M'CORMICK, R.N. 
