32 
Sketched by M. M'Cormick, R.N. 
Caswall Tower, from Beechey Island. 
Concluding Remarks on the search for Sir John Franklin, the probable position 
of the " Erebus" and " Terror," and fate of their crews. 
My experience during the late voyage and winter passed on the very same 
spot where Franklin spent his, and where all traces of him cease, have most 
decidedly confirmed me in the opinion I had ventured to express in my plans of 
search some five years ago, — viz.; that the missing expedition passed up the 
Wellington Channel into the Polar Sea, and was to be sought amongst the 
archipelago of islands and drifting packs of ice with which that sea is most 
unquestionably encumbered, and where the search should be made with 
efficient well-equipped boats adapted for encountering the packs of ice, strong 
currents, and dangerous intricacies, inseparable from such a navigation, 
promising nought else but destruction to ships. From boats alone could any 
hope be entertained of a rescue of our gallant countrymen, ere they fell 
victims to the combined effects of frost and famine, — for in these two expressive 
words, all their privations may probably be summed up, — and if too late to save 
them, of discovering any traces they may have left behind them. 
At that early period of the search I believe I stood alone in this opinion. The 
general impression was, that the ships had been arrested in the ice to the south- 
ward and westward of Melville Island; consequently, the main efforts for carry- 
ing on the search took that direction. There are few perhaps who will now dis- 
pute my views, or their originality, which the Parliamentary records have secured. 
My reasons for coming to the conclusion I then did need not be recapitulated 
here, they having been fully explained in my plans submitted at the time, 
and subsequently, in the year 1850-2, accompanied by the first proposal 
made, for attempting the search in so high a latitude in an open boat, which 
I volunteered to conduct. This plan obtained the warm support of the Hy- 
drographer, Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, and of Rear Admiral Sir 
Edward Parry, (with whom J. made my first voyage towards the North Pole,) 
who recommended my employment in very favourable terms in their reports of 
approval annexed to my plans laid before Parliament. 
I was at last sent out in the "North Star;" but the position I was necessarily 
placed in in that ship was not such as to enable me to act in the noble cause in 
the way I had hoped, and, being somewhat anomalous, renders it incumbent 
on mc to be careful that my share in the search is not left open to miscon- 
ception. Here I may, therefore, be permitted to draw attention to the fact 
that, could I at once have proceeded up the Wellington Channel on the 
first arrival of the " North Star," at Beechey Island, on the 8th of August 
1852, with my boat's crew of volunteers, instead of being detained until 
the 19th of the same month, — by which delay we lost the last eleven fine days 
of the season, and best portion of it, in which boating operations can be 
carried on in those seas, Wellington Channel being as open as the Atlantic, 
