Cape Spencer, bearing W.N.W.,* distant Two Miles. 
Dr. M'Cormick's Boat Expedition up the Wellington Channel, 1852. 
Narrative of a Boat and Sledge Expedition up Wellington Channel and 
round Baring Bay, in search of Sir John Franklin and the crews of the 
discovery ships " Erebus " and " Terror." 
On Thursday, 19th August 1852, at 11 a.m., I succeeded in embarking upon 
my long-sought and long-cherished enterprise, in a whale boat equipped for a 
month, and manned by half a dozen volunteers from Her Majesty's ship 
" North Star," lying off Beechey Island. 
Although, it could not be otherwise than a source of the deepest regret to 
me, that the short season for boating operations in these regions was now fast 
drawing to a close, and with it the more sanguine hopes I had entertained of 
accomplishing the extended exploration I had contemplated ere the long polar 
night set in, yet, even in this, the eleventh hour, I was not without a hope of at 
least setting at rest one question relative to the search, viz., as to the existence of 
any available communication between Baring Bay and Jones Sound, either by 
means of an opening or narrow isthmus of land, in the direction of the position 
laid down in the Admiralty chart, as the spot where a cairn, cooking place, and 
footprints, are said to have been visited by a whaler ; and have been thought 
by some, most deeply interested in the fate of our lost countrymen, to have 
been traces of their wanderings. 
This object I fully determined to accomplish, if possible, either by sea or 
land, even should the formation of " young ice " (so much to be apprehended 
at this advanced period of the season,) form such an impediment as to leave 
me no other alternative than to abandon my boat, and make my way back to 
the ship by an overland journey. 
At the very moment I was about taking my departure, a sail hove in sight, 
coming round Cape Riley, which proved to be no less interesting an arrival 
than Lady Franklin's own little brigantine, the " Prince Albert," on her return 
from Batty Bay, in Prince Regent's Inlet, where she had wintered, without 
finding any traces of the missing expedition. I met her commander, Kennedy, 
and Monsieur Bellot, on the floe as they landed, but so anxious was I to make 
the most of every moment of the brief remnant of the season still remaining, 
that I had little time to inquire what they had accomplished. 
After despatching a few hastily written lines home by them, I struck across 
All the bearings are magnetic. 
A 
