CHAPTER XXII 
BUCHAN AND ROSS 
Polar exploration had been neglected since the return 
of Captain Phipps owing to the protracted European war, 
which came to an end in 1815. But the duty of prose- 
cuting it had never been forgotten, and the authorities, 
being educated and patriotic men, were quite ready to 
consider suggestions favourably. The country is indebted 
for those suggestions to William Scoresby. In 1817 he 
found that the Spitsbergen seas were unusually clear of ice 
between 74 0 and 8o° N., and he represented to Sir Joseph 
Banks what a favourable time there appeared to be for 
expeditions of discovery. Sir Joseph brought Scoresby's 
letter to the notice of Sir John Barrow, the Secretary 
of the Admiralty, who strongly represented the advisa- 
bility of despatching expeditions to discover the con- 
nection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of the 
American continent. One was to proceed by way of 
Spitsbergen and the North Pole, the other by Davis 
Strait and the bay supposed to have been discovered 
by Baffin. 
Four whalers were purchased by the Admiralty and 
strengthened for special service in the ice — the Isabella, 
385 tons, and Alexander, 252 tons, for Baffin's Bay ; the 
Dorothea, 370 tons, and Trent, 250 tons, for the North Pole. 
Captain Buchan, R.N., who had recently been employed 
on the Newfoundland coast and had made an important 
journey into the interior of that island, received command 
of the Dorothea in the Spitsbergen and North Pole expe- 
dition, with Lieutenant John Franklin as his second, on 
board the Trent. Buchan's first Lieutenant was Arthur 
Morell, with Charles Palmer and William J. Dealy as 
mates, George Fisher as astronomer, and Cyrus Wakeman 
as clerk. In the Trent with Franklin were Lieutenant 
F. W. Beechey, son of the artist Sir William Beechey, 
