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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: 1 2 1 3 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d de!i taux de reduction diffdrents. Loi'sque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprodult en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. / 1 2 3 4 5 6 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 1 (t ~TrTff-(^^.w^^.' PRINTED BV SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON THE LIFE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, R.N By H. D. TRAILL AI/THOR OF 'the NEW LUCIAN' ' WILLIAM III' ' THE MARQUIS OF SALISUURY ' ' LORD STRAFFORD ' ETC. With Maps, Portraits, and Facsimiles LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1896 '^^^^^^■'■■^•ppipf nT]oi tn wmm yi .. ■ '(//i/in-n/ • /f r ■ A"/// • y'y/iN /,//>/ .■ /t . PREFACE # Thk exploits of Sir John Franklin are written so large across the map of the Arctic Ocean and its coasts; the circumstances of his tragic end have rendered his name and achievements familiar to so many Englishmen not otherwise specially conversant with the subject of Polar exploration ; the story oi his voyages and discoveries has so often been related as a part of the general history of English adventure, that the appearance of this biography, nearly half a century after his death, may seem to require a few explanatory words. It has been felt by his surviving relatives, as it was felt by his devoted wife and widow, that to the records, ample and appreciative as many of them have been, of the career of the explorer there needed the addition of some personal memoir of the man. What Franklin did may be sufficiently well known to his countrymen already. What he was— how kindly and affectionate, how modest and magnanimous, how loyal in his friendships, how faithful in his allegiance to I if f. ^3R [6] LIFK OF SIR JOHN KlfANKIJX duty, how dcc'pJy and unaffectedly religious — has never been and never could be known to any but his intimates. Hut that knowledge ought not to be confined to them. The character of such men as Franklin is^ in truth, as much a national possession as their fame and work. Its influence may be as potent and its example as inspiring ; and it has been felt by those responsible for the production of this volume that some attempt should at last be made to present it to his fellow-countrymen. It was the long-cherished desire of Miss Sophia Cracroft, niece of Sir John Franklin, and constant and attached companion of Lady Franklin, to perform this labour of love herself, and it supplied the animat- ing motive of her unwearied industry in collecting the mass of documents hitherto unpublished which have been employed in the p''eparation of this work. Failing health and almost total loss of sight, however, prevented the accomplishment of her purpose, and eventually her executors, Mr. and Mrs. G. B. Austen Lefroy, have entrusted the work to the present writer. Both to them and to him it is a source of much satisfaction that this Biography should issue from the house of Mr. John Murray, whose father was the publisher of Franklin's two Narratives of his Arctic Explorations and the personal friend of their author and Lady Franklin, and who has himself taken a warm interest in the present undertaking. In dealing with Franklin's achievements as an niKi'ACE [7J explorer aini)lc assistance was accessible; to me in already published works. The story of iiis first two Arctic expeditions — Lhi; former a tale of unexampled toil and sufferings heroically endured — has been told with admirable clearness, simplicity, and modesty by Franklin himself. In i860, after the return of the Fox from her famous and successful voyage, the late Admiral Sherard Osborn, himself an active and distinguished member of one of the earlier search expeditions, published a little volume of a hundred pages, entitled * The Career, Last Voyage, and Fate of Franklin,' containing a condensed but masterly sketch of his hero's earlier discoveries and a most graphic and moving descrij:)tion of his last ill-starred adventure. The particulars of Sir Leopold McClin- tock's search for and discovery of the sole extant record of the crews of the Erebus and Terror have been gathered from that gallant officer's pain- fully interesting narrative of his voyage. L, still more important and indeed invaluable help has been derived by me from the able and exhaustive mono- graph on Franklin contributed to the ' World's Great Explorers ' series by Admiral A. H. Markham, himself an Arctic officer of distinction, whose ready kindness, moreover, in advising me on an obscure point in the history of Franklin's closing hours and in perusing the proofs of the chapters dealing with his last expedition I desire most gratefully to acknow- ledge. ■^ I- I [8] LIFE OF SIR JOHN FEAXKLIX Nor can I close this record of my obligations without expressing my tl^anks to Miss Jessie Lefroy for such a lightening of my labours by the methodical arrangement of documents as only those who have suffered from the lack of such assistance in examin- ing and digesting voluminous masses of manuscript material can fully appreciate. H. D. T. London, 1895. •1 I n ! I CONTENTS I. Eari.v Vkars Afloat, 1786-1807 . II. Service in Two Hemispheres, 1807-1815 III. The Dorothea and the Trent, 1815 -1818 IV. First Arctic Expedition, 1818 1821 V. The Fight with Famine, 1821 1822 VI. Husband and Widower, 1822-1S25 . VII. Second Arctic Expedition, 1825-1827 VIII. Three Years of Repose, 1827-1830 . IX. A Mediterranean Command, 1830 -1833 X. Before Patras, 1832- 1S34 XI. Lady Franklin's Travels, 1831 1833 . XII. Unwelcome Leisure, 1834-1S36 XIII. A New Appointment, 1836 .... \1\'. Tasmania, 1836- 1842 XV. The Colonial Governor, 1836 1S42 XVI. Tasmanian Incidents, 1842 XVII. Franklin and Montagu, 1841-1844 XVIII. Franklin and Downing .Street, 1842 1844 XIX. .\ Return to the Sea, 1844 . I 3' 49 66 84 107 138 156 176 195 211 229 241 257 271 288 307 323 i . riosity g life. Eng- tn the upon veins. lanion, some world been dedicated by some rite of antiquity to the god of the Sea. His father — like nine English fathers out of ten — objected. That curious spirit of parental resistance to what ever has been, and, it is to be hoped, ever will be, the natural and irresistible vocation of so many thousands of English sons, was strong within him, John was his youngest— how often it is the youngest! — the Benjamin of the flock ; and it would be a hard matter to part with him, for all his ' want of neatness ' and his undue curiosit)- about the visitors over the way. Mr. Franklin's attitude, in fact, towards his son's mari- time aspirations was simply that adopted before and no doubt since his time by innumerable British fathers similarly situ- ated. It seems only to have differed from the traditional paternal posture in that it was taken up with more intensity of conviction and maintained with more persistency than in the average case. Not many a father, that is to say, would go so far perhaps as to declare, with the eld .r Franklin, that ' he would rather follow his son to the grave than to the sea ; ' though many, no doubt, have resorted to the means adr -)ted by him for testing the reality and seriousness of the boy's inclinations. John, after all, was but twelve years old. How many lads of that age, especially during the school term — a very important point — had been soized with what they imagined to be a passion for a .seafaring life, but what was in reality only a distaste for the restraints of the class-room or a want of sympathy with the usher ! Mr. Franklin accordingly had recourse to a test which fathers in like case have not infrequently applied, with, from their own point of view, complete success. After two years' resistance to his son's importunities he sent him for a cruise on board a merchantman trading between Hull and ^ jsbon, no doubt in the expectation that from that most efficient of hospitals for the treatment of the sea-fever from which John was supposed to be suffering, he would be able to report himself as ' dis- charged cured.' But, so far from yielding to this rough remedy — even rougher in those days than in these — the malady became more acute. The boy returned from his voyage M •ih' It. ft r^ * 8 EAIUA' YEA US AFLOAT CM. I. confirmed in his longing for ^, h. fl I ; ) \ kk w * Si 10 EARLY YLAU8 AFLOAT CH. I. The youthful prophet was right. The ' salute to poor Elsineur Castle ' shook Europe, and echoes ♦ihrough our history to the pr::sent hour. In less than three weeks after these words were written young Franklin was bearing a part in what the greatest of our naval heroes pronounced 'the most terrible ' of the hundred battles he had fought. The British fleet sailed from Yarmouth on March I2, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as his second in com- mand, and arrived off Zealand on the 27th. Entering the Sound, in spite of the opposition of the Governor of Cronenbcrg, who, after protesting against their entrance, opened fire upon them from his batteries as they sailed through that channel on March 30 with a fair wind from the N.W., our vessels bore up towards the harbour of Copen- hagen. Menacing indeed was the armament upon which the lad's eyes rested when, after a four hours' sail up the Sound, the Polyphemus came to anchor with the rest of the squadron opposite this famous and formidable port. The garrison of the city consisted of ten thousand men, with whom was combined a still stronger force of volunteers. All that was possible had been done to strengthen the sea-defences, and the array of forts, ramparts, ships of the line, fireships, gunboats, and floating batteries, was such as might well have deterred any other assailant but the hero of the Nile. Six line-of-battle ships and eleven floating batteries, with a large number of smaller vessels, were moored in an external line to protect the entrance to a harbour flanked on either side by two islands, on the smaller of which fifty-six, and on the larger sixty-eight heavy guns were mounted. Four other sail of the line were moored within, across the harbour mouth, while a fort mounting thirty-six powerful pieces of ordnance had been constructed on a shor.l, supported by piles. These were so disposed that their fire would cross that of the batteries in the citadel of Copenhagen and on the island of Amager. It seemed hardly possible that any ships could pass over the centre of the deadly circle and live. Nor were these armaments the only obstacles which con- fronted the British fleet. The channel, by which alone the 1801 BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN 11 harbour could be approached, was little known and extremely intricate ; all the buoys had been removed, and the sea on eitner side abounded with shoals and sandbanks, on which if any of the vessels grounded they would instantly be torn to pieces by the fire from the Danish batteries. The Danes themselves considered this particular barrier insurmountable, and Nelson himself was fully aware of the difficulty of sur- mounting it ; for a day and a night were incessantly occupied by the boats of the fleet, under his orders, in making the necessary soundings and replacing by new buoys those which had been taken away. Despite these precautions, however, and despite all that British seamanship could do in the way of skilled navigation, the harbour shoals proved formidable antagonists when the actual attack was made on the morning of April 2. Of the twelve line-of-battlc ships which made fearlessly for the entrance of the harbour, amid the joyous cheers of their crews, on that memorable day, no fewer than three went aground and stuck immovable, expos';d to the withering Cue of the Tre Kroner batteries and unable to render any effective aid in the attack. The Polyphemus was in Nelson's division, and was one of those which escaped this untoward mishap. The Edgar, under Captain Murray, led the division, and it was the Agamemnon, the ship immediately behind her, which was the first to go aground. The Polyphemus, which had been the last but three of the line, was signs lied to advance out of her turn. Then followed the Monarch, the Ardent, and other vessels. The two that shared the fate of the second vessel in the division were the ships which had been in the immedia<-e rear of Franklin's, the Bellona and the Russell. Nelson followed in the Elephant, and only saved his vessel and the remainder of his division by a swiftly conceived and executed change of course. Pressing onward, however, with the rest of his force, which had been warned by the fate of the Agamemnon to alte * their course, and pass inside instead of, as had been in- tended, outside the line taken by their leading vessels, the nine remaining vessels reached their stations, and at forty-five i !■! 12 EARLY YEARS AI LOAT OH. I. 1 .i^ i ■ ! i minutes past ten the action commenced, becoming general by half-past eleven. The Polyphemus was soon at it hammer and tongs ; and was among the vessels which, during those four furious hours, had the hottest work. Here is an extract from her official log:— ..--/,■:. , '■ .. ■., ,-',:. '. At X0.45 the Danes opened fire upon our leading ships, which was returned as they led in. We led in at 11.20. We anchored by the stern abreast of two of the enemy's ships moored in the channel, the Isis next ahead of us. The force that engaged us was two ships, one of 74, the other of 64 guns. At half-past eleven the action became general, and a. continual fire was kept up between us and the enemy's ships and batteries. At noon a very heavy and constant fire was kept up between us and the enemy, and this was continued without intermission until forty-five minutes past two, when the 74 abreast of us ceased fir-ng ; but not being able to discern whether she had struck, our fire was kept up fifteen minutes longer, when we could perceive their people making their escape to the shore in boats. We ceased firing and boarded both ships and took possession of them. Several others were also taken possession of by the rest of our ships ; one blown up in action, two sunk. Mustered ship's company and found we had six men killed and twenty-four wounded, and two lower-deck guns disabled. Such was the result of the triple duel between the Polyphemus and the Danish block-ships Wagner and Provestien, assisted by the Tre Kroner battery. The cannonade all round was tremendous, nearly two thousand guns on both sides concentrating their fire upon a space not exceeding a mile and a half in breadth. For three hours had the engagement continued without showing any signs of .slackening in its firing ; when Sir Hyde Parker signalled to Nelson a permissive order to retire, and there occurred the often related, but recently questioned,' incident of Nelson's putting his telescope to his blind eye. Sir Hyde's motive was a generous one. He had seen with concern the grounding of the three ships, and their almost helpless exposure to the Danish cannonade. ' The fire,' Southey reports him as saying, ' is too hot for Nelson ; a retreat must be made. I am aware ' See Professor J. K. Laughton's Nelson. millan.) • Men of Action Series.' (Mac- 1801 BATTLE OF COPEXHAGEN 18 of the consequences to my own personal reputation, but it would be cowardly in me to leave Nelson to bear the whole shame of the failure, if failure it should be deemed.' Doubtless, too, he knew his man well enough to feel confident thct if Nelson saw the slightest chance of continuing the contest with success — and the chance must have been slight indeed which did not satisfy Nelson — he would disobey the order. Figu- ratively in fact, if not literally speaking, he foresaw the legendary application of the telescope to the blind eye, and his foresight proved accurate. Nelson failed to 'see' the signal, and, nailing his own colours to the mast, prolonged the desperate fight for another hour, jntil, the rapidity and pre- cision of the British fire having at last proved irresistible, the Danish replies began at two o'clock in the afternoon to abate sensibly in vigour. Ship after ship struck amid the cheers of our sailors, and before three the whole force of the six line-of-battle ships and the eleven floating batteries which had formed the front line of defence were either taken, sunk, burnt, or otherwise destroyed. Finally, the resistance of the enemy having now been completely broken down. Nelson sent proposals for an armistice, which were accepted, and the attacking squadron drew off to rejoin Sir Hyde Parker's ships in the centre of the Straits. The loss on board the British fleet was very severe. It was no less than 1,200 killed and wounded, a larger proportion to the number of seamen engaged than in any other general action during the whole war. On the side of the Danes, however, it was much greater, the total number of killed, wounded, and prisoners amounting to 6,000. The condition indeed of the enemy at the close of the action presented a heart-rending spectacle. White flags were flying from every mast that was yet erect, and guns of distress booming from every hull that was still afloat. The sea was thickly covered wilh the floating spars, and lurid with the light of flaming wrecks. English boats thronged the waters endeavouring to render all the assistance in their power to their wounded and drowning enemies, who as fast as they could be rescued were sent ashore ; but great numbers 4 (■; l!-i i I \\ ii i... \ ■■RP u EARLY VEARS AFLOAT CH. I. i', 'Mm perished. It was not till daybreak on the following morning that Nelson's ilae-ship, the Elephant, which had gone aground in returning to Sir Hyde Parker's squadron, v/as got afloat and the prizes carried off. Thus ended this murderous battle, one of the most obstinately contested in tl 3 annals of the British Navy. For the boy Franklin it was a baptism of fire indeed ; and even in those days of the Great War, when Englishmen thought nothing of sending their children almost from the nursery to the cockpit, the case of this lad of fifteen who passed with such startling abruptness from the sleepy peace of a Lincolnshire country town to the thunder and slaughter of the dreadful day of Copenhagen can hardly have had many parallels. There could, at any rate, have been no more dramatically appropriate opening to a life of peril and adven- ture destined to be crowned by a tragic death. Tiie horrors of the scene produced, as well as they might, a deep impression on young Franklin's mind ; and a kinsman records having been told by him in later years that ' he saw a prodigious number of the slain at the bottom of the remarkably clear water of that harbour, men who had perished on both sides in that most sanguinary action.' But exultation over the victory and pride at having borne a part in it were, of course, more enduring sentiments in the young midshipman's mind. He was genuinely attached to his pro- fession and happy in its pursuit ; and even from the few written records which have been preserved of this early period of his career one can gather details which shape themselves into an attractive, if imperfect, picture of the lad. The weakliness from which, as already mentioned, he had suffered in his infancy had long since disappeared. Even in his school days he was remarkable, relates a reminiscent of that time, Mr. Tennyson d'Eyncourt, ' for his manly figure and bravery,' and his ' flowing hair;' and both then and afterwards he appears to have struck observers by a peculiar earnestness and animation of countenance. The characteristic which had impressed Mr. Tennyson d'Eyncourt in the face of the school- boy is noted, curiously enough, almost in the same words, by 1801 THE YOUNG EXPLORER 16 an officer who met him when on the verge of manhood, and who subsequently testified to the accuracy of the observation by at once recognising him again after a lapse of forty years. This witness also speaks of him as a youth ' with a most animated face.' It was doubtless the immature and unde- veloped form of that fine expression of energy and daring which distinguishes his later portraits. In other physical respects, too, the boy appears to have been * the father of the man ; ' for ' the round-faced, round-headed ' lad with an evident tendency to ' put on flesh ' who is described elsewhere in the last-quoted of these accounts might very well ripen into the portly and full-bodied Franklin of middle age. His ways and disposition were evidently full of charm. From many slight but sufficient indications, traceable even in the scanty reminiscences of this far-off time, one can plainly discern those winning qualities which afterwards endeared him, beyond all leaders that one has ever heard of, to his companions in adventure. There is the same frankness of speech and bearing, the same open and affectionate c'isposi- tion, and no doubt, too, the same hot but generous temper, which in after years made him at once so quick to resent a slight and so ready to forgive it. His fear lest the despatch of the Polyphemus to the Baltic should make him lose the chance of joining the exploring expedition to the South Seas proved fortunately groundless. Had he been too late to join it, the whole course of his career might have been altered. He might quite possibly have settled down into the life of the ordinary naval officer and never have acquired that passion for geographical discovery which afterwards bore such brilliant fruits. But the hope expressed by him in the letter above quoted was realised. The Polyphemus was ordered home with the rest of the Baltic fleet in the summer of 1801 ; and a berth was obtained for Franklin on board the Investigator, which started for the Southern Hemisphere on July 7 of that year. Her commander, Captain Matthew Flinders, who had married an aunt of Franklin's, was a sailor of first-rate capacity, and had already won high distinction as an explorer in the seas to ill ' ^k' f Ji 10 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT cii. t. which he had now been despatched on no less ambitious an enterprise than that of effecting a survey of the entire sea- board of Australia. There could have been no better school or schoolmaster for a youth of John Franklin's bent and aspirations. He was proud of his commander's achievements, and attached to him both by relationship and regard. The character of his duties was in many respects novel, and his voyage, he was aware, would procure him an amount ot training in navigation and practical seamanship which he could not have acquired with anything like the same expedi- tion in the regular service of the navy. Of the spirit in which he entered on his duties we may judge by the following ex- tract from a letter of Captain Flinders to the elder Franklin : — It is with great pleasure that I tell you of the good conduct of John. He is a very fine youth, and there is every probability of his doing credit to the Investigator and himself. Mr. Crossley has begun with him, and in a few months he will be sufificient of an astronomer to be my right-hand man in that way. His attention to his duty has gained him the esteem of the first lieutenant, who scarcely knows how to talk enough in his praise. He is rated mid- shipman, and I sincerely hope tha*- an early opportunity after his time is served will enable me to show the regard I have for your family and his merit. By October of 1801 the Investigator had reached the Cape of Good Hope, and from that station Franklin wrote his father a letter describing the incidents of the voyage. They had touched at Madeira on the way out, and the lad's account of that island and its people abounds in evidences of an observant faculty beyond his years. Now, as always, he was studying more than the mere routine of his profession, in the scientific branches o^ which, however, he was obviously n;aking good progress. He was, indeed, acquiring a i_roficiency for which he did not obtain quite his fair amount of recogni- tion ; for it would seem that Sam Flinders, his captain's brother, was in the habit of entrusting to him a considerable share of the duty of taking observations without being equally careful in distributing the credit of the results. To this 'exploitation' of himself young Franklin thought it wise to submit, though not without privately recorded protests ; and it is with some i 180:? Till-: YOUNG EXPJ.ORER 17 natural feelings of resentful relief that later on he chronicles the fact of Sam's having exchanged his berth on the Investi- gator for a post which his brother had succeeded in obtaining for him on board another vessel. The elder Flinders did much, however, to atone for the unsatisfactory conduct of the younger. He instructed his nephew pretty steadily in navigation and relieved him when at sea of day watches, Franklin reports, in order to en- able him to attend his captain ' in working his timepieces, lunars, &c. ; ' so that, on the whole, the eager young sailor had no reason to be dissatisfied with his opportunities of self-improvement. The example of the fine seaman and enthusiastic explorer under whom he served must indeed, for a lad of Franklin's araent temperament, have been an educa- tion in itself Throughout his whole life he cherished the warmest admiration for the character of Matthew Flinders, and in later years he gladly welcomed the opportunity of paying an enduring tribute to his old commander's memory in that very region of the world which his discoveries had done so much to conquer for civilisation. In the summer of 1802, when, after having surveyed the whole of the southern coast of the Australian continent from King George's Sound in Western Australia to Port Jackson, the Investigator was refitting in that harbour, Franklin wrote his mother a letter full of that dutiful simplicity of filial affec- tion which was so marked a feature in his character. ' I take this opportunity,' he says, in the quaintly ceremonious manner of the time, of returning my most sincere thanks to my worthy parents for their care of me in my younger days, for my education, and lastly for the genteel and expensive outfit for this long voyage ; and if a due application to my duty and anxiety to push forward in my profession will repay them, they may rely on it as far as I'm able. . . . My father, I trust .viid hope, is more easy about the situation in life I have chosen. He sees it was not either the youthf j! yhim of the moment, or the attractive uniform, or the hopes of getting rid of school that drew me to think of it. No ! I pictured to myself both the hardships and pleasures of a sailor's life (even to the extrem.e) before ever it was told to me ; which I find in a great measure to C i„ r^ ! t I 1 ! ! 18 EARLY YEA J IS AFLOAT CH. I. agree. My mind was then so steadfastly bent on going to sea, that to settle to business would be merely impossible. Probably my father, like many others who are unacquainted with the sea, thinks that sailors are a careless, swearing, reprobate, and good-for-nothing set of men. Do not let that idea possess you, or condemn all for Believe me, there are good and bad men sailors. It is some. natural for a person who has been living on salt junk for several months when he gets on shore to swag about. Picture to yourself a man debarred from all sorts of comfortables such as mutton, beef, vegetables, wine, and beer. Would he not after that bar was broke begin with double vigour ? But I have said enough on this subject. A line in answer to this would satisfy me. Later on in the letter he reverts to a matter which was seldom absent from his mind — the necessity of steady endea- vour to perfect himself in his profession : — Thank you for that good and genuine advice in your letter. . . The first thing which demands immediate attention is the learning perfectly my duty as an officer and seaman. It would be an un- pardonable shame if after serving two years I was ignorant of it. The next, the taking and working of astronomical observations which (thank God !) by the assistance of Captain Flinders I am now nearly able to do. Then French : many is the time I have envied the hours spent in play instead of learning. Now I feel the want of a knowledge of French, for there are two ships of that nation engaged in discovery here and I'm not able to converse with them in French, but am obliged to refer to unfamiliar Latin. Writing a few months later to his sister Elizabeth, he gives a detailed account of his reading, interspersed with criticisms, amusing in their youthful air of profundity, on the subjects of his study : — The following are the books which I read in my leisure hours (inform me, do you approve of them ?) : — * Junius's Letters.' What astonishing criticisms ! What a knowledge of the State affairs at that time ! But he was at last mastered by Home Tooke, who had a right cause to handle. ' Shakespeare's Works.' — How well must that man have been acquainted with man and nature ! The beautiful sympathetic speeches he makes them use ! Of comedies, the ' Taming of the Shrew ' and the ' Merry Wives of Windsor ' are his masterpieces. Of tragedy, 'Macbeth' and 'King John.' History of Scotland, from the Encyclopaedia, 'Naval Tactics,' 'Roderick Random,' 'Peregrine Pickle,' sometimes Pope's Works. And, ex- clusive of navigation books and Latin and French, geography V:i 1802 MR. TYCIIO BKAIlfi 19 »r' are his sometimes employs a good deal of my time, as was the request of my brother Thomas in his last letter. He winds 'ip with a piece of information most interesting to a sister — I am grown very much indeed, and a little thinner, so that I shall be a spruce and genteel young man, and sail within three points of the wind, and run nine knots under close-reefed topsails, which is good sailing — and also admirably well adapted to bewilder the female mind, as was no doubt its intentic , with its shower of un- familiar nautical expressions. The pursuit of literature, however, could only have been the occupation of a not very abundant leisure ; for it is cer- tain that Franklin was kept pretty fully employed during his stay at Sydney in assisting to promote the scientific objects v,f the voyage. An observatory was set up on shore, to which all the chronometers were removed, and where all the neces- sary observations were taken. It was placed under the charge of Samuel Flinders, to whom Franklin was attached as assistant ; and his services in that capacity were thought at least sufficiently worthy of recognition by the local authorities to have earned for him the humorous appellation of ' Mr Tycho Brah^ ' from Governor King, then presiding over the colony of New South Wales. A few days after the letter last quoted was written, the vessel resumed its voyage, which, however,"was destined to be cut short by unforeseen causes before its object was fully attained. Unfortunately, it turned out that the scientific curiosity of the Admiralty had not, like charity, begun at home. Before commissioning the Investigator to survey the coast of New Holland it would have been better to more carefully survey the Investigator. After rounding the north- east point of the continent and entering the Gulf of Car- pentaria, the extensive coast-line of which was examined and duly delineated on the chart, the old vessel began to ' exhibit unmistakable signs of decay ; ' and it was discovered on examination that her timbers were in so rotten a con- C 2 m 20 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT OH. I. }l dition that it was not considered likely that she would hold together ir ordinary weather for more than six months, while in the event of her being caught in a gale she would in all probability founder. Her commander, it is true, was not un- prepared for this discovery. Evidence of her general unsea- worthiness had come to light, indeed, before she had reached Madeira on her outward voyage ; but, as Captain Flinders characteristically put i*:, he had been ' given to understand that the exigencies of the Navy were such that no better ship could be spared from the service, and his anxiety to complete the investigation of the coasts of Terra Australis did not admit of his refusing the one offered.' Admirable, however, as is the spirit of a naval officer whose ardour in adventure will not permit him to decline the offer of a rotten ship if a sound one is not to be had, one cannot feel equally im- pressed with the conduct of naval authorities who send him out in such a vessel to explore the entire seaboard of Australia, with an injunction * not to return to England until that work is satisfactorily accomplished.' As it was, Captain Flinders had all his work cut out for him to return, not to England, but to Sydney, which port he succeeded in reaching in June 1803, after an anxious and perilous voyage round the west coast of Australia. At Sydney the Investigator was again examined, and the experts by whom she was examined having reported her * not worth repairing in any country,' she was ultimately converted into a storehouse hulk, and it was arranged that Flinders, with a portion of his officers and crew, should return home in the Porpoise, in order to report the facts of the case to the Admiralty and endeavour to obtain another vessel in which to continue the work of Australian exploration. The breakdown of the Investigator was, however, but the first of the series of misadventures which Franklin was destined to meet with in this his maiden cruise as an explorer. Six days out of Sydney the Porpoise, making for the newly discovered Torres Strait with two merchant vessels under its pilotage, struck upon a reef— a fate which was shared by one of its consorts — the other making off, one regrets to record, ti 1803 WRECKED 91 without rendering any assistance. The disaster occurred towards nightfall, and, the ships fortunately holding together until the morning, their crev;s managed to effect a landing, with such of the provisions and stores of the two vessels as they were able to save, on a sandbank some nine hundred feet by fifty, about half a mile from the \vr ick. Their positivm here, however, was sufficiently critical. The nearest known land was two hundred miles off, and Sydney, the only place from which assistance was to be hoped for, they had left nearly four times that distance behind them. It is needless to say that they faced the situation with the cheerful pluck and resourcefulness of their nation and calling. Tents wer'* erected with the salvr^ed sails; a blue ensign with the union- jack down was hoisted on a tall spar as a signal of distress ; an inventory of stores was taken and found sufficient to last the ninety-four castaways, if properly husbanded, for a period of three months. A council of officers was then called, and it was decided that one of the six-oared cutters should be despatched to Sydney, under the command of the indomitable Flinders, to obtain relief. Accordingly, on August 27, accom- panied by the commander of the lost merchant ship and twelve men, and having stored his small boat with provisions and water for three weeks, that officer set out on his doubtful and hazardous voyage of seven hundred and fifty miles. Week after week passed, and at length, on October 7, when their stores were beginning to run low and the castaways were within measurable distance of the date at which it had been resolved that if no help came they would themselves make a desperate dash for the mainland of Australia in two boats which they had constructed out of materials saved from the wreck, they caught the welcome sight of a sail. It was Flinders return- ing from Sydney in the Rolla, bound for Canton, accompanied by the two Government schooners Cumberland and Francis. Franklin, with the bulk of the shipwrecked crew, embarked on board the first-named vessel ; his captain, anxious to get home as soon as possible to report his discoveries and prepare his charts for publication, preferred to return to England at once in the Cumberland. It was a fatal choice. The vessel 1 s <'< .tii. — ~ r WM 23 KAULY VKAUS AFLOAT OH. I. 1 1 I ' i f i touched at the Mauritius on its way home, and there, by one of those many acts of downright brigandage which disgraced the name of France at the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens, he was made a prisoner by the French Governor of the island and detained for no less than six and a half years. He lived, this much-enduring U'ysses, to return to England and to write an account of his memorable voyage ; but the volume and the charts accompanying it, which he had lost his liberty in hurrying home to publish, only issued from the press, by a truly tragic coincidence, on the very day of his death. Franklin had gone to Canton in the Rolla to await a homeward-bound ship, but there were yet further adventures in store for him before reaching England. A squadron of sixteen Indiamen was on the point of sailing, under the com- mand of Commodore Nathaniel Dance, of the H.E.I.C.S. ; and the officers and men of the Investigator were distributed among its vessels, Franklin's berth falling to him on board the Earl Camden, which flew the commodore's flag. They carried arms, did these merchantmen of John Company, as indeed such vessels mostly did in those troublous times ; but their guns, from thirty to thirty-six in number, were of light calibre, and the gallant vessels relied rather upon the 'brag' of their appearance than on their real fighting power ; for their hulls were painted in imitation of line-of-battle ships and frigates, the more easily to deceive the enemy's cruisers and privateers. They could hardly hope, however, to escape the attentions of a powerful French squadron by devices of this kind ; and it was with such a squadron that they were fated to fall in. Its commander. Admiral Linois, was not otherwise than a brave and capable officer, and the five vesi"' ^.ider his command, consisting of the Marengo, a line-of-bat le ship of 84 guns, La Belle Poule, 48, two other vessels of 36 and 24 guns respectively, and an eighteen-gun brig under Dutch colours, were no doubt considerably more than a match in fighting power for the fleet of Indiamen. Yet this did not prevent the Admiral and his squadron from getting quite comically the worst of one of the most singular encounters in the whole of our naval history. Linois, having received news 1804 A (iAMK OF 'lUtAU 28 of the sailing of the Indiamcn from Canton, put to sea at once from Batavia, and came aciohs his intended captures as they were entering the Straits of Malacca. Their behaviour, however, was contrary to all maritime precedent. A witty countryman of the Admiral has in two often-quoted lines expressed the scandalised astonishment with which the hunter would naturally regard resistance on the part of a usually fugitive quarr - ♦ vJet animal «st tres nicchant : Lo(squ'on attaque, il se defend — ■t i^V and Linois found to his surprise that these particular merchantmen were animals of just this vicious temper. Instead of making all sail to escape their pursuers, t'ley formed in order of battle, and showed every sign of preparing for a regular engagement. It was late in the afternoon ; and the phenomenon was so perplexing that the French Admiral not unnaturally thought he might as well take a night to consider it, and decided to postpone the attack till the following morning. Under cover of the darkness *^hc English ships might, no doubt, have made their escape without difficulty, but Commodore Dance had no intention of thus spoiling so pretty a quarrel. His ships lay to for the night ; and Linois finding them in the same position next day began to suspect that they must consist partly of men-of-war, and continued to hold aloof. Thereupon Dance gave orders for his ships to continue their course under easy sail. The French Admiral, encouraged by this movement, pressed forward with the design of cutting off some of the rearward ships. Upon this, however, the English Commodore instantly faced about, and young Franklin, who was acting as signal-midshipman, was ordered to run up the signal : ' Tack in succession, bear down in line ahead, and engage the enemy.' Whether in the King's uniform or out of it, Jack in all ages of our history has asked nothing better ; and as quickly as this manoeuvre could be executed the two squadrons engaged. The action was short and sharp, if not exactly decisive. After three-quarters of an hour of it the French ! I ■' ;f< i i^ I i n 24 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT CH. I. ceased firing and drew off, whereupon the insatiable Dance actually gave the signal for a ' general chase,' and the astonished seas beheld the unique spectacle of sixteen English merchantmen in hot pursuit of a French squadron of war. The Commodore gave chase for ' upwards of two hour^,' and then, rightly concluding that he had done enough for honour, recalled his pursuing ships, proceeded on his homeward course, and duly arrived in Eng!-xnd to be rewarded with a well-merited knighthood. It was one of the most dashing feats of ' bounce ' on record, and deserves to rank with that other and better kn'^wn exploit of heroic impudence which has for generations been celebrated in many a gruff forecastle chorus to the refrain of the * Saucy Arethusa.' How Franklin's services on this occasion were appreciated by his commander the following extract from a letter, written by Sir Nathaniel Dance a year later, will show. Addressing Mr. William Ramsay, an official of the East India Company, he says : I beg leave to present to the notice of the Hon. Court, Mr. Franklin and Mr. Olive, midshipmen in His Majesty's Navy, who were cast away with Lieut. Fowler in the Porpoise, and who were, as well as that gentleman, passengers for England on board the Earl Camden. Whatever may have been the merits of others, theirs in their station were equally conspicuous, and I should find it difficult in the ship's compiiny to name any one who for zeal and alacrity of service and for general good conduct could advance a stronger claim to approbation and leward. On August 6 the Earl Camden arrived in the English Channel, and for the first time after a prolonged interval of enforced silence the young sailor was able to communicate with his family. His prolonged cruise had been full of trials and not free from disaster, but he dwells in his usual mood of cheery contentment on its compensating gains : — Although mishaps seem to attend every companion of the voyage — viz. a rotten ship, being wrecked, the worthy comma;, der oetanied, and the great expense of twice fitting out — yet do we cheer ourselves with a well-founded idea that we have gained some knowledge and experience, both professional and general, even while visiting the dreary and uncultivated regions of ^^ew Holland. 1804 THE 13ELLER0PH0N 96 e Dance and the English of war, ur^,' and hononr, )meward i with a dashing /ith that :e which Drecastlc »reciated , written dressing Dmpany, Durt, Mr. avy, who I were, as the Earl theirs in difficult acrity of ;er claim English erval of lunicate of trials 1 mood voyage etaiiicd, urselves igf) and ting the His father had in the meantime retired from business to the ••'^treat which he had provided for himself many years before, and thus the son overwhelms him with inquiries : — I have formed many and various conjectures concerning the Enderby House and enjoyments, and of the residences and situa- tion of my dear brothers and sisters, particularly of VVillingham, not having heard of or from him since i8ci, nor from Spilsby since June i8o2. Sensible of the pleasure the receipt of letters will afford, particularly from home, I trust some kind person will not fail answering this by return, and mention how every member of the family is — whether any of the Spilsby friends are dead, whether the old town looks gay, whether you have received Captain Palmer's account of the Porpoise's wreck, dated January lo, 1804, and how my old acquaintances in and about Spilsby are. Some of them have, I expect, paid the debt of Nature. A truly characteristic midshipman's account of information- arrears. On August 7, 1804, Franklin was discharged from the Earl Camden, and on the following day he was appointed to H.M.S. Bellerophon, Captain Loring, which now historic vessel, after a six weeks' leave spent with his family and friends, he joined on September 20. And, just as he had left home for the first time to fight in the great battle of Copenhagen, so now, at the end of his first short leave of absence, he quitted England to take part, after only a few months' longer interval, in the still more memorable struggle of Trafalgar. The winter of 1804 was spent in blockading the French fleet in the harbo'^r of Brest, a new experience for Franklin in naval operations. In April of the following year Captain Loring was succeeded in the command of the Bellerophon by Captain James Cooke, whom the midshipman, in that tone of kindly patronage which not infrequently marks the gun-room's criticism of the commanding officer, describes to his mother as seemi»^g ' very gentlemanly and active ; ' adding, ' I like his appearance much.' The weary blockade was still continuing, though spring was ripening into summer ; and Franklin, seizing an opportunity at Cawsand Bay for an ' epistolary conversa- m y i ■l 'i ii m m If' M 1 'J6 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT CH. I. tion with my relatives previous to our departure to resume this station,' goes on to say : — We have victualled and stored our ship for six months, for the purpose of being in perfect preparation to chase the Brest fleet, should any of them think of moving this summer. There are twelve sail of us which have fitted for foreign service ; but I believe for no better reason than the above. Some rumours have sent us out to the West Inoies, others off Cadiz, and some to the East Indie.= ; but certainly without foundation. Then his thoughts revertmg to his father's newly adopted country life, the young sailor continues in youth's diverting vein of didactic reflection : — I trust my father keeps his health and spirits. The farm at this season of the year must afford him much amusement. The green fields, the app: caching harvest, all tend to gladden the heart of the farmer, who measures, as it were, every ray of sun and drop of rain, and is able to tell that this does good and that harm. Later on in the letter he adds : — The Devonshire fields promise good crops. I hope Lincolnshire does likewise. Days begin to grow long and the shore very pleasant. I have been on shore once and enjoyed a long walk. To us Channel-gropers, believe me, a walk on shore, even in the detestable borders of the seaport, is charming. Cadiz proved, after all, to be the destination of the Bellerophon. She sailed in the summer for that port, and remained there for some time under Lord Collingwood's -rders, when she was detached with three other ships to r nvoy the transports and troops despatched i'rom England .»> Malta with secret orders, supposed, as Franklin says, to be ' for landing in Egypt should Bonaparte endeavour to march any force towards our Indian settlements.' Returning from this duty, the squadron was ordered to blockade the port and harbour of Carthagenc*, wherein lay six line-of- battle ships which by some accident had been prevented from joining the combined fleets of France and Spain, then in the West Indies, with Nelson hunting for them in vain. Events meanwhile were rapidly working up to the dramatic climax of Trafalgar. From the same letter, concluded three 1805 FRANKLIN AT IRAFALGAR 27 days later, Franklin reports the great Admiral's return to Cadiz after the final abandonment of his West Indian chase ; and a little later Collingwood's command was taken over from him by Nelson, and the British fleet, consisting of twenty- seven sail of the line and three frigates, was concentrated off the Spanish coast. Yet another month, and on the ever- memorable October 21 it closed with those of France and Spain in that tremendous conflict which was to shatter Napoleon's hopes of conquest and leave the British flag supreme on every sea. The Bellerophon, as all the world knows, was in the thick of the battle, and Franklin, again appointed to the post of signal midshipman, was in the hottest of the fire that swept her decks. The following account of one of the most dramatic incidents of the action was afterwards given by him to his brother-in-law, Mr. Booth : — Very early in the engagement the Bellerophon's masts became entangled with and caught fast iiold of a French line-of-battle ship [apparently L'Aigle]. Though the masts were pretty close together at the top, there was a space between them below, but not so great as to prevent the French sailors from trying to board the Bellerophon. In the attempt their hands received severe blows, as they laid hold of the side of the ship, from whatever the English sailors could lay their hands on. In this way hundreds of French- men fell between the ships and were drowned. While the Bellerophon was fastened to the enemy on one side, another French man-of-war was at liberty to turn round and fire first one broadside and then another into the English ship. In consequence 300 men were killed on board the Bellerophon. At last, after a very sharp contest, the French ship which was at liberty received such a severe handling that she veered about and sailed away ; but still a desultory yet destructive warfare was carried on between the two entangled ships, until out of forty-seven men upon the quarter-deck, of whom Franklin was one, all were either killed or wounded but seven. Towards the end of the action only a very few guns could be fired on either of the ships, the sailors were so disabled. But there remained a man in the foretop of the enemy's ship, wearing a cocked hat> who had during the engagement taken off with his rifle several of the officers and men. [It was a shot from one of these sharpshooters in the rigging of the Redoutable, it will be remembered, that struck Nelson down.] Franklin was standing close by, and speaking to a midship- man, his most esteemed friend, when the fellow above shot him and ^j i ': 'I . m t I! if 1 I 1 * i i ri ■} ■ { , 1 1 S ; ( ■ ,; t ' i^ i t 38 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT CH. I. he fell dead at his comrade's feet. Soon after, Franklin and a sergeant of Marines were carrying down a black seaman to have his wounds dressed, when a ball from the rifleman entered his breast und killed the poor fellow as they carried him along. Franklin said to the sergeant, ' He'll have you next ; ' but the sergeant swore he should not, and said that he would go below to a quarter of the ship from which he could command the French rifleman, and would never cease firing at him till he had killed him. As Franklin was going back on the deck, keeping his eye on the rifleman, he saw the fellow lift his rifle to his shoulder and aim at him ; but with an elasticity very common in his family he bounded behind a mast. Rapid as the movement was, the ball from the rifle entered the deck of the ship a few feet behind him. Meantime, so few guns were being dis- charged that he could hear the sergeant firing away with his musket from below, and, looking out from behind the mast, he saw the rifle- man, whose features he vowed he should never forget so long as he lived, fall over headforemost into the sea. Upon the sergeant coming up, he asked him how many times he fired : ' I killed him,' said the sergeant, ' at the seventh shot.' Franklin h'mself escaped without a wound. Throughout the greater part of the fight he had been stationed on the poop, and he was one out of only four or five in that quarter of the ship who emerged unscathed from the struggle. But even upon him it left its mark in an injury invisible indeed but not unfelt. ' After Trafalgar,' says one of his relatives, ' he was always a little deaf.' To the last day of his life he bore about with him this troublesome reminder of that furious cannonade. The Bellerophon returned to England in December of 1805, Franklin carrying with him a certificate from Lieutenant Cumby,wlio had succeeded to Captain Cooke's command when that gallant officer fell, to the effect that he had performed the duties of signal-midshipman ' with very conspicuous zeal and ability.' His stay in England, however, was destined to be only a short one. The Bellerophon remained at Plymouth no longer than was necessary to refit, and make good the injuries sustained in the action ; after which she put to sea again, and for the next eighteen months was employed in cruising between Finisterre and Ushant. Franklin's connection with the famous vessel was soon to come to an end. On .■/J I ' i ■ L i . i« :i .. 1807 DRAFTED TO THE BEDFORD 29 >!' October 27, 1 807, he begins a letter to one of his sisters with the remark that she will probably be surprised at the new address from which he writes. Two days before he had been drafted from the Bellerophon on to the Bedford, 'commanded by Captain Walker, a smart, active officer, and the ship, ' judge, will be a fine ship. Report says she is going foreign, but it must receive some authentication before I can believe it. Indeed, I hope she may.' His hopes were realised ; but the foreign service on which he was despatched turned out to be in disappointing contrast with the exciting experiences of the recent past. He could hardly expect, however, that these would be indefinitely prolonged. The pace, indeed, had been too good to last ; and there could not have been many midshipmen in His Majesty's service who had, even in those stirring times, come in for so large a share of adventure in so short a period as had fallen to the lot of John Franklin, It was but six years since he had entered the Navy, a lad of fifteen, and before completing his twenty-first year he had smelt powder in two of the greatest naval battles of our history, explored a continent, suffered shipwreck, and played his part in one of the most singular and, in its almost comical way, most brilliant exploits in the annals of our maritime warfare. Thus his courage and fighting quality had been splendidly tested ; he had had his training in seamanship on half the waters of the globe ; he had learnt energy and resource in the stern school of disaster ; and he had had admirable opportunities for studying navigation and the scientific branches of his profession in general under one of the most capable and painstaking of commanding officers. Fortune had favoured him with many advantages, but to have made the most of them was his own merit. His passionate love of his calling had never abated, and his ambition Lo perfect himself in all its duties had never flagged. There is no doubt that, thanks in part to his favouring stars, but still more to his own great gifts as a seaman, he had even at this early period of his career already qualified himself for a position of command. By the time he attained his majority he was 'fit to go anywhere and do anything.' But the good luck m m \ ■ t ^ I 80 EARLY YEARS AFLOAT OH. I. which had hitherto attended him was now about to bid him adieu for some time to come. Some years were to pass before he again escaped from the dull outine of duty into the field of warlike adventure, and yet a good many more years before he found his way to that special sphere of maritime enterprise in which his true vocation lay. . ,*■ l- - : } ■ IE 1807 81 -I >l \ CHAPTER II SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES 1807-181S In the concluding chapter of Sou they 's ' Life of Nelson ' the author of that classic biography, by way of illustrating the fame of his hero and the confidence reposed in him by his countrymen, ventu: ^t upon the daring hyperbole that 'the destruction of the French and Spanish fleets, and the total prostration of the maritime schemes of Napoleon, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength, lor, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.' Still, after all, ' stone dead hath no fellow,' and we can hardly doubt that the annihilation of the French fleet, saddened though our glorious victory was by the death of Nelson, was generally regarded by the English nation as preferable to any other arrangement The only class among them who might conceivably have preferred a less complete triumph were the officers of the British Navy. For the last quarter of a century, with few and brief intermissions, they had been as well supplied with opportunities for the practical study of their profession, both in seamanship and in fighting, as any sailors could desire. But Nelson had made such a ' clean job ' of it at Trafalgar as to CMt off the main source of these opportunities at a stroke. By ?'./eeping the enemies of Great Britain off" the face of the sea he left her defenders for many years to come without any efficient training school in naval warfare. It was Franklin's good fortune to have joined the British Navy in time to share its last five years of glorious activity ; had he entered it in 1806 instead of 1801, he would have If 1UI \ 89 SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES CH. II. I ' k i I' ■f 'I been condemned to commence, as he was now to continue, his career by undergoing as long or a longer spell of un- eventful and monotonous duty. The record of his service afloat from the end of 1807 to the beginning of 18 13 is in effect the history of a continuous patrol. The first mission of the Bedford after Franklin joined her as ma.ster's mate — a rank, however, from which he was promoted in a couple of months to that of acting lieutenant — was to convoy the fugitive royal family of Portugal, driven from Lisbon by the French invasion, to Rio Janeiro, and for no less than two years the vessel remained stationed in South American waters. She returned tv England in the summer of 18 10, but for only a very briei period, for the unlucky Walcheren expedition was on foot, and for the next two years she was employed in the not much more exciting duty of blockading Flushing and the entrance of the Texel. During this period, therefore, the external and public side of the young sailor's life claims but little of a biographer's attention, which may be devoted mainly to such details of his private history and domestic relations as serve to illus- trate his personal character. To the Franklin family circle the years which we are now approaching were far from being unmarked by important events. One at least of these events had all the memorable qualities of disaster. Early in the century the commercial affairs of the bank in which Thomas Franklin had embarked much of his own capital, and in which a good deal of his father's savings were also invested, took an unfortunate turn. Thomas became involved in business trans- actions with one Walker, whose honesty seems to have been open to something more than suspicion ; and the consequent pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself entangled led ultimately to the failure of the Spilsby Bank. The shock of this calamity brought the son to the grave in 1 807 at the early age of thirty-four, besides hastening the death of his mother a few years later ; and it communicated itself in a sufficiently perceotible fashion even to John himself overseas. During the twelve or thirteen years of embarrassment due to these misfortunes, Franklin received no money whatever from V 1808 OFF llIO JANEIRO 88 home. His scanty pay was all he had to subsist on, and his position in such circumstances must have been one of no little difficulty and discomfort. But the adversity of the family only served to bring into stronger relief the fine qualities of the youngest son. His letters of this period are full of cheerful courage, and testify throughout to a deep filial affection, which was further illustrated in the touching little incident, recorded by his brother-in-law, of his laboriously saving the sum of 5/. out of his midshipman's pittance and remitting it to his parents as his mite of relief to their embarrassed finances. Most tiresome, perhaps, of all the duties of this mono- tonous period were those of the squadron detailed to dance attendance upon the exiled Prince Regent of Portugal and his Court. They were as dull as the manciiuvres of a blockade, without any of its sustaining hopes of a possible engagement. In a letter to his sister from the Bedford, cruising off Rio Janeiro, in December 1808, one sees how eagerly he caught at any piece of political news from home which might seem to promise an earlier close of his dis- tasteful commission : — By a corvette from Lisbon despatched purposely to the Prince we learn that the capitulation entered into by General Dalrymple [the Convention of Cintra] is done away, and that a considerable number of the French army are prisoners. This, we hope, may excite the Prince to a desire of return, an event we all anticipate. There, again, I think I hear you say : ' Sailors are always dissatisfied : for instance, my brother and his companions, when living in one of the most luxuriant countries under heaven's canopy, where the least exertion in husbandry or agriculture is overpaid by superabundant return, and whose very bowels contain the richest mines of gold and silver.' This remark as to the characteristic of sailors may be true, yet I assure you in this case it is excusable in those obliged to remain among perhaps the most ungrateful inhabitants of the earth, for whom it is impossible to have the slightest esteem or respect, subject to their bigotry, and observers of their lethargy and indecision, with the greater considerations of a dear, expensive market, and unhealthy crowded towns. Still, there were occasional diversions, and one such adventure of Franklin's on the island of Madeira, whither he D Mm I II m m ^'^l * II I ^1 ,il I p * 84 SKllVICE IN TWO IIKMISIMIKKES CM. II. > iL ' . had been sent to reclaim two deserters from the Bedford •vho had beei' captured by the Portuguese authorities, is so well and graphically told by him in his despatch to his command- ing officer, Captain Mackenzie, that the amusing story had best be given in his own words : — In obedience to your directions (he writes) I herein state the conduct of Sergeant Joachim Francisco Uramio, who had possession of the two deserters from H.M.S. Bedford, whom you sent me to claim on the 25th August, 1809. After leaving the ship with the person who gave the information of these men being taken, I went to the captain of tiie regiment by whom the informer was despatched, and begged he would give orders that the men might be delivered to me. He sent a guide with the necessary instructions for the sergeant, whom [the guide] we took on the boat and proceeded to the spot. Immediately on entering the village we saw the deserters, appa- rently unguarded. One was assisting in thatching the sergeant's house, the other drunk. I inquired for the sergeant, but it was some time before I saw him, and then he was just rising from his bed, and drunk also. I desired my interpreter to say those men had deserted from the Bedford, that I was a lieutenant of the ship, and sent to claim them by my captain, having also got the necessary orders for their discharge from his captain. He arose, and very insolently told me I could not have them, that he had an order from his colonel to take them on board, as well as a letter from Captain Mackenzie, and that he meant to carry them the next day. Seeing the facility there was for their escaping in the night, I pointed out that I had full power to give any receipt he wished, and that, having come far from the ship, I did not wish to return without the men. He then grew more violent, and said : ' Your commander may command his ship but not the shore,' still persisting in not giving them up to me. Finding all remonstrance vain on my part, I begged the guide to repeat the orders he had received from his captain respecting the release of the two men, and at that repetition he waxed furious, and told him he did not care for the captain, that he ought not to have acquainted the English of the two men being in his possession, and that he would put both the captain and the guide to death. (Sergeant Joachim Francesco Uramao must evidently have been very drunk indeed.) After these expressions I thought it necessary to remind the sergeant that I should inform you of his conduct, and was assured of your forwarding the complaint to his superiors. He then cooled 1 i 5 I'll. II. ford 'vho s so well :)mmand- tory had state the possession cnt me to iforniation igirnent by ;ive orders e with the ve took on ters, appa- sergeant's was some s bed, and d deserted id sent to orders for lently told colonel to enzie, and ility there full power n the ship, ;rew more ip but not inding all repeat the ase of the d him he icquainted d that he tly have mind the issured of ;n cooled mm CAPTURE OK A DESERTEIl 86 m\ down, and promised to let the men go if I would permit him to accompany them. This being my original intention, I of course assented. He prepared himself, and ordered a canoe to follow him. i'hat, I suppose, was about three o'clock. He afterwards went to another part of the village and stayed a considerable time. Being far distant from the ''hip, and night coming on, I became impatient, and requested his c /mpanions would hasten him and point out the necessity of our going immediately. After two or three messages he returned, and positively refused either to let the men go or accom- pany them himself, using the strange language that ' the English did not command tliere, and that he did not care for his captain,' &c., which was expressed with such gestures as greatly to irritate my feel- ings as well as those of the men whom I had ordered up. I desired the interpreter to request that he would give me a decisive answer whether he meant to release the men to me or not, and also impress again on his mind that I was fully empowered to give a receipt, and at the same time to assure him of my firm determination to acquaint you with every circumstance. After this explanation he resigned the deserters up to me (by the advice of many of his neighbours), under the idea of accompanying them. On our passage over the hill he told me that I might take him to the Prince, but that he did not care for that. The Prince did not pay him, and he was under no obligation to serve him, with many other incoherent expressions, which I did not attend to. I took hir.: in the boat and left him with the captain, whom I called on to acknowledge the receipt of the men. I beg leave to mention that this happened in the presence of Mr. St. Quintin, and of some men whom I took over the hill to guard the prisoners back, and they can testify to the prisoners' violent conduct. Asa specimen of quiet tenacity combined with judgment, temper, and self-command, the successful taming of this intoxicated Portuguese sergeant must be admitted to be a pretty creditable performance for a young naval officer of two-and-twenty. The records, however, of these tedious years of patrol- work abound in evidences of Franklin's impatience with the life of inaction to which he was condemned. With the despatch of the Bedford on the Walcheren expedition he was visited by a delusive gleam of hope ; and his letters from the Texel throughout the twenty-four months of the blockade bear amusing witness to his eagerness to come to blows. Surely, surely the enemy must be ' spoiling for D 2 K \ •it, f 'fi ' Mi 1,' I 1 1 * t ! 1 ' j 'li in V • ,.li,l ' IW 8ERVICK IX TWO HKMISPIIKUKS CIC. II. a fight ' as much as himself. ' Our fleet consists of tiftccii of the line but two are kept off the mouth of the Tcxel, and two are always in the Downs ; the enemy have seventeen in readiness and two more about to join. It is generally supposed they will push for Brest. Surely such a force will not be kept stationary and useless in the Scheldt' No, they would come out and give their enemy a chance at them. But then again occurs the dcpressin;^ thought that there is yet a third pc^sibility. They might come out only to give the blockaders the slip and sneak away. ' I fear they will wait for longer nights, and, by taking advantage ' — a mean advantage Franklin evidently thinks it — 'of a stiff breeze., run along shore and give us a run- ning chase, and perhaps avoid a general action. However, let us hope for the best and wait with patience.' This virtue, as we all know, was not rev/arded. The inactivity of the French naval r amanders «u sea was as masterly as that displayed, according to the famous epigram, by Lord Chatham and Sir Michard Strahan on land ; and long before his two years of blockading duty had expired Franklin had probably given up all hopes of coming to close quarters with the enemy's fleet. In i8i2 we find him drawing up memorials of his services for transmission to the Admiralty, and endeavouring to procure his exchange into another ship, the frigate Nymphe, with the desire, as he puts it, of ' seeing the varieties of the service.' His efforts, however, were in vain ; he was fated to remain in the Bedford until the re- turn of that vessel to England. With the commencement of 1813, however, a welcome change occurred. The war with America had broken out, and orders were received for the Bedford to convoy a fleet of merchant vessels to the West Indies. This duty dis- charged, she was given another nine months' spell of | blockading duty off" the Texel and Scheveningen ; but in September of 18 14 she was again sent with a convoy to | the West Indies, whence she was ordered to New Orleans to assist in the operations about to be undertaken against the | Americans. The attack on New Orleans had been decided cir. Ti. )f fifteen e Tcxel, Tiy have join. It Surely :ss in the enemy a cpressin^f ey might nd sneak 3y takinfi y thinks s a run- However, cd. The a was as epigram, ind ; and expired T to close drawing dmiralty, ther ship, )f ' seeing were in il the re- welcomc Dken out, oy a fleet duty dis- spell of ; but in :onvoy to 1 Orleans ^ainst the n decided 1814 UKFOUE NMW OHi.KANH 87 on, and Franklin, doubtless to his great delight, was one of the party sent out to execute the preliminary operation of clearing Lake Borgne of the American gunboats which had assembled there in force for the protection of the port. The operations of our military forces befoie New Orleans are not among the most brilliantly succe^ lul ex- ploits of the British arms ; but the part played th rein by the naval contingent can be recalled perhaps with ess dis- satisfaction than any others of their incidents. This is especially true of the attack delivered upon the gjnboats at Lake Borgne, which, whatever may be thought of It from the strategical point of view, was certainly executed with a dash and determination highly creditable to the arm to which it was entrusted. But a word or two should first be said on the strategical position of New Orleans itself, a port and town in which, for reasons best known to our commanders, we gave ourselves about as hard a nut to crack as could have been picked up anywhere along the whole eastern seaboard of North America. The first of the causes which contributed to its safety from attack was the shallowness of the river at its mouth and the cxt-cme rapidity of its current. After flowing on in a vast sheet of water varying in depth from one hundred to thirty fathoms, the Mississippi divides, before entering the Gulf of Mexico, into four or five mouths, the most considerable of which is, or was in those days, obstructed by a sandbank continually liable to shift. Over this bank no vessel drawing more than seventeen feet of water could pass ; once across, there was no longer any difficulty in floating, but it was dangerous to anchor on account of the huge logs which were constantly carried down the stream, some on its surface, others sunken, and borne along by the undercurrent within a few feet of the bottom. In addition to these formidable natural obstacles to invasion, the mouth of the river was defended by a fort which, from its position, might well have been deemed impregnable. It was built upon an artificial causeway, and surrounded on all sides by impassable swamps extending on either bank of the river •^'n f 38 SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES CH. ir. >i I i ^> "I ;iS ll 'I to a place called the Detour dcs Anglais some twenty miles from the city. Here two other forts were erected, one on each bank, and, like that at the river's mouth, encircled by a marsh traversable for the garrison only by a single narrow path from the firm ground beyond. If, therefore, an enemy should contrive to pass both the bar and the first fort, he woul 1 inevitably be stopped here ; to land being impossible because of the nature of the ground, and further ascent of the river being prevented by its here making so sharp a curve that vessels were in those days com} ell'^d to await a change of wind before they could r"ake ai y further way. Moreover, from Detour des Anglais onwa d to the city the ground, though broken here and there to 5ome extent by arable land, was still swampy, and, even where there was foothold, con- taining no broken ground or any other cover for military movements. To attack New Orleans, then, from the river was out of the question, and the only mode of approaching it was by way of the lake, or rather gulf, for it was a salt-water inlet, which deeply indented the shore to the east of the Mississippi mouths. Even this mode of assault, however, had its diffi- culties. The shores of the lake were themselves so swampy as hardly to supply footing for infantry, far less for the dis- embarkation and transport of artillery. To effect a landing it would be necessary for an attacking force to avail itself of the creeks or bayous which run up from the lake towards the city, but of these there were not more than one or two that could be so used. The Bayou of St. John was one, but was too well defended ; another, the Bayou Calatan, was afterwards actually employed for the purpose. The idea of the British commander was to effect a landing somewhere on the bank of the lake after a rapid and, it was hoped, an un- perceived transit of its waters, and thence to push on and seize the town before any effectual preparation could be made for its defence. With this view the troops were transferred from the larger into the lighter vessels, and these, under convoy of such gun-brigs as the shallow water would float, began on December 13, 18 14, to enter Lake Borgne. They had not \\:- '% } {/■ 1 •^ # 18U ATTACK ON THE ULNBOAT.S 80 proceeded far, however, before it became apparent that the Americans were aware of their intentions and were fully- prepared to meet the attack. Five large cutters, armed with six heavy guns each, were seen at anchor in the distance, and, as all endeavours to land till these were captured or driven away would have been useless, the transports and the largest of the gun-brigs cast anchor, while the smaller craft gave chase to the enemy. The American cutters, however, were specially built for operations on the lake, and quickly * got the heels ' of their pursuers, whose draught of water rendered effective pur- suit impossible. Yet to leave these pests to hover round the Ikitish force in a position to cut off any boats which attempted to cross the lake would have been fatal. It was, therefore, determined to capture them at all costs, and, since our lightest craft could not float where they sailed, a flotilla of launches and ships' barges was got ready for the purpose. It consisted of fifty open boats manned with a force of one thousand officers and men, and most of them armed with carronades. The command of this force was given to Cap- tain Nicholas Lockyer, and Lieutenant Franklin probably led a division or subdivision of the attack. About noon of December 13, writes a chronicler of the campaign, the late venerable Chaplain-General of the Forces and well-known author of ' The Subaltern,' the Rf'v. G. R. Gleig, who was himself attached to the British expeditionary force before New Orleans, and therefore describes the scene with almost the authority of an eye-witness. Captain Lockver came in sight of the enemy moored fore and aft, with their broadsides pointing towards him. Having pulled a considerable distance, he resolved to refresh his men before hurrying them into action ; and, therefore, letting fall grapplings just beyond reach of the enemy's guns, the crews of the different boats coolly ate their dinners. As soon as that meal was finished and an hour spent in resting, the boats again got ready to ad- vance. But unfortunately a light breeze which had hitherto favoured tliem now ceased to blow, and they were accordingly compelled to make way only with the oars. The tide also ran strong against them, at once increasing their labour and retarding their progress ; but all these difficulties appeared trifling to British sailors, and. I I- . I ; ■ u ■I li If V '! -^ I .'1 !t ' 40 SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES cir. II. ► 'K giving a hearty cheer, they moved steadily onward in one extended line. It was not long before the enemy's guns opened upon them, and a tremendous shower of balls saluted their approach. Some boats were sunk, others disabled, and many men were killed and wounded ; but the rest, pulling with all their might, and occasionally returning the discharges from their carronades, succeeded after an hour's labour in closing with the Americans. The Marines now began a deadly discharge of musketry ; while the seamen, sword in hand, sprang up the vessels' sides in spite of all opposition, and, sabreing every man that stood in the way, hauled down the American ensign and hoisted the British flag in its place. One cutter, however, which bore the commodore's broad pennant, was not so easily subdued. Having noted its pre-eminence, Captain Lockyer directed his own boat against it, and, happening to have placed himself in one of the lightest and fastest sailing barges in the flotilla, he found himself alongside of the enemy before any of the others were near enough to render him the slightest support. But, nothing dismayed by odds so fearful, the gallant crew of this small bark, following their leader, instantly leaped on board the American. A desperate conflict now ensued, in which Captain Lockyer received several severe wounds ; but after fighting from the bow to the stern, the enemy was at length overpowered, and, other barges coming up to the assistance of their commander, the commodore's flag shared the same fate with the others. In this warm little affair Franklin vas himself wounded ; and, indeed, though the victory was complete and gave the British forces undisputed command of the lake throughout the rest of the campaign, it had to be pretty heavily paid for. Three midshipmen and fourteen men were killed, while the captain, three other lieutenants besides Franklin, three master's mates, one lieutenant of Marines, seven midshipmen (two mortally), and sixty-one men were wounded. The American loss was slight by compari.son. For his share in this action Franklin received a medal and was honourably mentioned in despatches. Would that the later operations of this disastrous campaign had been more worthy of its brilliant beginning, and that its military chiefs had performed their part with as much skill and success, instead of only with as much bravery, as their naval supporters ' The expedition against the cutters had cir. II. ne extended n them, and Some boats d wounded ; lly returning lour's labour ;an a deadly i, sprang up every man and hoisted ad pennant, ice. Captain ing to have arges in the : any of the 'port. But, !" this small ; American, ^er received ) the stern, 3mingup to shared the *voundec! ; gave the iroughout vily paid led, while lin, three Jshipmen d. The share in nourably :ampaign i that its luch skill as Lheir ters had 1814 LANDING THE TROOPS 41 carried our boats many leagues up Lake Borgne. Another day passed before the crews could get back to their ships, and it was not till the 15th that the fleet again weighed anchor and stood up the lake. It was soon found, however, that not even by the lake route was it possible to carry the troops up to a point at which a landing could be with any advantage effected. Ship after ship ran aground ; those which still floated became more and more overloaded with the men transferred to them, till at last even vessels of the lightest draught stuck fast, and boats of necessity had to be lowered to carry the troops a distance of more than thirty miles. The distresses of such a method of transport were greatly enhanced by an unlucky change of the weather, heavy rains having set in, and finally, after an exposure of ten hours in their new and confined transports, each division was landed at a small uninhabited island in the lake, where it was determined to collect the whole force preliminary to its debarkation on the main land. Pine Island, as it was called, apparently from its growing a few stunted firs near the water's edge, consisted principally of swamp, with a com- paratively small piece of firm land at one end, on which the troops were collected. With the exception of alligators, which abounded in its pools and creeks, it contained no living creatures but water-fowl, too shy to be shot. It did not even yield fuel sufficient to supply its wretched tenants with fires. In these miserable quarters the British army was as- sembled without tents, huts, or any sort of shelter from the inclemency of the weather, which, though rainy in the day- time, became sharply frosty after sunset, so that the saturated uniforms of the soldiers were frozen hard at night, an ex- perience naturally fatal to the negroes attached to the service of the expedition, who perished in considerable numbers in their sleep. The only food which could be supplied to the force in the gameless condition of the island was salt meat and ship biscuit moistened with a little rum. For Franklin and his comrades these hai dships were in one sense aggravated, if in another sense perhaps relieved, by the severest physical toil. Night and day boats were pulling from the fleet to the U ! f u ii I J MM: I ft } ii m t ' i i' 4!i SERVICE IX T^^•0 HEMISPHERES CH. It. ^ ^1 island and from the island to the fleet. It was not till the 2 1 St that the last of the troops were got on shore, and, as there was little time to inquire into ' turns ' of labour, many seamen were four or five days continually at the oar. On the 22nd General Keane, the commander of the ex- pedition, reviewed his forces, and formed an advance guard of 1,600 men to start on the morrow for the mainland. Their destination was Bayou Calatan, the creek already spoken of, which lay at no less a distance than eighty miles from Pine Island. Nothing, indeed, is more surprising or, though it compels admiration, more calculated to suggest Marshal Canrobert's historic utterance than the vastness of the space which, with no base to speak of and haidly any transport worthy of the name, our forces had to cover in this remarkable expedition before they could even get within striking distance of the enemy. One cannot but suspect that, however ' magnificent ' were these operations considered as feats of human resource and endurance, they could not possibly be ' war.' As in the later case, however, which called forth the French general's criticism, the British soldier and sailor never ' reasoned why.' There were not boats enough to transport more than one-third of the army at a time, so that the advance guard had to take its chance of being attacked in detail and cut off before its supports could arrive. Chancing this, however, as they were bound to do, the force started off on the 23rd under a sky of lowering clouds, soon to descend in torrents of rain, and to be followed by the usual frost at r'ght ; and, after a voyage of some twenty-four hours, pursued under the exhausting and depressing conditions to which they had become habituated, they reached the mouth of Bayou Calatan, where they surprised and easily captured the small and unsuspicious picket posted there, and by nine o'clock on the morning of the 24th they at last set foot on the main- land of America. Bayou Calatan emerges from the lake about ten miles below New Orleans ; and, as the nature of the ground on which the advance guard had landed afforded good cover, they naturally proposed to lie concealed until they could be 1 ^ L • ''* ^. 1814 A UE.\TII-TRAP 48 joined by the remainder of the force. Encouraged, however, by the reports of deserters who came in, assuring them that there were not more than five thousand men under arms throughout the State, among whom not more than twelve hundred were regular soldiers, and that the whole force was at present several miles on the opposite side of the town, expecting an attack on that quarter and apprehending no danger on this. General Keane resolved to push on into the open. His forces accordingly made a march of several miles in the direction of New Orleans, hit off the main road leading to the city, and finally halted on the neck of land on which it is built, and which at chat point was not more than a mile broad, having a marsh on the right hand and the Mississippi on the left, with the New Orleans road running parallel, and a lofty dyke between river and highway. Into a more complete death-trap this unlucky advance guard could hardly have been led. About seven o'clock in the evening a large schooner stole up the river and opened a deadly fire of grape upon them from eighteen guns. There is a grim mixture of the comic and the tragic in Gleig's account of what followed : Against this dreadful fire we had nothing whatever to oppose. The artillery which we had landed was too light to bring into com- petition with an adversary so powerful ; and, as she had anchored within a short distance of the opposite bank, no musketry could reach her with any precision or effect. A few rockets were discharged, which made a beautiful appearance in the air ; but the rocket is an uncertain weapon, and these deviated too far from their object to produce even terror among those against whom they were directed. Under these circumstances, as nothing could be done aggressively, our sole object was to shelter the men as much as possible from the iron hail. With this view they were commanded to leave the camp- fires and to hasten under the dyke. Thither all accordingly re- paired without much regard to order and regularity, and, laying our- selves along wherever we could find room, we listened in painful silence to the pattering of grape-shot among our huts, and to the shrieks and groans of those who lay wounded beside them. ■ ft '! n li ' !S 'J^> iii I 1i I Worse still, the attack of the schooner, as they were soon to discover, was only one part of the enemy's concerted plan. After lying for almost an hour in this condition, a i 't i; i,a f !l **i 1 ' 1 I i • i 44 SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES CH. II. straggling fire from their piquets attracted their attention, and, while each man was speculating as to what these new sounds might portend, they were ' succeeded by a fearful yell and the heavens were illuminated on all sides by a semi- circular blaze of musketry,' It was now clear that we were surrounded, and that by a very superior force ; and, therefore, no alternative remained but either to surrender at discretion or to beat back the assailants. The first of these plans was never for an instant thought of, and the second was immediately put into force. Rushing from under the bank, the 85th and 95th flew to support the piquets ; while the 4th, stealing to the rear of the encampment, formed close column and remained as a reserve. But to describe this action is altogether out of the question, for it was such a battle as the annals of modern warfare can hardly match. All order, all discipline, was lost. Each officer, as he was able to collect twenty or thirty men round him, advanced into the middle of the enemy, when it was fought hand to hand, bayonet to bayonet, and sword to sword, with the tumult and ferocity of one of Homer's combats. Unfortunately, there was no Olympian god to interfere in their behalf They had to hold their ground by sheer desperate fighting, and they succeeded in doing so. The Americans ulti- mately drew off, leaving them in pos.session of the field. ' Our loss, however, was enormous. Not less than 500 men (nearly a third of the force) had fallen, many of whom were our finest soldiers and best officers, and yet we could not but consider ourselves fortunate in escaping from the toils even at the expense of so g. ' ^ sacrifice.' That the toils which it required so great a sacrifice to escape from need never have been entered at all is, of course, but too unhappily evident. On the arrival of General Keane's supports on the following day with artillery of sufficient strength, the obnoxious schooner was attacked and blown up, the river cleared of the enemy, and the position generally made good ; all which, but for the precipitate forward march of the advanced guard, would certainly have been accomplished at a far smaller loss than that of 500 men. With the arrival of the main body came a new com- mander, General Sir Edward Pakenham, of Peninsular fame, i 1,1 1814 A ROMAN WORK 46 just despatched from England to succeed General Ross, who had fallen at Baltimore, and under his command the army advanced in two columns to within six miles of New Orleans, where again preparations for defence had been made. The American army, under General Jackson, an officer destined both to military and to political celebrity in the later history of his country, was posted behind an entrenchment, having the left bank of the Mississippi for its right extremity and stretching to a dense and impassable forest on the left. The line was strengthened by a ditch about four feet deep which ran along its front, and was defended by flank bastions, which enfiladed its whole extent, and on which a formidable array of heavy ordnance was placed. On the right bank of the Mississippi, which is there nearly half a mile broad, a battery of twenty guns had been constructed. This formidable line of entrenchments being evidently much too strong to be carried by a coup de main, several attempts were made to approach it in strict scientific fashion. But it was soon found that the enemy's guns were so superior in weight and numbers that nothing was to be expected from this species of attack. The position on the right bank of the Mississippi was evidently the point on which to direct their efforts, but how to approach it "i There was only one way of doing so — a most ambitious and laborious method ; but those blundering heroes shrank from nothing. Again the services of the naval arm, to which they already owed so much, were called in, and the task committed to them was no less a one than that of cutting through the entire neck of land from the Bayou Calatan to the river, and constructing a canal of sufficient width and depth to admit of boats being brought up from the lake in order to convey an attacking force across the Mississippi. This Roman work was executed with a spirit worthy of the legions of Caesar. The men were divided inio four companies, and toiled night and day at their appointed task. It was not till after a sharp but indecisive engagement with the enemy on January i that the order was given, and by the 6th the work was completed. A general attack on the American position was then planned • J I' TS'l I ?'*, -k^ i '!? rT' 46 SERVICE IN TWO HEMISPHERES CH. ir. r •i. for five o'clock on thn morning of the 8th. Colonel Thornton, with a force of 1,400 men, was to cross the Mississippi during the previous night, capture the right bank battery, and turn its guns against the enemy on the other side of the river. In this foiiorn hope — for the singularly imperfect dispositions of the adventure almost entitle it to that name — the young lieutenant of the Bedford bore a gallant part. On the night of the 7th, Colonel Thornton, with a force of 1,400 men, moved stealthily down to the bank of the river ; but there were no boats awaiting him. Hour after hour passed before they came, and only a portion of them arrived at last. The soft banks of the canal had given way, choking up the channel and impassably obstructing the passage of the heavier boats. Instead of a flotilla for 1,400 men, the Colonel found himself provided with transport for only 350. But what did that matter? Three hundred and fifty men are not fourteen hundred, but they are three hundred and fifty. The Colonel had undertaken to cross the river and carry the enemy's position on the opposite side, and it was absolutely necessary that this part of the plan should be carried into execution. Accordingly, dismissing 1,050 of his force, the Colonel put himself at the head of 250 men of his own regiment (the 85th), a division of fifty sailors, of whom Franklin was one, under Captain Rowland Money, and as many Marines, and crossed the river. Instead of reaching it, however, at midnight, dawn was already breaking when, as they set foot on the landing-place, a rocket soared into the air from the opposite bank and added wings to their speed. Pakenham had already begun the attack. He had either not received intelligence of Thornton's enforced delay or had disregarded it. With an impatience which proved fatal to the enterprise, he had determined to advance without awaiting the concert of his comrade on the other shore. Scaling-ladders and fascines, however, are no less desirable appliances in an attack on parapeted works than boats for the transit of rivers ; and Pakenham was without the one, as Thornton had been without the other. The troops actually had to be halted under the enemy's guns while the .-.A-'^ *!». 1814 BLUNDERING BRAVERY 47 scaling-ladders were sent for ; but the fire was soon so terrible that the head of the column, riddled through and through, fell back in disorder. The remainder of this shocking — and splendid — story may be told in the words of Alison : — Pakenham, whose buoyant courage ever led him to the scene of danger, thinking they were now fairly in for it, and must go on, rode to the front, rallied the troops again, led them to the slope of the glacis, and was in the act, with his hat off, of cheering on his fol- lowers, when he fell mortally wounded, pierced at the same moment by two balls General Gibbs also was soon struck down. Keane, who led on the reserve, headed by the 93rd, shared the same fate ; but that noble regiment, composed entirely of Sutherland High- landers, a thousand strong, instead of being daunted by the carnage, rushed with frantic valour through the throng, and with such fury pressed the leading files on that, without either fascines o: ladders, they fairly found their way by mounting upon each other's shoulders into the works. So close and deadly, hov/ever, was the fire of the riflemen when they got in, that the successful assailants were cut off to a man. At last. General Lambert, to whom the death of Pakenham and the disablement of Gibbs and Keane had transferred the command, finding that it was impossible to carry the work and that the slaughter was tremendous, drew off the remnant of his shattered troops. Meanwhile, the attack on the right bank battery had been brilliantly successful. The enemy on that side outnumbered Thornton's force by three to one and was strongly entrenched. The assailants had not a Fi.igle piece of artillery nor any means but such as Nature provided of scaling the rampart ; but they prepared without a moment's hesitation for an assault. The 85th extended its files across the entire line of the enemy, the Marines formed in rear of the centre as a reserve and at the sound of the bugle Money's little band of sailors . hed forward with a shout upon the guns. For an instant they wavered under the heavy discharge of grape and canister which met them, but, recovering themselves, they pushed on, and, the 8sth dashing forward to their aid, the whole force swept into and over the works like a wave. The !'H 1(1 V*. ! IT r, \ 48 SKIIVICE IX TWO IIEMISPIIRRKS cir. ir. ». I; Americans biokc and fled, leaving the British in possession of their tents and of their eighteen pieces of artillery. Just at the moment, however, when they were about to turn these guns against the enemy, news reached them of the repulse of Pakenham's attack, and with it the disappointing order to abandon a captured position which Lambert's forces were not strong enough to hold. Deeply dispirited, we may imagine, by these evil tidings, the winners of this barren victor\- rejoined their defeated comrades on the opposite bank of the river. The whole force retreated on the night of the i8tli, and in another ten days they were re-embarked. Franklin's .share in this sharp engagement, in which his commander, Captain Money, was desperately wounded, though he himself escaped without a scratch, was an important ad- dition to the young ofificer's list of services, and he was in consequence of it recommended officially and very warmlj', though in the result, as will be seen, ineffectually, for pro- motion. The Bedford, which does not .seem to have taken part in the subsequent and more successful operations against Fort Boyer, near Mobile, in February 1815, set sail for home in March of that year, and reached Spithead on May 30. She was paid off on July 5 following, and, though Franklin had served on board of her uninterruptedly for five years, he was reappointed to another ship two days afterwards. He joined the Forth as first lieutenant, under Captain Sir William Bolton, ^nd remained until she al.so was paid off in the following September ; the only incident worth recording of this short period of service being the employment of the vessel to convey the Duchesse d' Angoulemc to France on her return to her native country at the Restoration. / li:' i lit •1 ii Ifit'i OK. ir. .session of Just at urn these repulse of ', order to 5 were not / imagine, n victory nk of the the iStli, ivhich his d, though rtant ad- e was in '^ warmly, , for pro- Lve taken IS against for home 30. She iklin had s, he was le joined William f in the )rding of t of the ;e on her i 1815 49 CHAPTER III THE DOROTHEA AND THE TRENT 1815-1818 It is noteworthy, as showing the natural bent of the born explorer, that during these years of inaction it was upon mari- time discovery rather than naval warfare that Franklin's mind was fixed. It was not to Copenhagen and Trafalgar, but to the shores of Australia and the waters of the Southern Ocean, that his thoughts reverted. His heart was evidently with the crazy old Investigator, mouldering ingloriously as a store- house hulk at Port Jackson, rather than with the Polyphemus and the Bellerophon, ' twin thunderbolts of war ' though they were. He Icnged for fresh employment in the work of ex- ploration ; yet, while all his inquiring and adventurous in- stincts urged him in this direction, his legitimate professional ambitions acted to some extent as an opposing influence. The difficulty of his position is strikingly brought out in an interesting letter, written in August 18 14, in which one sees his shrewd common-sense almost amusingly at odds with his enthusiasm. He had previously written to Mr. Robert Brown, who had sailed with him as naturalist in the Investii^ator, deploring the fact that Captain Flinders's narrative of his voyage had not reached the public till the very day of its author's death, and reflecting in a somewhat depressed tone on the unlikelihood of any official recognition being given to the services of the younger officers under Flinders's command. Mr. Brown had remarked in his reply on the possibility, and even probability, that another voyage of discovery would soon be thought of, and had intimated that he might have an opportunity of suggesting the employ- ment of his correspondent thereon, ' provided I were certain E nr m Tin-: DOUOTIIEA AND THE TUKXT CH. III. I ( i'l! iftpir that you would have no objection, or rather that you wouUI prefer, to embark again in this line of the service.' To this Franklin answers : — I am extremely obliged also for ycyur communication that it is possible another voyage may he thought of, and particularly grateful for the kindness you have evinced by retjuesting my views on the subject of being employed therein. I have no hesitation in assuring you they are decidedly in favour of that service ; but I should hope, were an offer ever made to me, it would be accompanied by pro- motion. To embark on an expedition of that nature without some grounds for sanguine expectation, when an absence of five or six y , -s may be calculated upon, and a total separation from any chance of improving your interest, is a most serious consideration ; and per- haps on return, with a constitution much shattered, you may find the patrons and friends of the voyage either removed or unable to pro- cure you the appointment you have anxiously sought. These, my dear sir, are objections, you will readily admit, I think, which ought to have some weight, and even might be used (without the impu- tation of being inclined to cavil) as an argument why they should give me promotion previous to starting. In the end, however, disinterested enthusiasm wins. I will, however, confess these disadvantages would not discourage me, so interested do I feel in that service ; and could I suppose it probable that a responsible office in such a voyage would be offered me, I should think it my duty to devote my greatest attention to those studies which would fit me for the better performance of it. Again, it was but a few weeks since he had forwarded to the Admiralty a statement of his services and testimonials from his various commanding officers in support of an ap- plication for promotion, and he feared to appear importunate by applying again so soon. By December 1814 he had added to these services and strengthened their resulting claim by his share in the brilliant dash at the gunboats of New Orleans and in the subsequent attack on the forts. But in the next year, unfortunately for all young ambitions in either service, came the Peace of Vienna ; and then to Franklin's renewed application for promotion came the curt official answer from Lord Melville that, ' having read the petition of Lieutenant John Franklin/ he was sorry he could not hold out any expectation of his advancement 1818 ARCTIC KX.l'LOUATlON fi] at an early period. ' As the Navy,' added the First Lord, * is now placed on a peace establishment, all promotion must in consequence cease, excepting in the few cases that may occur on the foreign stations.' Neither promotion nor renewal of active service seemed in prospect, and there was no;hin;^ for the young officer but to submit as patiently as might be to that which his restless spirit always found it hardest to bear — inaction. The next three years were spent principally with members of his family in Lincolnshire and elsewhere ; and though, no doubt, he was continually on the look-out for any signs of change in the official horizon, there is no trace among the corre- spondence of these years of any renewed application to the Admiralty. The opportunity which at last came to him, and by which his future career was practically determined, came, as far as can be ascertained, unsought. It is not very easy to discover why at this particular moment the spirit of Arctic exploration should suddenly have taken possession of the Ministerial mind. The then Secretary of the Admiralty, Sir John iJarrow, was, it is true, an ardent creographer, and specially interested in the subject of Polar research. He had carefully collected all the reports bearing on its conditions and possibilities, as affected mainly by the state and situation of the ice in high northern latitudes ; nd with this information as a basis he drew up an elaborate scheme for the exploration of the Arctic regions. This, warmly supported by the President and Council of the Royal Society, was subm.itted to the Lords of the Admiralty, by whom it was also approved. But many a Secretary might have piped to a Government as inspiritingly without inducing that Governnient to dance. The three years of inaction may have begun to bore even Whitehall itself ; or the favour with which Sir John Barrow's idea was received by the public may have insensibly influenced the official mind ; or some other unknown or now forgotten impulse may have been in opera- tion. This only is certain, that an interest in Arctic discovery, which had slept for nearly half a century in Ministerial bosoms, suddenly awakened. It was five-and-forty years ! ; H - E 2 4 :( ; 62 THE DOROTHEA AND THE TRENT CH. in. *♦. ■W 1 ( < ■ i \ t 1 .* since the Racehorse, under Captain Phipps, and the Carcass, under Commander Lutwidge, bearing the young Horatio Nelson and his fortunes, set sail from Sheerness with orders o proceed to the North Pole, or as close to it as ice and ' '■her obstructions would permit, and reached a latitude of ,o° 48', returning three months later in the same year, 1773. And now, in 1818, a British Government had again made up its mind to another attack on the same problem, and had even indeed resolved to combine it with another project. The Ad- miralty now contemplated the despatch of two expeditions — one with the object of endeavouring to discover a passage round the northern and north-western coasts of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; the other for the purpose of attempt- ing to reach the North Pole. What is more, they proceeded to give what to the English mind has always seemed the best, perhaps the only, proof that a man or a Government means business. Where the private citizen ' backs his opinion ' with a bet, the State is expected to support the undertaking which it patronises by the offer of a reward. So many, moreover, of our national enterprises leave their mark in some form or other on the Statute Book, that the history of this revival of English interest in Arctic exploration would not have been complete unless it had included an Act of Parliament in its records. The recitals of this enactment bear ample witness to the fact that the impulse which gave birth to it was no new one in our history. Among the refer- ences to past legislation which are to be found in 58 George III. c. 20, 'An Act for more effectually discovering the longitude at sea and encouraging attempts to find a Northern Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and to approach the Northern Pole,' is one from which it will be seen, to the surprise perhaps of most people, that the last- mentioned project had engaged the attention of the Imperial Legislature more than seventy years before. As far back as 1745 an Act had been passed offering a reward of 20,000/. to the owner or owners of any ship or vessel which should first find out and navigate a 'North- West Passage through Hudson's Straights to the Western and Southern Oceans of Us',- J ■^ 1818 ADMIRALTY INSTRUCTIONS 53 America ; ' and thirty-one years later ' a sum of 5,000/. was offered to any person who should approach by sea within one degree of the Northern Pole.' This last provision was extended in the Act of 18 18 by a clause providing that ' for the encouragement of oersons who may attempt the said passage or approach the Northern Pole, but not wholly accomplish the same,' it should be competent for certain commissioners appointed under the Act to propose, by memorial to the King in Council, ' to direct and establish proportionate rewards to be paid to such person as aforesaid who shall first accomplish certain proportions of the said Passage or Approach.' In pursuance of this, a scale of reward was subsequently fixed by 0'"dei in Council according to which any vessel that first succeeded in reaching the 83rd parallel of latitude would be entitled to a reward of i ,000/. ; double that sum would be granted for crossing the 85th parallel ; 3,000/. to any vessel that should reach 87° N. ; 4,000/ for attaining the 88th parallel, and 5,000/ for the Pole. It was apparently regarded in ofificial as well as unofificial circles as not at all improbable that the largest of these rewards would be actually earned. Indeed, one cannot resist a slight feeling of amusement at noting, after a lapse of nearly eighty years, the tone of easy familiarity with which the Admiralty of that period spoke of the North Pole — a tone which almost recalls ti,e well-known pleasantry about a certain famous critic's attitude towards the Equator. ' Should you reach the Pole, your future course must mainly depend,' &c. ' If . . . the weather should prove favourable, you are to remain in the vicinity of the Pole for a few days, in order to the more accu- rately making the observations which it is to be expected your interesting and unexampled situation may furnish you with.' Interesting and unexampled indeed ! ' On leaving the Pole you will endeavour,' &c. ' Should you, either by passing over or near the Pole or by any lateral direction, make your way to Fehring Straits, you are,' &c. Such are the constantly recurring phrases of the instructions issued by the Admiralty, and probably framed by Sir John Barrow himself, for the conduct of this expedition ; and their confident aui, , I i 54 THE DOROTHEA AM) THE TRENT CU. III. handling of their obscure subject is to be attributed not only to the imperfect acquaintance even of the best geographers of that day with the terraqueous conditions of the Polar regions, but also no doubt to the glorious belief then prevalent, a sur- vival from the great war, that there was no exploit under heaven which the British Navy and its sailors could not perform, in all probability at the first attempt. The Admiralty, it must be admitted, set about the work in a spirit of thoroughness. Though their Lordships spoke familiarly of the object of their attack, they did not actually expect that they could, so to speak, stroll into the Arctic citadel at any point they might choose to select. They deemed it advisable, as we have seen, to organise two distinct plans of assault and to approach the stronghold from two different sides. Four vessels were accordingly prepared for the service, two of which, the Isabella and the Alexander, under the command respectively of Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry, were to proceed by the western route through Baflfin's Bay ; while the other two, the Dorothea and the Trent, were to take what is called the Spitzbergen route due northwards. For the command of the second expedition the Admiralty selected Captain David Buchan, R.N., who had a short time previously distinguished himself in charge of an expedition into the interior of Newfoundland. The vessel on which he hoisted his pennant was the Dorothea, a ship of 370 tons burden, and Lieu* nant I'Vanklin was placed under his orders in command of the smaller Trent, a brig of 250 tons. Both th( se vessels were hired into the service for the occasion, and ere taken into dock, where they were ren- dered — or, unfor mately, supposed to have been rendered — as strong as w ood and iron could make them. Captain Buchan's instructions were to make the best of his way into the Spitzbergen seas, and thence to endeavour to force his ships northward between Spitzbergen and Greenland. If successful in reaching the Pole — a contingency which, in the then state of knowledge as to the condition of the seas in the highest latitudes, was evidently quite within official contem- plation — the commander of the expedition was, if the weather ■^TS CIt. III. 1818 ADM I II A LT Y IXSTItUCTION S j»' -* Ot» was favourable, to remain, as we have seen, for a few days in the vicinity of the Pole for the purpose of making observa- tions. On ' leaving the Pole ' they were to shape their course for Behring Strait, or, if this proved impracticable, to sail round the north end of Greenland and return home by Baffin's Bay and Davis Straits. If the Dorothea and the Trent were unable to reach the Pole, but if it seemed possible, without accomplishing that feat, to hit off a course afford- ing any prospect of reaching Behring Strait, Buchan and Franklin werr directed to take it, ' recollecting that, although it is highly desirable in the interests of science and the extension of natural knowledge that you should reach the Pole, yet that the passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific is the main object of your mission.' And this elaborately framed document goes on to give minute instructions for the conduct of the two commanders in the event of their discovering and navigating the North- West Passage. They are then to make the best of their way to Kamschatka, call on the Russian Governor for the purpose of delivering to him duplicates of all the journals and other documents which the voyage may have produced, for imme- diate transmission overland to London, proceed thence to the Sandwich Islands or New Albion or some other place in the Pacific Ocean to refit and to refresh their crews, winter there, and in the spring repass Behring Strait once more, and return home to England by the way they had come. It is true, a discretion is allowed them as to the attempt of this last-mentioned feat. They are maturely to consider and weigh the prudence of making it. 'If your original passages should be made v.ith facility, and you see reason to believe that your success was not owing to circumstances merely accidental or temporary, and that there is a probability that you may be able, also, to accomplish the passage back, it would be undoubtedly of great importance that you should endeavour to make it ; but if, on the other hand, it shall have been attended with circumstances of danger or difficulty so great as to persuade you that the attempt to return would risk the safety of the ships and the lives of the crews, you in ■';'»,_ ! :| 3 I m ill iji n II Sli I 66 THE DOROTHEA AND THE TRENT CH. ITI. this case are to abandon all thought of returning by the northern passage, and are to make the best of your way homeward by Cape Horn.' And this portion of a tolerably comprehensive, not to say ambitious, itinerary concludes with certain orders as to concerted action between the two expedi- tions of which the cardinal injunction is to ' fix with Captain Ross, to whom the other expedition is entrusted, upon a rendezvous in the Pacific ' One more extract must, however, be made from it by the quotation of a passage having reference to a contingency which was in fact realised : — In the event of any irreparable accident happening to either of the ships, you are to cause the officers and crew of the disabled ship to be removed into the other, and with her singly to proceed in prose- cution of the voyage or return to England according as circumstances shall appear to require. Should, unfortunately, your own ship be the one disabled, you are in that case to take command of the Trent ; and in the event of your inability, by sickness or otherwise, to carry these instructions into execution, you are to transfer them to the lieutenant next in command, who is hereby required to execute them in the best manner he can for tne attainment of the several objects in view. On April 25 the two vessels sailed out of the Thames, after an experience of the popular feeling in the matter which shows in how lively a fashion the enterprise had impressed itself on the public imagination of that day. Thus, writing to Mrs. Cracroft on April 6, Franklin says : — I hope we shall have left the Nore by this day week. We all go in the highest spirits, and indeed it would be ungrateful to feel other- wise, encouraged as we have been by the kind interest and attention of all ranks of society. It would be quite impossible for me to convey to you the amazing interest our little squadron has excited. Deptford has been covered with carriages and the ships with visitors every day since they were in a state to be seen. Indeed, their coming in such shoals has greatly retarded our equipment. We have, in fact, moved further down the river to prevent that general influx, and shall now, I hope, be enabled to get our ships in tolerable order before sailing further. It was not, however, mere vulgar curiosity alone which drew so many visitors to the Dorothea and Trent. I 1818 BUCHAN'S EXPEDITIOX £7 You would be surprised to hear the number of persons this voyage has led me to become personally known to, some of them persons of considerable rank and all men of scientific eminence. They have most of them submitted some queries to be solved by us, or sugges- tions for us to be guided by, and all have expressed earnest wishes for our success. ... It really seems quite ridiculous to find myself placed among these parties, when I consider how little I know of the matters which usually form the subject of their conversations. At present, however, the bare circumstance of going to the North Pole is a sufficient passport anywhere. What a fortunate person must I, therefore, consider myself to be to have it, and thankful indeed to my good friends who procured it for me ! I only hope I may have the opportunity of evincing my gratitude by an ardent exertion of earnest endeavours in the cause they have so much at heart. And the letter concludes, as was Franklin's affectionate wont, with much kindly and playful talk of his little nieces Sophy and Isabella : — I hope you will endeavour to keep upon their minds the remem- brance of Uncle John, or rather make them familiar with my name ; and I trust it will not be long ere they may have an opportunity of becoming familiar with my countenance also ; which, if they see me after it has been reddened and hardened by a Polar winter, they will not, I think, at the age they will then be, easily forget. He then goes on to give a lively description of his Arctic outfit, which included, we learn, 'a beautiful mask for the face in the most severe weather and noses for the more mild.' The only first-hand account of this voyage is contained in a volume published five-and-twenty years later by Captain Beechey, who sailed as Franklin's first lieutenant in the Trent. It is a most spirited narrative of a voyage the interest of which as a series of maritime adventures considerably ex- ceeded its scientific results. The Dorothea and Trent failed to get any nearer to the Pole than between the 8oth and 8ist parallels of latitude, at which point their progress was arrested by an impenetrable barrier of ice ; and a subsequent attempt to force a passage westward, in pursuance no doubt of the alternative plan prescribed in their instructions, was equally unsuccessful. But, considered as a record of manifold dangers and diffi- 1 ^^MHH ■'1 1 'A ; ' r 1 i-m f if-' :li '■'i lUl 1 1 i i 1 Ml ,1 n^' 53 THE DOROTHEA AND THE TUENT CH. III. culties encountered with unflinching courage and overcome by brilliant seamanship, the story of their voyage must always hold a high place in the history of Arctic adventure. The Admiralty, as it turned out, had made a contribution of its own to the trials of the voyagers by providing them with one unseaworthy ship. Even before leaving Lerwick a leak was discovered in the sides of the Trent, and it was with difficulty that the vessel was sufficiently patched up to proceed on her journey. Twice were they beset in the pack, the first time for thirteen days, and the second for three weeks ; and on the former occasion it was discovered that a workman, of a type better known perhaps in these days than in those, had also, though with a guilt more deliberate than that of his superiors, lent a hand to their destruction. A dockyard shipwright had murderously left out a bolt in the process of construction and concealed the defect by smearing the hole with pitch. This, however, is somewhat to anticipate the history of a voyage which, short as it was, abounded in incidents. The two vessels made Magdalena Bay, on the north-west coast of Spitzbergen — not without having experienced some very rough weather on their northward voyage — by the beginning of June, and resolved to wait for a few days in order to give time to the loosened ' pack ' of the previous winter to com- plete the process of its dispersal. But in the course of the survey and exploration of the Spitzbergen coast — an experi- ence which first inspired Franklin with his henceforth insa- tiable passion for Arctic travel — the commander of the Trent had a narrow escape of his life, from a danger which the explorers had probably not included in their calculations be- fore starting. Icebergs they knew of as a source of Arctic peril, but they had no doubt mentally contemplated them only as in actual existence and not as in process of creation ; nor had it occurred to them that to assist at the birth of an iceberg from its mother glacier was so hazardous an under- taking as they found it. Twice did they witness this act of Titanic parturition, a picturesque and animated account of which is given by Captain Beechey in his ' Voyage of Dis- covery towards the North Pole : ' — 1818 BIIITII OF AN ICEI3E1IG fi9 On two occasions we witnessed avalanches on the most magnificent scale. The first was occasioned by the discharge of a musket at about half a mile distance from the glacier. Immediately after the report of the gun a noise resembling thunder was heard in the direc- tion of the iceberg, and in a few seconds more an immense piece broke away and fell headlong into the sea. The crew of the launch, supposing themselves to be beyond the reach of its influence, quietly looked upon the scene, when presently a sea rose and rolled towards the shore with such rapidity that the crew had not time to take any precaution, and the boat was in consequence washed up on the beach and completely filled by the succeeding wave. As soon as their astonishment had subsided they examined the lioat, and found her so badly stove that it became necessary to repair her in order to return to the ship. They had also the curiosity to measure the dis- tance the boat had been carried by the wave, and found it ninety-six feet. On the second occasion they were much nearer the scene of the convulsion, and might easily have been overwhelmed by the avalanche in its descent : — Lieutenant Franklin and myself had approached one of these stupendous walls of ice, and were endeavouring to search into the innermost recess of a deep cavern that was near the foot of the glacier, when we heard a report as of a cannon, and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, we perceived an immense piece of the front of the berg sliding down from a height of two hundred feec at least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water, which, being previously lodged in the fissures, now made its escape in num- berless small cataracts over the front of the glacier. We kept the boat's head in the direction of the sp" , and thus escaped the disaster which had befallen the other boat, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge of this enormous fragment caused a succession of rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and at a distance of four miles was so con- siderable that it became necessary to right the Dorothea, which was then careening, by immediately releasing the tackles which confined her. The piece that had been disengaged at first wholly disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a violent boiling of the sea and a shooting-up of clouds of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great cataract. After a short time, it raised its head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water pouring down from all parts of it, and then labouring as if doubtful which way it should i! • I I . . ^ 1,.^ 60 THE DOROTHEA AND THE TRENT OH. III. J] . I Hi t ! .'S fall over, and, after rocking about some minutes, it at length became settled. We now approached it, and found it nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference and sixty feet out of the water. Knowing its spe- cific gravity, and making a fair allowance for its inequalities, we computed its weight at 421,660 tons. On June 7 the expedition quitted Magdalena Bay after five days' stay, but found the ice outside in much the same condition as when they had left it. They stood along its margin searching for an opening, but in vain, and soon after- wards they were driven by the wind into the pack. Here they remained beset for several days, and in a position at times of no little danger. On one occasion, the Trent, though she appeared to be so closely wedged up that it did not seem possible for her to be moved, was suddenly lifted four feet by an enormous mass of ice getting under her keel ; at another time the fragments of the crumbling floe were piled up under her bows, to the great danger of her bowsprit. Nor was the Dorothea in less immi- nent peril. The point of a floe came in contact with her side, where it remained a short time, and then, glancing off", im- pinged upon the larger mass of ice to which the vessel was moored. The terrible pressure to which she had been sub- jected was then demonstrated by the rending asunder of the larger mass ; while the point of the floe was broken into fragments, which were speedily heaped up in a pyramid thirty-five feet in height, upon the very summit of which there appeared a huge mass bearing the impression of the planks and bolts of the vessel's bottom. And all this time, while the roaring of the sea upon the edge of the pack and the stormy sky showed plainly that it was blowing a gale at sea, ' the ships were so perfectly becalmed that the vane at the masthead was scarcely agitated.' The silent tightening of the fearful grasp in which the vessels were held was the only sign of the elemental war outside. The summer being now pretty well advanced, the ex- plorers began to perceive that if any progress northward was to be made that year it must be begun at once. Captain Buchan n lU- ' i 1818 AN ARCTIC GALE 61 accordingly resorted to the laborious experiment of dragging the vessels through the ice wherever the smallest opening was to be found. Iron hooks having been driven into the ice, large ropes were attached to them, and by dint of working these with the windlass and removing obstructions in the channels with the ice-saws, they succeeded, after several hours of labour, in reaching a tolerably clear lane of water, where, with the aid of their sails, they ran a few miles to the northward. The following two days were spent in the same toilsome work, after which they found, to their cruel mortification, that they had all the time been contending against a current flowing from the north so strongly as to carry the pack in a south- ward direction at a greater rate of speed than that of their own northward advance over its surface. At the end of two long days of toil they found that they were actually eleven or twelve miles lower in latitude than they had been at the be- ginning of the period. On July 19, Captain Buchan came definitely to the con- clusion that it was vain to attempt further progress to the northward. The only course open to them was to abandon the endeavour to reach the Pole, and, regaining the open sea as quickly as possible, to try a westward course. They were now, however, about thirty miles distant from the open sea, and it was only after nine days' incessant labour in warping the ships in the required direction that they had at last the satisfaction of finding themselves in clear water, and were able to turn their ships' heads to the west. But here the f^ravest peril which they encountered, and the one which put their courage and the resources of their seamanship to the severest test, assailed them. Hardly had they entered on their new course when a furious gale sprang up, and to escape immediate destruction they were driven to the unusual and almost desperate expedient of taking shelter in the pack. One of the largest hemp cables was cut up into lengths of about thirty feet, and with these pieces, together with some walrus hides and iron plates, a sort of shield was constructed round the hull of the ship to protect it against damage from the huge blocks of ice with which it would have to come into I ' ': t 111' I: /<' ill oS'! h! -S i -^ '!' r''s 02 THE DOROTIIKA AND THE TRENT CH. III. f, r ! a contact. While still a few fathoms from the ice, they searched with anxiety for a place that was more open than the general line of the pack, but in vain ; all parts appeared to be equally impenetrable, and to present one unbroken line of breakers, on which immense pieces of ice were heaving and subsidini^ with the waves, and dashing together with a violence which nothing apparently but a solid body could withstand. To continue in the stirring words of Beechey's narrative : — No language, I am convinced, can convey an adequate idea of the terrific grandeur of the effect now produced by the collision of the ice and the tempestuous ocean. The sea violently agitated, and rolling iis mountainous waves against an opposing body, is at all times a sublime and awful sight ; but when, in addition, it encounters immense masses of ice which it has set in motion with a violence equal to its own, its effect is prodigiously increased. At one moment it bursts upon these icy fragments, and buries them many feet be- neath the wave, and the next, as the buoyancy of the depressed body struggles for reascendency, the water rushes in foaming cataracts over its edges, while every individual mass, rocking and labouring in its bed, grinds against and contends with its opponent until one is either split with the shock or upheaved upon the surface of the other. Nor is this collision confined to any paiLicular spot ; it is going on as far as the sight can reach ; and when from the convulsive scene below the eye is turned to the extraordinary appearance of the ' ice blink ' in the sky above, where the unnatural clearness of a calm and silvery atmosphere presents itself, bounded by a dark, hard line of stormy clouds — such as at this moment lowered over our masts, as if to mark the confines within which the efforts of man would be of no avail — the reader may imagine the sensation of awe which must accompany that of grandeur in the mind of the beholder. Then follows a striking piece of testimony to the un- shaken nerve, or, one might better say, to the buoyant bravery of Franklin, on whom the mere imminence of deadly peril seems always to have produced an exhilarating effect : — At the instant when we were about to put the strength of our little vessel in competition with that of the great icy continent, and when it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the possibility of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was gratifying in the extreme to observe in all our crew the greatest calmness and resolution. If ever the fortitude of seamen was fairly tried, it wa3 assuredly on this occasion ; and I will not conceal the pride I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which the orders were issued by the com- 1818 lUNNIXa FOR THE PACK 68 niander of our little vessel, and the promptitude and steadiness with which they were executed by the crew. A few minutes more and they were within a few yards of the tossing, jostling herd of icebergs into which they were about to plunge : — Each person instinctively secured his own hold, and, with his eyes fixed upon the masts, awaited in breathless anxiety the moment of concussion. It soon arrived ; the brig, cutting her way through the light ice, came in violent contact with the main body. In an instant we all lost our footing, the masts bent with the im[)etus, and the cracking timbers from below bespoke a pressure which was calculated to awaken our serious apprehensions. The vessel staggered under the shock, and for a moment seemed to recoil ; but the next wave, curling up under her counter, drove her about her own length within the margin of the ice, where she gave one roll, and was immediately thrown broadside to the wind by the succeeding wave, which beat furiously against her stern, and brought her lee side in contact with the main body, leaving her weather side exposed at the same time to a piece of ice about twice her own dimensions. . . . Literally tossed from piece to piece, we had nothing left but patiently to abide the issue, for we could scarcely keep our feet, much less render any assistance to the vessel. The motion was so great that the ship's bell, which in the heaviest gale of wind had never struck by itself, now tolled so continually that it was ordered to be muffled, for the purpose of escaping the unpleasant association it was calculated to produce. By dint of crowding on more sail, Frankh'n succeeded in forcing the Trent further into the pack, where its masses of ice were less violently agitated, and in a few hours the gale subsided. Open water was reached on the following morn- ing, and the two vessels, for the Trent's consort had also weathered the storm, sought refuge in Fair Haven, a bay on the northern shore of Spitzbergen. Franklin and Buchan then proceeded to examine their wounded ships. They proved, as might have been expected, to have sustained fearful injuries in this glacial tournament. The Trent was much mauled, but the Dorothea was the worse sufferer of the two. She was indeed so desperately damaged on her port side that it was a wonder she had been able to keep afloat. Exploring was obviously at an end for her ; it was felt I. b H m f! 64 THE DOROTHEA AND THE TRENT CH. ITT. rli I ! hi that she must cither at once rcturTi to Enpjiand or be aban- doned. Franklin tried hard to persu.ide his superior officer that the Trent was still fit for service, and pleaded earnestly for permission to pursue their enterprise ; but Captain Ikichan, no doubt wisely, declined to listen to his impetuous comrade. His official instructions, indeed, hardly permitted him to accede to Franklin's request. These instructions, it may be remembered, expressly enjoined him, in the event of his own ship bcinpj disabled, to take command of the Trent ; but in that case what was to be done with the Dorothea ? Had any ' irreparable accident ' happened to her, it would, it is true, have been his duty to ' cause her officers and crew to be re- moved ' to her companion vessel, and either to proceed with that vessel ' singfly in prosecution of the voyage, or to return to England as circumstances should appear to require.' But the Dorothea was not irreparably damaged ; .she was perhaps sufficiently seaworthy to accomplish the return journey to England, though not to face new dangers in the Arctic seas ; and he did not, therefore, feel justified in abandoning her. If, however, he had taken command of the Trent and sent his own vessel home in charge of her first lieutenant, he felt that ' he would incur the appearance of wishing to escape the danger to which his crew would be exposed.' Nor, it seems, was he even prepared to take the responsibility of separating the two ships in order to allow Franklin to continue the expedition alone in the Trent, the condition of the Dorothea being, in his opinion, so dangerous as to render it unadvisable for her to undertake the homeward voyage unaccompanied by her consort. He finally determined, therefore, that both ships should desist from the prosecution of their enterprise and return home together. There remained only the question whether something more might not yet be accomplished by a boat journey over the ice ; but upon consulting with Franklin, and examining into the resources of the ships for such an undertaking, they were found so inadequate that the project was speedily given up. Captain Buchan was, therefore, reluctantly compelled to abandon all further attempts at discovery, and to proceed to T 181H TIIK KETUUN 05 Kngland as soon as the necessary repairs of the Dorothea should be completed. Franklin no less reluctantly yielded, and, after employing the remainder of their time at the anchorage in magnetic observations and a thorough sur- vey of the neighbouring coast of Spit/.bergen, the commanders of the Dorothea and Trent put to sea on August 30, and arrived at Deptford on October 22, after an absence of almost exactly six months. il t ■ ', ; F I !' i ' *li ti 'i il M- H v.-i 1 WBk II WKi 1 1: m if' Hi 9 ^Hi 9> .4 IB». JK Jffil B I I1J I i 1 it ^i 66 FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION CH. IV. CHAPTER IV FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION i8i8-»82l It is difficult for us of the present age — an age which has, so to speak, grown almost blase oi Polar exploration, and which has moreover seen even this romantic form of adventure partially vulgarised by association with the tactics of the advertiser — to realise the admiring interest which Arctic voyages aroused in the minds of our countrymen of the early nineteenth century. Nor is it easy to frame any adequate conception of the strength of that spell which they cast over the adven- turous spirits of the British Navy, restless as they were with the excitements, and fired rather than satiated with the triumphs, of a long and glorious war. The Arctic Ocean had for some of them taken the place of the Spanish Main for the sailors of Elizabeth, and the Pole seemed to them like that fabled El Dorado that so bewitched the contemporaries of Drake and Raleigh. To Franklin, exploration had alwayr. appealed more powerfully than even war itself, and the stimulating yet not wholly satisfactory experiences of his voyage with Buchan had inflamed his passion for Arctic discovery to a still higher pitch of ardour. It was with intense satisfaction that he now found even the chilly atmo- sphere of the Admiralty warming gradually to the work. The reports of the leaders of the two expeditions were con- sidered and discussed in official quarters, and ere long it was decided by the Government to continue the work of explo- ration to the westward by Baffin's Bay, while a party was to be sent overland to explore the northern coast of Arctic America. The command of the former expedition was en- trusted to Lieutenant Paxry, who had already seen service as Jtap to illustrate tapt*? Franklin's first land journey KoRTH America. Scale ot ..'.r^ishilfileE. iO 30 w .to 40 LaAe Pi'ovidence t of Ixmd ^otr^ .5' j.i-e 65- ni" Vest of UO" Greenwich 109' ."tim/v-^Vs Cnc-' y ! 1 i' M \ - i i. f'j ' If A 1 rt i I i' I I . t> I 1 i i i ^ I' ! 'I 70 FFRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION CH. IV. seen it for some weeks, when it was about half finished. I do not expect to see it again, since my likeness is said to be strong. I shall not venture to approach very near Leicester Square, for fear the passers-by should say, ' There goes the fellow in the panorama.' I have just learnt that Sir Joseph Banks has seen it, and approves of it highly. On May 23, 18 19, the expedition set sail from Gravcsend in the Hudson's Bay Company's ship Prince of Wales ; but bad weather and adverse winds rendered their progress slow, and it was not till June 3 that they reached Stromness, in the Orkney Islands. Here Franklin endeavoured to engage an adequate crew of boatmen to assist him in ascending the rivers of the Hudson's Bay Territory ; but owing (he says in a letter to his father from this port) to ' the great demand for them at home, which at this time affords them full occu- pation,' the recruits whom he was able to obtain were only four in number. Here Franklin again reviewed the prospects of his enter- prise, and, as can easily be perceived, with growing doubts of its feasibility : — I have read a copy of Hearne's original journal. The details are somewhat similar to his printed book, but given in an embell shed style ; and, though I am not prepared to go the length of some per- sons and doubt his statements altogether, I yet think he has left a tolerably wide field for observation, and if we are so fortunate as to search beyond him, I hope we may r.dd something to the geography and natural history of that unknown part of the globe. Though we do not permit ourselves to indulge in sanguine hopes of success, our fervent prayers, I hope, will be offered up for the blessing and assist- ance of an Almighty Parent on our humble endeavours. From every estimate I can at present form I think the service in any case will occupy near three years. By October 1821 I shall calculate on bend ing my steps homeward ; but long before that period, and indeed by every opportunity that offers, you may rely on my informing you of o'jr proceedings. On the i6th the Prince of Wales again i)nt \n sea for what was lo prove its eventful and perilous vnya^^r to the shores of Hudson's Bay. 'We had,' writes jtH tuminnndrr, a very narrow escape fro\u uhlpwreck on the outward pas.sage, and actually struck thrice on dangerous rocks, and once against i\\\ iruUii^ 1819 A NARllOW llSC'ArE 71 of great height and extent. The blows caused the ship to leak so much that we were apprehensive of the vessel keeping afloat, and, indeed, in this state of uncertainty, pumping and baling to the utmost, we remained for six-and-thirty hours. Then the carpenters were enabled to stop the leak. Despite these mishaps, however, their voyage does not seem to have been prolonged much beyond its estimated time. On August 30 the Prince of Wales anchored ofT York Factory, where the members of the expedition landed. Here they made a stay of over a week collecting stores, and there- with equipping one of the large tran. ^jort boats of the Hudson's Bay Company, in which they were to continue their journey. On September 19 they resumed it, and after a weary march of from seven to eight hundred miles they reached Cumberland House, on the Saskatchewan River, on the 23rd of the following month. Some three weeks pre- viously Franklin had had a narrow escape from drowning. He lost his' footing on a rock on which he was standing en- gaged in an attempt to force the boat up a rapid, and was carried some distance down the swirling torrent before he was able to stay his helpless descent by grasping the branch of a willow, to which he held fast until rescued from his hazardous position by his companions. F>anklin, as we know, was not disposed to underrate the difficulties of his task, yet the event proved that even his carefully considered and liberal estimate of the amount of time which would be required for its completion fell short of the mark. He had spoken, we have .seen in his last letter, of nearly three years as representing its probable duration, but, as a matter of fact, it exceeded that period by nearly five months. More than two whole years had, in fact, expired, and two dreary winters had been passed, before they reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean and could begin their attempt to survey the coast. Nor was this due to material difficulties alone, though these, it is true, were (enormous. Their com- modious but unwieldy transport boat, heavily laden with .stores, made naturally slow progress, and though it was pos- sible by unloading to traverse rapids of a not too impetuous ■ V • ]\ V I . :i .■ I' ■(' > I II i i s« !' If i 1 I i j 1 J 1. ' ! 1 ■ ; ■ t 1 1 ■i[ It 1 1 5! 1 72 FIKSr ARCTIC EXPEDITION CH. IV. and precipitous character, it was, of course, necessary to circumvent actual falls by way of ' portage,' Twenty-one statute miles is Admiral Markham's computation of the united length of all the portages crossed by them in less than one-third of their journey, and, as each portage had to be traversed seven times in order to transfer their goods across, this involved nearly one hundred and fifty miles of walking. Rut the difficulties, it must be repeated, were not material alone. The voluminous letter-books of correspondence relat- ing to the earlier stages of the expedition are somewhat weary reading, and would be wearier still were it not that Franklin's dogged pertinacity and immovable self-control rebuke the reader's impatience ; but one gathers from it dis- tinctly enough that the leader of the expedition had to contend not only with Nature, but with human nature also. The local authorities of the Hudson's Bay Company were well affected enough towards the undertaking ; and there is no positive ground for affirming anything else of the officials of the other great trading body, the North-Western Company, which in those days divided jurisdiction with it over this vast and wild region of the world. But, unfortunately, the two companies, or some of their officers, were by no means well affected towards each other ; and, inasmuch as supplies had often to be ordered through the servants of one company to be supplied by those of its rival, their mutual jealousies were a constant source of inconvenience, not to say a continual menace of disaster. It cannot perhaps be affirmed that either association, or indeed that anybody in particular, was responsible for the first serious di-sappointment which awaited Franklin at Fort Cumberland, where he found, to his extreme concern, that the guides, hunters, interpreters, rtfn] f/t^rs whose services he had hoped to obtain, were nof tO h^ had on any terms. Still, it is pretty evident that he mu^ h4ve relied upon expert assurances /m thii^ point, »nd tha* ' sfyme one had blundered.' And the ltAund(^/ was the mote s€ri//u» because it appeared to Franklin U/ fet oi/Jy remcdii^ble by un- I* \r N-l ^m 1820 THE THAXSPOKT DIFFICL'LTY 73 dcrtaking a journey of nearly a thousand miles in the dead of winter in order to reach a station at which this indispensable assistance could be secured. Accordingly, on January i8, 1820, leaving Di. Richardson and Hood to pass the remainder of the winter at Fort Cumberland and bring on the stores and provisions as soon as the rivers were open for navigation, Franklin, Back, and Hepburn set out in a couple of dog sledges, and with only fifteen days' supplies, for Fort Chipe- wyan. Travelling in a temperature that froze the mercury in the thermometer and ' the tea in our teapots before we could drink it,' they reached Carlton House, an intermediate post, by February i, and, after remaining there a week to recruit, resumed and completed their daring journey to Fort Chipewyan on March 26. Here they remained during the rest of the long, lingering winter, making such endeavours as they could to complete their preparations for a forward mo\ emcnt as soon as the year was sufficiently advanced. But their efforts met with but partial succes.s. For again the wretched rivalry between the two trading companies which disputed the country intervened. They were rejoined by Hood and Dr. Richardson as soon as the state of the rivers permitted the transport of the stores in their keeping, but it was in vain that Franklin strove to sup- plement them adequately with additional supplies ; and when the expedition at last resumed its northward march, it was with but a scanty supply of p(;wder and little more than one day's provisions. Franklin coldly reports the fact in one of his periodical despatches to Mr. Goulburn, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, with what seems a merely formal ex- pression of regret. Writing on July 17, the day before start- ing, he records the arrival of Dr. Richardson anc' Hood three days before, and observes that the additional si.pply of men they brought with them had enabled him to make a selection of • active, good men for our service, and to complete the arrangements for leaving this place to-morrow morning for H<*rt iM'iivldciice.' But he adds: 'Our progre > thither, I K'girt III ^\\y^ will h' mIcuiu than I at first apprfhendtd, from the UBUBMsiii' we shall be under of hunting and fi.^hing on the I'- Ul l! I: :■ Vi r rf'^i ' 1* 1 MWiwn ■iil|: \ i! I r 1 ' I 1 '. ' « I-TUST AlJfTIC i:xri';i)ITI()N CII. IV. way, as wc have been unable to procure any provisions from cither of tiic forts here.' Hunting and fishing on the way ! This, indeed, was to ' make adventure support adventure.' But ' the necessity ' of so doing — as, indeed, the fact itself of starting on a journey of many hundred miles unprovided, or practically unprovided, with anything to eat on the way — is here referred to quite m the matter-of-fact manner of a man reporting an untoward but not at ail unnatural circumstance. The truth probably was that nv mishap of this kind, however serious, was any longer regarded by the members of the expedition as other- wise than in the natural order of affairs. They had already had a year's experience of the .sort of thing that was to be expected. But they did not yet know, nor were they to experience until a good deal later, the worst of its conse- quences. Accommodating themselves, however, in the mean- time with their usual cheerful stoicism to the situation, they proceeded to hunt and fish their way along the chain of lakes and rivers which lay between them and the Coppermine River. The Great Slave Lake was reached in a few days, and by the 29th of the month they arrived at Fort Providence, a station at its north end. After a stay here of three or four days they resumed their journey, and were joined on August 3 by a band of Indians with their canoes, who had arranged to meet them at that point and accompany them northward, hunting game for them on the way. Their services in this capacity may have slightly expedited the progress of the explorers ; but it was not till the 20th of the month that the next lake in this seemingly interminable chain was reached, and then, to his intense mortification, Franklin found that it was impo.ssible to proceed further that year. The first days after their arrival were spent in constructing winter quarters on the south-west side of Winter Lake ; log huts were erected to house the officers and men of the expedition and their stores, and the name of Fort Enterprise was given to the new post. But while thus providing for a winter sojourn Franklin had not at first abandoned the hope of proceeding on his journey, and even of reaching the sea, before the year I8t»() I'lJANKf-IN AM) HIS INDIANS u was out ; and the persistence with which he endeavoured to convert his Indian companions to his views in the matter is so characteristic that his report thereon to Mr. Goulburn should perhaps be transcribed entire : — I sent for the Indians, who had hv.v.n despatched on hunting excur- sions, and communicated my intentions to them. You can judge, sir, of the extreme mortification and disappointment which ail the oflficers experit;nced to find the leader and the party were not only opposed to the proposal, but positively refused to accompany us. They re- presented the very attempt as an act of madness, and insisted that the winter had already conunenced, because the weather was then stormy and there had been a sudden change in the temperature. From this determination no argument or persu.ision, which you may be assured were plentifully applied, could turn them. But I will transcribe the Icjader's own words on this occasion, as the best means of conveying l;is sentiments. The attempt, he said, would be highly imprudent and dangerous. The winter season had already commenced, as we saw, which would soon be followed by severe weather, and that in consequence the lives of those who embarked on such an under- taking would be forfeited. It would require six days to get to theCop[)crmine River, and five more to where wood would be found ; until the expiration of which time we could not expect to have fires, since there are no trees what- ever after leaving this lake. They only travelled the road in summer when the moss is dry, which could not be expected during the fre- quent rains of this season ; and, in fact, he concluded the discouraging recital by maintaining that it would require forty days to get to the sea, and that under those circimistances neither he nor the hunters would accompany us. It was then mentioned to him that all these sentiments differed widely from his former account given at Fort Providence and along the route, and that up to this time we had been encouraged in the expectation that the party not only could go towards the sea, but should be accompanied by himself and the hunters. But this speech had no effect in altering his opinion or determination, nor those of the rest of the hunters, who are entirely under his guidance. It was then pointed out to him that even the sight of the river would be desirable, and he was informed that we were provided with instru- ments which would infallibly point out when the cold set in, and faithful promise was made to return on the first warning of a change. But to this he answered that the cold weather had already com- menced, and repeated that in this part of the country the transition from such weather to great severity was immediate, and that m this respect it was unlike countries more to the southward. It was then communicated to him that the sun wouid in a few •Ju V'k. % ^^.^0^ o^. \^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) 1.0 I.I l^iM R2.5 |50 "■*■ IV^H 1^ mil 2.2 Di m Hi m g IL25 1 u Ml 2£ 1.8 1.6 ^.^ V '^ ^> >" '5> ^>. ^ "'^y w Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAI.4 STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14380 (716) 873-4503 *^ m !\ o % <^ ^^^^ o ;\ ■v^ €^.r FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION on. IT, ■i .^ t - *-: ft'.-'i days be darkened (alluding to the eclipse expected on September 17), and that it was desirable to observe the phenomenon as far north as possible. He nov; began to feel hurt at our persisting to urge him, and added with great warmth : ' I have said everything I can to dissuade you from making such a rash attempt. It appears as if you wished to lose your own lives and those Indians who might accompany you. However, if you are determined to go, since we have brought you hither, it shall not be said that we permitted you to die alone. Some of iiiy young men shall also go, but the moment they embark we shall suppose them all gone, and begin to deplore their loss as dead men.' I could only answer to this forcible appeal by assuring him that I looked with the utmost solicitude to the safety of my men, Indians as well as Canadians, and that it was far from my wish to expose the life of a single man, and repeated the promise to return on seeing the river, if the weather should then prove too cold. These sentiments appeased his warmth, but he then produced another reason which, I confess, had weight — that this is the season when the reindeer jkins are in the best condition for clothing, and that his party must prepare their underdresses, and also some skins for the Canadians, who could not live here without them ; and he justly remarked that if the oppor- tunity was now lost it could not be regained, and that the consequence might be that some men would be starved to death, especially the Indians, who were not strong or capable of bearing severity of weather if slighiiy clothed, like Canadians or Europeans. Perceiving that all efforts were in vain to make him waive his objection, I left him for the night without declaring any resolution, and I learnt the next morning that after I was gone he spoke of returning back to Fort Providence when he had collected provisions for our winter con- sumption, thinking, since his advice was not followed, that he was useless here. I deemed this information more important than any other, considering the uncertainty of the Indian character, because it is certain that his going would cause the whole tribe to remove, and thereby be destructive to the prospect of our getting pemmican made in the spring, which is indispensable for our future proceedings. Therefore, with great reluctance and concern, I thought it proper to relinquish the plan of proceeding towards the sea, and instead pro- posed that a party should go to see the [Coppermine River, and] find out the shortest path for the conveyance of our stores to its banks in the spring, and gather other information that might facilitate our progress at that time. This reduced programme was successfully fulfilled. A party was sent out on August 29, under the direction of Hood and Back, who succeeded in reaching its banks in three days, just half the time estimated by the Indian chief, and, after 1S20 A VVIxXTER OF MEDITATION / 1 travelling down its course for one day and in the reverse direction for four days, returned to Fo»-t Enterprise, which they regained on September 12, a fortnight from the date of their departure. After this the party settled down with such patience as they could muster to their long confinement in the prison of a northern winter. This trial is, it is well known, the hardest to be borne by the Arctic explorer ; it is the one which most searchingly tests the inward resources of his nature. Upon a man of Franklin's deeply religious temperament its effect may be easily anticipated. During these long hours of enforced inaction bis mind naturally turned inward, and in a letter of this period to his sister, Mrs. Wright, he makes her the con- fidant of his pious and prayerful meditations. The language in which he expresses himself belongs essentially to a bygone age of religious thought ; for, though the spirit of devotion be eternal and unch; ngeable in the heart of man, its modes of expression are as transient as all human inventions. It is the habit of our own day for even the most devout souls to maintain a reserve in their communications on spiritual con- cerns with those nearest and dearest to them which would have been unintelligible, which would even perhaps have seemed reprehensible, to religious men and women of the early nineteenth century. Even in these sacred matters there are changing fashions of human speech ; and, just as our later language of piety would have seemed to Franklin cold and lifeless in Its restraint, so his «^wn utterances would be apt in their effusiveness to convey to a reader of these days an im- pression of the extravagant and unreal. But no one who makes due allowance for such differences in the form of expression can doubt that these outpourings came from the very depth of Franklin's heart : — «' <\ f. > « "I I shall not enter at any length (he writes) into the subject of our pursuits and proceedings here, but rather devote this sheet to the more interesting communication respecting my present sentiments on religion, which I think will be equally, if not more, gratifying to you, my dear sister ; and before I enter upon them I would humbly offer my grateful thanks to Almighty God that the peculiar circumstances rs FIRST AKCTIC EXPEDITION C'H. IV. '■il r\ ! f::| I of my situation, arising from want of society and full occupation, have led me to seek that consolation from the perusal of religious books, which I have found — especially in the Holy Bible — abundantly sup- plied. To this sacred volume I have applied for grounds of hope, comfort, and support, and never in vain ; and I am fully convinced that therein, and therein only, can be found the treasures of heavenly love and mercy. I have been amazed at the state of ignorance under which I laboured with respect to its blessed contents. Neither the order, connection, or regularity of God's mercies to the Jews were known to me. Consequently, His goodness and the grandeur of the deliverances vouchsafed to them were not duly appreciated by me. But an attentive perusal of His Holy Word, with fervent application for His assistance, will open all these mysteries to the inquiring mind, and lead you through them to see the mighty work of redemption by the death of His Blessed Son for all mankind. Truly rich and valuable are the precepts and doctrines our Blessed Saviour taugh*:, and amazing His love for all mankind. Surely that heart must be awfully impenitent which can read the recital of His sufferings un- moved or without feeling a sincere desire to repent and pray fer- vently for that heavenly grace which He faithfully promised to all who firmly believe on Him and seek to do His will. Serious reflection will soon convince the sinner of his guiit and of his inability to do any- thing of himself; for every day's experience proclaims to him with a powerful voice that he is weak, irresolute, and unprofitable, and con- stantly exposed to the attacks of sin and Satan. If, haply, under this conviction he should inquire. How, then, can I be saved ? would it not be joy unspeakable for him to find that the Gospel points out the way ? Christ, who died for the salvation of sinners, is the way, the truth, and the life. Whoso cometh unto Him in full purpose of heart shall in no wise be cast out. Can anything be more cheering than these assurances, or better calculated to fill the mind with heavenly impressions, and lift up the heait in grateful adoration to God ? This is the commencement of the Christian joy which, if it beget a live faith that worketh by love, producing the fruits of obedi- ence, will lead to everlasting life. But he should remember that our Blessed Lord's example hath shown, and every portion of His Holy Word declareth, that the Christian's life must be a continual warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil ; he must never relax his efforts, but strive continually against his evil passions and pro- pensities, and pray constantly that he may be strengthened by the power of grace to surmount them. Very interesting, too, is it to find that among the religious works by which Franklin was most impressed in these hours of lonely meditation was the book which is understood to have ""^^ 1820 BACK'S GALLA^'T JOURNEY 79 first awakened the religious emotion in the mind of Dr. John- son, and from which men of the most diverse temperaments have derived spiritual support and stimulus — Law's ' Serious Call to a Holy Life.' Of this and of Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress of Religion,' he writes : — I admire their systematic manners of devotion, and by thc'r argu- ments am convinced of the necessity and advantage of more method and regularity in meditation and prayer than is usually observed. . . . How different are my sentiments on these books to what they were on first reading them ! Then I could find neither beauty nor force in their language or reasoning ; but now I think they abound in both, and, if read with a serious desire to gain information on the .nost important subjects of life, nmch fruit may be gathered from them. I would recommetid them most earnestly to all my dear relations, and I doubt not they would derive benefit and instruction. So the long and dreary winter wore on ; but it had not half run its course before the little party were threatened with a more formidable foe than either cold or solitude. The rein- deer, which had at first been plentiful enough to supply them with food, unexpectedly shifted their ground shortly after the establishment of the expedition in its winter quarters, and some considerable time before the end of the year the explorers found themselves threatened with the exhaustion of their supplies. Their stock of provisions fell so low that at last it became absolutely necessary to communicate with Fort Chipe- wyan, v^^ith a view to the replenishment of their stores. For this arduous and perilous service Mr. Back volunteered. He was accordingly despatched in the month of November, and, after unexampled labours and privations — he travelled more than 1,100 miles on snow-shoes, protected at night by only a single blanket and a deerskin against a temperature frequently down to —40°, and on one occasion as low as — 57'^, and some- times without food for two or three consecutive days — the gallant young officer returned on March 15, having success- fully executed his commission. Nor at this, any more than at other stages of its course, were the difficulties of the enterprise due solely to the opposi- tion of Nature. The letters exchanged between Franklin * I t It lilji km \ I'V- \ ;i .' ( ' J* - ' Al) i, \ ! .'i 1 I i'"t[ " 80 FIRST ARCTIC EXPEDITION Clf. IV. and the ' partners ' of the North- Western Company at Fort Chipcwyan are somewhat painful reading. The correspon- dence starts with an official despatch from Back at Fort Providence, complaining of the non-arrival of stores entrusted to the Company's servants for transport, and containing the strong statement that he has discovered through other channels a great lukewarmness on the part of the North-Western Company ab.solutcly amounting to * a denial of further ser- vices to the expedition.' This naturally drew indignant re- monstrances from Franklin, addressed respectively to Mr. Smith and Mr. Keith, the two agents, and provoking from the latter a rejoinder in the same tone. Mr. Keith, in fact, roundly lectures him on the impropriety of imputing to the Company any want of goodwill towards the expedition. It hetray.s, says he, ' an unguarded precipitation and want of discernment little corresponding with your experience and high station and character in life.' Franklin, it seems evident, had been a little hasty, and in his subsequent letters he shows himself anxious to disclaim the injurious construction placed upon his words. Much allowance should in any case be made for a man in want of supplies in the depth of an Arctic winter, and chafing under the vexatious delays and miscarriages of many months. There is an end to everything, however, even to an Arctic winter; and at 2 P.M. on June 14, 1 821, the expedition was at last able to leave Fort Enterprise behind it and set out for the sea. The party consisted of Franklin and his four English officers, a couple of Eskimo -nterpreters, who had been respectively chri.stened Augustus and Junius by .some unknown humourist, and about a dozen Iiidians and half- breed Canadian voyageurs. Their means of travel and trans- port consisted of two large canoes and several sledges. Before their departure arrangements were made by Franklin with one of the Indian chiefs, named Akaitcho, probably the chief with whom he had held the discussion above quoted, for depositing a supply of provisions at Fort Enterprise during their absence, with a view to the contingency of their having to pass another winter at the station. Little did they suspect fj < ■.': *.. " 1821 ON THE ARCTIC COAST 81 at the time what terrible and wellnigh fatal issues were dependent on the due execution of that order. The progress of the party was at the outset tediously slow, as they had to cross many stretches of barren land and. several high and rugged hills, each man having to carry or drag a weight of some i8o pounds; and it was not till July I, or seventeen days after their departure, that they at last reached the long-desired waters of the Coppermine River. For another fortnight they made their way down its stream, their course often obstructed and their safety some- times endangered by large masses of floating ice, until, on June 14, Franklin had the high satisfaction of recording in his journal : ' To-day Dr. Richardson ascended a lofty hill about three miles from the encampment, and from its summit obtained a distant view of the sea from NNE. to NE. by E. A large promontory bore NNE. The surface appeared to be covered with ice. He saw the sun set a few minutes before midnight from the same elevated situation.' Another week's voyaging brought them to the mouth of the river, and on June 21 the adventurous explorers found themselves afloat upon the Arctic Sea. The remaining history of their outward voyage belongs to those records of geographical discovery to which it con- tributed so interesting, and for those days so important, a chapter ; and it does not fall within the scope of this memoir to relate it in any detail. It may suffice to quote the lucid and succinct account which has btien given of it by Admiral Markham : ' The coast along which the explorers sailed in their small and frail barks was a sterile and inhospitable one ; cliff succeeded cliff in tiresome and monotonous uni- formity, the valleys that intervened being covered with the dt^bris that fell from the cliffs, to the exclusion of any kind of herbage. Occasionally their progress was temporarily im- peded by ice, while a strong " ice-blink " was invariably seen to seaward. It must not be forgotten that the expedition was navigating a rock-bound coast fringed with heavy masses of solid ice, that rose and fell with every motion of a rough tempestuous sea, threatening momentarily to crush the light, G ■, ;«,> f m\ T' 1 ' li -5 ■il «» FIRST AIICTIC EXrEDITIOX CH. IV. l| I ii ,'•:•».. 1 ■ ' ®TT ' , ii': :ii>i ■: frail canoes, fit only for lake or river navigation, in which Franklin and his party were embarked. This voyajje along the shores of the Arctic Sea must always take rank as one of the most daring and hazardous exploits that has evei been accomplished in the interest of geographical research. Following all the tortuous sinuosities of the coast-line, and accurately delineating the northern shore of North America as they pushed onwards in an easterly direction, naming all the principal headlands, sounds, bays, and islands that were discovered, tho expedition reached a point on August i8, in latitude 68° 19' N. and longitude 110° 5' W., on the coast of North America, where Franklin reluctantly came to the con- clusion that they had reached the end of their journey, and must return from the interesting work on which they were engaged, and for the following reasons. In the first place, they had only three days' pemmican left, and the Canadian voyageurs had consequently manifested a very decided reluc- tance to continue the work of exploration, believing, and not unnaturally, that great difficulty would be experienced at that time in replenishing their fast decreasing store of provisions. In the second place, the gales of wind which were so preva- lent, were, they thought, sure indications of the break-up of the travelling season, and, therefore, that in itself appeared sufficient reason for them to be thinking of wending their way in a southerly direction. The absence of all traces of Eskimo, from whom they had calculated on obtaining sup- plies of food, was also discouraging; while the amount of time that had already been occupied in exploring the various bays and sounds that lay in their route was so great that it entirely precluded all hopes of reaching Repulse Bay before the winter. ' Although on the chart the position reached by the ex- pedition, which was very appropriately named Point Turn- again, was only six and a half degrees of longitude to the east- ward of the mouth of the Coppermine Fiver, so tortuous and winding was the contour of the newly discovered coast that they were actually obliged to sail and paddle in their canoes a distance of 555 geographical miles in order to accomplish 1821 POINT TURNAGAIN 83 the journey ; this would be about equal to the direct distance between the Coppermine River and Repulse Bay It was, therefore, obvious th"t the only prudent course that could be pursued was to return as soon as possible, in order to reach the Indians, who had been directed to procure a supply of provisions for the expedition before the next winter should set in. ' From their researches up to this point, Franklin had arrived at the conclusion (subsequently proved to be a well- founded one), that a navigable passage for ships along the coast by which they had travelled was practicable, and, although he was disappointed in not meeting his friend Captain Parry and his vessels, he felt convinced that they stood an excellent chance of satisfactorily clearing up the long-unsolved problem of a North- West Passage.' I H ■fimt I iMIm Nl Ui G3 "li» mmmi i t !'. I !| 84 THE 1-IGIIT WITH FAMINK CH. V. CHAPTER V ' THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE 1821-1822 With the commencement of the return journey we resume a more detailed narrative ; for, if the outward voyage belongs rather to the province of geographical history, and has, as such, been dealt with in the fullest detail by other writers on this subject, the story of the awful struggle back to Fort Enter- prise is in a more emphatic sense the property of a biographer of Franklin, and has never, perhaps, been circumstantially related, save by one whom his own modesty forbade to do full justice to the splendid heroism of the exploit. It is natural to inquire why Franklin took that decision to return to Fort Enterprise by a different route, which was fraught with such disastrous and wellnigh fatal conse- quences for the expedition ; but it appears from his journal that he had no choice. His original intention had been to return as he had come, by way of the Coppermine River, but his very scanty stock of provisions, and the length of the voyage to the mouth of that river, in the very forward state of the season, • rendered it necessary,' he says, * to proceed to a nearer place ; and it was determined that we should go hence to Arctic Sound, where we had found animals very abundant, and entering Hood's River,' so named, of course, after Franklin's young officer, ' to advance up the stream as far as it was navigable, and there construct small canoes out of the longer ones. We had already experienced that the country between Cape Barrow and the Coppermine River was m- adequate to supply our party, and it seemed probable that it would be still more impracticable now. Besides, we must expect the frequent recurrence of gales, which would cause 1821 THE LAST MEAL OF MEAT 85 much detention, if not danger, in proceeding along this very rocky part of the coast.' So, then, it was resolved, and so done. The fateful de- cision to return by way of Hood River was taken, it seems, on August 23, and two days later the explorers reached the mouth of the stream to which they had determined to com- mit themselves and their fortunes. ' Our pemmican,' writes Franklin, ' was now reduced so low that we could only issue a few mouthfi Is to each person.' Already, indeed, the grave apprehension seems to have occurred to them that they might not live to tell the tale of their adventures. In crossing Riley's Bay ' a tin case was thrown overboard, containing an outline of oui proceedings hitherto, and the latitude of the part we turned back from, with a request that it might be forwarded to the Admiralty if picked up.' For another ten days they pursued their way up the Hood River, but on September 3 it became evident that they must abandon it. It was bearing far too much to the westward, and their observations told them that to follow its course would lead them away from the direct route to Fort Enterprise, their destination. Accordingly, on the day named, they definitely resolved to quit its banks, and to strike across the country in a south-westerly direction. Henceforth their journey had to be performed almost entirely on foot over a stony and barren country, but they carried their canoes with them against the event of having to cross any lakes or riven that might lie on the route, or that flowed in the right direction. And at this point begins a story of unexampled sufferings and of unrivalled fortitude — an ordeal extending with rare and brief intermissions over a period of more than two months. ' We sat down to breakfast at 10.30 on September 4,' writes Franklin in his manuscript journal ; ' and this,' he adds quietly, ' finished the remainder of our meat' Henceforth, and until they should arrive at the distant station where they hoped to find provisions stored for them, they were to be dependent on what they could find in that inhospitable region for their daily food ; and they did not find much. Later in the day the hunters ' saw several reindeer, principally males, . '' I I ' AM I i- 1 ' , I I 1: i£ THE FIOIIT WITH FAMINE OH. V. (' going to the southward, but could not get them.' To add to their discomforts, a violent storm of wind and rain set in and lasted for the better part of three days. The party, while it was at its height, remained in their tents, but on the third day they determined to push on. They feared from this sudden and totally unexpected change in the weather that winter had begun in earnest, and thought that by delay they would be exposed to increased difficulties, which they would be loss able to combat when reduced to a more weakly state by the pangs of hunger. Orders were accordingly given for a start, but it was no easy matter to carry them out. ' The tents and bed- clothes were frozen, and even our garments were stiffened by frcst and exposure to the keen wind, which blew so piercingly that no one could keep his hands long out of his mittens, and the men, therefore, had great difficulty in arranging their packages. We had no means of making a fire, the r.ioss, at all times difficult to kindle, being covered by the ice and snow. On being exposed to the air I became quite faint with hunger, but on eating a small piece of portable soup I was soon suffi- ciently recovered to move on with the party. We commenced our cheerless march at lo A.M. The ground was covered with snow a foot in depth, and we had to pass across swamps and marshy places, sometimes stepping up to the knee in water, and at others on the side of a slippery stone which often brought us down. The men who carried the canoes had a most laborious task. They even frequently fell down, either prostrated by the violence of the wind or by the insecurity of their steps.' One of these accidents ht.d a very serious result. * The best canoe was so damaged as to be rendered wholly useless. This was indeed a serious misfortune to us, as the remaining canoe had been made through mishap too small, and we were doubtful whether it would be sufficient to trans- port the party across any river.' But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. * As the accident could not now be remedied, we determined on turning the materials to the best account. We made a fire of the bark and timbers, and cooked the remainder of the soup and arrowroot.' The meal, though scanty enough for men who had been three days fasting, ii 1821 « 'ri7 rUIPK DK ROCHE' 67 seemed lo allay their hunger and refresh them. ' We pro- ceeded in the afternoon over some gravelly hills and across small marshy meadows, and encamped at 6 r.M. A few par- tridges were killed, and half a one was issued to each person. This, boiled with a small quantity of tripe de roc/ie, formed our supper. A few willows were collected from under the snow, which served to cook our meal and thaw our frozen shoes so that they could be changed.' As the Arctic delicacy above referred to is destined 1o play a very prominent though iiot very agreeable part in the subsequent narrative, it may be as well to pause at this first mention of it to give a brief account of its character and properties. Tripe de roche, then, is simply a lichen peculiar to these latitudes, and known to botanists, by reason of its circular form and the surface of the leaf being marked with curved lines, as Gyrophora. It is described, with some excess of scientific politeness, as ' edible ; ' the fact being that it can be eaten,, thoup^h with extreme difficulty and distaste, by most people, and by others not at all. Hood, as will appear later, belonged to the latter class. Dr. Richardson's account of its qualities and effects is highly unfavourable. ' We used it,' he says, 'as an article of food, but, not having the means '^f extracting the bitter principle from it, it proved nauseous to all, and noxious to several of the party, producing severe bowel complaints.' On this wretched stuff and what remained to them of their ' bag ' of partridges they subsisted for the next three days ; and on the loth, when matters were again becoming serious, they espied, to their great joy, a herd of musk-oxen grazing in a neighbouring valley. The party instantly halted, and all the hunters were sent out. We beheld their proceedings with the utmost anxiety from the brow of a hill for nearly two hours, and many, I have no doubt, offered fervent prayers for their success. At length they fired, and, to our infinite satisfaction and relief, we beheld an animal fall to the ground, and a second badly wounded, which escaped from them and fled with the rest of the herd. This success infused spirit into our breasts, and animated every countenance. We hastily proceeded to join the hunters, but n 'I' "J S I 88 THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE OH. V. n i i m A « 4 I m before our arrival the animal was skinned and cut up. Our appetites were so keen that the raw intestines were eaten on the spot, and pro- nounced to be excellent. The men requested we might encamp. The tents were quickly pitched ; some willows which peeped above the snow were speedily gathered, a fire made, and supper cocked, which was eaten with avidity, the first hearty meal we had had since the morning of September 4. Two of the hunters went afier the herd after supper, but could not come up with them. The flesh of the mu«k-ox lasted them for three days ; and on the fourth they were reduced to their fungoid diet once more. Their journey, too, was now interrupted by dis- couraging obstacles. On the 13th they found their way barred by a vast lake, and were compelled to coast its rocky shores all that day and part of the next, in the vain endeavour to find a suitable crossing-place. Finding at length that it appeared to terminate in a river at a few miles from their last night's encampment, they resolved on proceeding thither. ' Here,' writes Franklin, * I cannot forbear mentioning an act of kindness performed by Perrault, one of our Canadian 'voyageurSf which won the deepest gratitude from every officer. When they were assembled round a small fire, and on the point of starting, he presented each of us with a small piece of meat which he had saved from his own allowance. This act of generosity, so totally unexpected, and coming at such a seasonable time, crew forth tears.' Hardly had this touching incident occurred, when gun- shots we'-e heard in the direction the party were proposmg to advance, and soon afterwards the voyageur Credit appeared with the welcome intelligence that he had killed two deer. Once again, then, they had been lescued from starvation ; but it was, on the whole, a day of more disaster than good fortune. The canoe in which Franklin attemptd to cross the river was upset, and, although he himself escaped and made his way v/ith difficulty to the opposite bank, the portfolio containing the greater part of his astronomical and meteoro- logical observations was irrecoverably lost. The fate of the canoe itself was for some time in doubt, and ' I cannot,' n^cords Franklin, ' express my sentiment on viewing the melancholy scene. Standing, as I did, perfectly alone, un- ' u 1821 LAST CANOE BROKEN 89 provided either with gun or ammunition, separated from my companions by the fatal stream, and conscious that if the canoe should be destroyed or rendered so ineffective as to be unable to carry the party across, I never could regain them, my relief and joy can easily be imagined when I perceived the canoe was safe. The officers were so kind as to embark a person to make a fire for me by the first conveyance.' They afterwards moved a little higher up, and the whole party, with their baggage, effected a crossing in safety, though the canoe filled with water at every traverse. This was September 14, and for another week they struggled slowly on, subsisting mainly on tripe de roche^ with the occasional addition of a chance partridge or two, though they were reduced on one day of exceptional straits to devour- ing some fragments of deer skin and bones, the leavings of the wolves that had killed the animals in the pre^ ious spring. So they fared till the 26th, when again they were lucky enough to shoot five small deer, and to fill their bellies for the first time for many days with a subs^iantial meal. But the leader of the party could have found little in these chance strokes of good fortune to relieve the anxiety which his ever-darkening prospects must have inspired. A new cause of disquietude had now presented itself in the demoralisation of the Canadian voya^eurs. Peltier, who had received several severe falls in carrying the remaining canoe, refused to be burdened with it any longer, and it was handed over to Vaillant, one of his comrades. The man seemed at first to be managing it so well that Franklin left him a little in the rear, and went on to join the party in advance ; but some time afterwards, on going back to search for the men, who were long in coming up, Franklin found to his horror that they had left the canoe behind them. It had been, they alleged, so completely broken by another fall as to be rendered incapable of repair and entirely useless. ' The anguish this intelligence occa- sioned may be conceived,' he writes, ' but it is beyond my power to describe it. Impressed, however, with the necessity of taking it forward, even in the state in which these men represented it to be, we urgently desired them to fetch it ; Ji: > 1 I , 90 THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE CH. V. 1821 but they declined going, and the strength of the officers was inadequate to the task. To their infatuated obstinacy on this occasion a great portion of the melancholy circumstances which attended our subsequent progress may perhaps be attributed.' But the wretched voyageurs had, it is evident, got completely out of hand. ' The men now seem.ed to have lost all hope of being preserved ; and all the arguments we could use failed in stimulating them to the least exertion.' On the 26th of the month they at last struck the Copper- mine River, and, as their shortest way to Fort Enterprise was t(. cross to the opposite bank as soon as possible, the loss of ^he canoe was now severely felt ; for, thougii the current was swift and there were two rapids in this part of its course, it could have been crossed in a canoe with ease and safety. The river was carefully examined for a ford, but in vain. Then it was suggested that a raft might be made of the willows growing in the neighbourhood, or even that the framework of a boat might be constructed with them and covered with the canvas of the tents ; but both those schemes had to be abandoned through the obstinacy of the interpreters and the most experienced voyageurs, who de- clared that neither raft nor boat would prove adequate to the conveyance of the party, and that they would only be losing valuable time in making the attempt. The far<- w.is that the men did not believe they had reached the Coppermine River, and it needed all the repeated and confident assurance of their officers that they were within forty miles of Fort Enterprise to rouse them from their despondency. They at bst began to look more favourably on the boat-building scheme, but it was found that there were no willows tall enough to form the frame of a sufficiently large canoe. The alternative of the raft had to be definitely adopted, and a search was made along the border of Point Lake, which they had reached by this time, for timber suitable to the purpose. The search was fruitless. It led them only to an arm of the lake stretching so far away to the north-east that the idea of rounding it and travelling over so barren a country was * dreadful,' the more so as it was to be feared that other arms equally large might 1821 HEROISM OF RICHARDSON 91 obstruct their path, and that the strength of the party would fail long before they could reach the only part where they were certain of finding pine wood, a point twenty-five miles distant in a direct line. ' While wc halted to consider of this subject and to collect our party, the carcase of a deer was discovered in the cleft of a rock into which it had fallen in the spring. It was putrid, but it was little less acceptable to us on that account in our present circumstances, and, a fire being kindled, it was devoured on the spot.' Refreshed by this horrible meal, the voyageurs took a more favourable view of the willow considered as a raft-building material, and declared their belief that it would be quite possible to cross the stream on a willow-built raft The party accordingly having returned about a mile towards the rapid, encamped in a willow copse, and the work of con- struction was at once set about. The day following (September 29) was signalised by an act of such splendid and indeed reckless devotion, that, though Franklin himself was not the hero of it, the course of this narrative must be arrested for a moment in order to record it in his own words : — The men commenced at an early hour to bind up the willows in faggots for the construction of the raft, which was completed by seven o'clock, but as the sticks were green the raft was not sufiSciently buoyant to support more than one man. We hoped, however, that if a line could be carried across by this person, the whole party might be transported over the river by hauling the raft backwards and for- wards. Several attempts were made by Belanger and Benoit to convey the raft across, but ineffectually for want of oars. Whenever they had got a short distance from the shore they could not reach bottom with the longest pole we could construct (by tying all the tent- poles together), ?.nd then their paddle, which was the only substitute for an oar we had, was inefficient to prevent the raft from being driven into the shore again by the current and a strong breeze, which blew from the opposite side of the river. During these trials all the men had suffered extremely from the coldness of the water (the tempera- ture being 38°), in which they were necessarily immersed, and having witnessed these repeated failures we began to consider the scheme as hopeless. At this time, Dr. Richardson, prompted by a noble and humane desire to relieve his suffering companions, proposed to swim across the river with a line, and when landed to haul the raft over ; but ^7 ( n iH . m \ \ 'i,-:\i 1 if n i»i 03 THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE CH. V. this service had near cost his valuable life. He launched into the stream Mrith the line round his middle, but when he hac. got a short distance from the land his arms became benumbed with the cold and he lost the power of moving them. Still he persevered, and, turning on his back, had nearly gained the opposite shore, when to our infinite alarm we beheld him sink. Happily, the direction he had previously given to haul upon the line was understood, and by our doing so he again appeared upon the surface and was then gently dragged to the shore. He could just articulate when landed. We placed him between blankets, which were arranged before a fire near the spot, and fortunately he was in a state to give some general directions respecting the manner of treating him, and by the blessing of God, and to our great relief, he recovered strength gradually, and after a few hours could converse. We regretted then to learn that the skin of the left side of his body was deprived of feeling owing to the too great heat of the fire, and I am sorry to add he suffered from that inconvenience some months. When he was about to step first into the water he placed his foot on a large dagger-like stone, and received a gash to the bone, but this misfortune did not prevent him from attempting to execute his generous undertaking. Then follows this piteously graphic detail : — I cannot forbear to mention how shocked every one was at seeing his debilitated frame when he had undressed, a perfect skeleton of skia and bone. The sight drew from each person an involuntary sigh, and from many of our Canadian voyageurs the pathetic exclama- tion, ' Ah ! que nous sotnmes maigres ! ' A new and more efficient raft was constructed, but the wind, which had been rising, was now too high to allow of their using it. To add to their discomfort, heavy snowfalls set in, and for three days they were detained in their food less condition, living on scraps of leather and tripe de roche, and unable to cross the river which lay between them and their homeward ro>'ite. At last the gradual conversion of the voyageurs advanced a further stage. They had risen from the conception of a pinewood to that of a willow raft, and one of them now went further and ' proposed to make a canoe of the fragments of painted canvas in which we wrapped our bedding. The proposal met with an eager assent, and after two days spent upon it the work was pronounced finished. The canoe was brought to the beach, where all the party were i^ 1821 GROWING FEEBLER 98 assembled in anxious expectation. St. Germain embarked in it amid the heartfelt prayers of his comrades for his success, and contrived to reach the opposite shore. The ranoe was then drawn back again by the rope attached to it, and another person transported ; and in this manner, by drawing it back- wards and forwards, the whole party were conveyed over without any serious accident.' On their reaching the southern bank of the Coppermine River, which at this part of its course flows nearly east and west, the variable spirits of the voyageurs revived in an extra- ordinary manner. Each of them shook the officers by the hand, declaring that they now considered the worst of their difficulties over, and they did not doubt of reaching Fort Enterprise in a few days even in their feeble condition. Franklin, however, as he was not liable to their fi .s of pro- found depression, so did not share their excessive elation. Judging it to be impossible that the entire party could hold out against famine for the long period of time it would take them to reach Fort Enterprise in their debilitated state, he despatched Back, who was the youngest and most robust of the party, to the Fort with three of the voyageurs to bring back supplies with all possible speed from the store which he had engaged the Indians to deposit at that station. He himself, with Richardson, Hood, Hepburn, the eight remain- ing voyageurs, and an Iroquois named Michel, struggled on in the rear. Snow had been falling heavily and lay deep on the ground, making their progress distressingly slow. Mr. Hood, who was now very feeble, and Dr. Richardson, who attached himself to him, walked together at a gentle pace in the rear of the party. I kept with the foremost men, to cause them to halt occasionally until the stragglers came up. i ■ « > p ■. %m-' \ \ \' W^ They supped that night off tripe de roche and some scraps of roasted leather. The distance completed by them had been only six miles. In the course of the next day two of the Canadians, Credit and Vaillant, fell out of the party, and one of their companions came up with the main body bringing the sad tidings that they were unable to proceed further. '!? )1 94 THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE CH. V. i W Some willows being discovered in a valley near to us, I proposed to halt the party there while Dr. Richardson went back to visit them. I hoped, too, that when the sufferers received the information of a fire being ki idled at so short a distance they would be cheered, and use their utmost efforts to reach it ; but this proved a vain hope. The Doctor found Vaillant about a mile and a half in the rear, much ex- hausted with cold and fatigue. Having encouraged him to advance to the fire, after repeated solicitations he made the attempt, but fell down in the deep snow at every step. Leaving him in this situation, the Doctor went about half a mile further back to the spot where Credit was said to have halted, but, the track being nearly obliterated, it became unsafe for him to go further. Returning, he passed Vaillant, who, having moved only a few yards during his absence, had fallen down, was unable to rise, and could scarcely answer his questions. Being unable to afford him any effectual assistance, he hastened on to inform us of his situation. Another of the voyageurs, J. B. Belanger, then volunteered to go back to Vaillant and bring up his burden. On his return with it he stated that he had found the poor fellow lying on his back, benumbed with cold and incapable of being roused. The stoutest men of the party were earnestly entreated to bring him to the fire, but they declared them- selves, as indeed might well be the case, unequal to the task. A consultation was now held among the officers. Franklin felt that the time had come when the resolution which all no doubt had foreseen and all dreaded must at last be definitely taken. It had become only too clear that the remnant of the little party which had dared and suffered so much together must separate. The Canadians were too weak to bear their burdens further. They begged that they might be allowed to throw them down in order that they might make their way to Fort Enterprise before their strength failed them altogether. Franklin could not but feel that their prayer was irresistible, and that they must be relieved of their loads if their lives were to be saved. Hood, moreover, was now almost too feeble to advance further, and Dr. Richardson offered to remain behind with him and a single attendant, together with any other member of the party who might wish to halt, at the first place at which sufficient wood could be found and enough tripe de roche for ten days' consumption. Franklin in the 182] THE PARTY SEPARATE 00 meantime was to proceed as expeditiously as possible with the other men to the Fort, and send back to them an immediate supply of provisions. The greater part of the ammunition was also to be left behind with Richardson and Hood, as it was hoped that this deposit might be an induce- ment to the Indians to venture a :ross the Barren Lands to their relief. 'This proposal,' writes Franklin, 'was acceded to on my part, though the idea of even a temporary separation from my friends in affliction was extremely distressing to my feelings ; but this would be the only arrangement which could contribute to the safety of the party.' The morning of the next day was mild, with a light breeze from the south, a change of temperature encouraging to the minds of men who contemplated encamping ; and on arriving at a cluster of pines a few miles from their last night's resting-place, a tent was pitched, and Dr. Richardson, Hood, and Hepburn prepared to take up their quarters in it. The offer was again repeated that any of the men who felt themselves too weak to proceed at a quick pace should remain behind, but none accepted it. Franklin accordingly set off with seven of the voyageurs, and the party toiled painfully on through deep snow for about four miles and a half, when they were obliged to encamp ; but by this time two of his companions were utterly exhausted. Belanger, one of the voyageurs, burst into tears and, declaring he could go no further, begged to be permitted to go back and join the officers in the rear on the following day. The Iroquois Michel soon afterwards joined in the request. Franklin consented to their returning if they felt as weak the next morning, but endeavoured, with that cheery and indomitable pluck which seems never to have failed him for a moment throughout the whole awful ordeal, to dispel the gloom which this incident had thrown over the party by assuring them that it was but a short distance from the Fort, and that in all probability they would reach it in a few days. No tripe de roche was to be found, and supper consisted of a so-called tea made of herbs. The next morning, Belanger and Michel, not having recovered any of their strength, were sent back again with *i • 1 T . n 1 k 41 y ]{ :m \ # 96 THE FIGHT Wira FAMINE OH. V. m' -l: a letter from Franklin to Dr. Richardson informing him of a more eligible encampment in a pine wood a little further on than the halting-place which had been selected. Perrault was the next to give in and to be sent back, and later in the day Antonio Fontano broke down, and begged, and was permitted, to return. The number of Franklin's companions was now reduced to four — Peltier, Semandr^, Benoit, and Adam. With them he walked on about a mile further, and then encamped for the night under a rocky hill whereon some irtpe de roche was seen growing ; but the weed was frozen so hard upon the rock that the men could not gather it, and were obliged to sup again on the ' country tea ' and some pieces of fried leather. Next day, however, they were enabled to collect some of the lichen, and to enjoy the first meal they had had for four days past. On October lo the famine-stricken men were mocked by the appearance on a neighbouring hill of a herd of reindeer, which they were too feeble and too cold to follow. Again no tripe de roche could be found, and once more the country tea and a few strips of fried leather had to serve them for supper. At last, on October ii, five days after quitting the com- panions they had left behind them. Fort Enterprise came in sight, and as fast as their exhaustion would permit they hurried forward to enter it. But here the most cruel of all their disappointments awaited the starving wanderers. They staggered into the Fort to find it entirely empty ! There was no store of food ; no trace of the Indians who had been so straitly charged, and had so repeatedly promised, to pro- vide it ; no letter from Mr. Wentzel, the official of the North- western Company, who had travelled part of the way with them, to direct them to any spot where provisions might be found. Even at this appalling moment, however, Franklin's first thought was for others. ' Under these distressing cir- cumstances,' he says, ' my mind was instantly filled with a fearful anxiety for our suffering companions who had been left in the rear, whose safety entirely depended on our sending speedy relief from this place. The whole party shed tears, for 1821 A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT 07 it was impossible to divest our minds of the melancholy apprehension that the lives of our companions would in all probability be forfeited.' For their sole comfort they found a letter from vir. Back, dated the same day, and informing them that he /as going to search for the Indians, but was of course doubtful whether he should meet them, as he had no direction t. • follow, and that, if he failed, he intended to proceed to Fort Providence, should the strength of his party permit, and thence send succour to us. It was evident, however, that any relief from Fort Providence would not only be long in reaching Franklin's party, but could not be sufficiently ample to afford succour to their companions behind. The first thing, however, was to replenish, however scantily, their own fast-waning fuel of life. Food, if food it could be called, was sought and found, but they were now to partake of the poorest, not to say the foulest, of all their many miserable meals. They lighted in an outhouse on some rotting deer skins, the refuse of their last winter's sojourn at the Fort ; they grubbed up some old bones from an ash-heap, and these, with tripe de roche, ' we considered would support us tolerably well for a time.' The bones, though quite acrid from decomposition, were ' pounded and boiled with the trtpe de roche and made a very palatable mess.' It was devoured in a temperature ranging from 1 5° to 20° below zero. Their bodily condition was now truly distressing. They were so weak and emaciated as to be unable to move except for a few yards at a time ; they were afflicted with swellings in their joints, limbs, and other parts of their bodies ; their eye- balls were dilated ; they spoke in hollow, sepulchral tones and their mouths were raw and excoriated, as a result of the fare on which they had subsisted. Adam in particular was suffering terribly, and grew daily worse. After nine more days spent under these fearful privations, Franklin resolved to set out, with the voyageur Benoit and the Eskimo Augustus, in search of the Indians, and, equipped with snow-shoes, they started forth on the 20th. On the day after his departure, however, he was unfortunate enough to H !M I i.< I li ' 'f s 4 IN (^ 'i * (. M THE FIGHT WITH FAMINE CH. V. break one of his snow-shoes, and, fearing lest the accident should retard the progress of the party, Franklin returned to Fort Enterprise after giving Benoit careful instructions as to the course he was to pursue. Another week dragged on its course under the same wretched conditions. Adam and Semandrc were now unable to rise from their beds, and Peltier was often too weak to assist his leader in gathering tn'/>e de roche and in searching for bones, which were now becoming more and more hard to find. Nothing, however, could shake Franklin's invincible fortitude or provoke from him a single word of complaint. On the 27th he writes in his journal : — I have this day been twenty-one years in H.M. service, and exposed to many hardships in my professional career, but was never placed in such a melancholy and affecting situation as the present. However, with sincere praises to Almighty God for His past goodness and protection, I will humbly confide in His gracious mercy and hope for deliverance from this severe trial. Two days afterwards, to the great surprise and, for a moment, the unmixed joy of the leader, who had almost given them up for lost, Dr. Richardson and Hepburn crawled painfully into the Fort. But Franklin's gratification at their safety was soon to be dashed by the tale of horror which they had to unfold. Poor Hood was dead, murdered, it wa^ supposed, and it was Richardson's own hand that had exe- cuted justice on his murderer. Of the whole party that had remained behind and had been reinforced by those of Frank- lin's detachment whose strength had failed them, and who had been compelled to return, but these two now survi/ed. Perrault and Belanger, the voyageurs who had fallen out of the advance party, were the first to be missed. They were never again heard of, and, though the manner of their death was never conclusively ascertained, there is the strongest ground for suspicion that they were killed by Michel in order that the wretched man might appease the pangs of famine by devouring their bodies. Before, however, their absence had