338
ONCE A WEEK.
[October 22, 1859.
THE LAST VOYAGE OP SIB JOHN FRANKLIN.
BY CAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN, R.N.
Stopped by the Ice. (See page Ml.)
“There is yet one thing left undone, whereby
a great mind may become notable,” wrote worthy
Master Purchas — that one deed was the discovery of
a north-west passage to the Indies. Many long years
afterwards, the words of the good Dean of St. Paul’s
sounded like a trumpet-call to his countrymen,
and many an aspiring spirit essayed to do that
deed whereby bright honour and immortality were
to be won. The
veil which hid
from human ken
the mysteries of
the Arctic zone
was not to be
rent by one bold
stroke; it was to
be the test of
British persever-
ance, patience,
and hardihood.
The frozen north would only re- veal its wonders slowly and un- willingly to the brave men who devoted them- selves to the task.
The dread realms of frost and silence were only to be penetrated by the labours of two generations of seamen and travellers. The consummation of the discovery of the north-west passage was to be obtained but by the self-sacrifice of a hundred heroes.
From 1815 to 1833 England sent forth her sons to the north in repeated expeditions by sea and
land. The earnestness of many eminent public
men, members of the Royal Society — such as Sir
John Barrow and Sir Francis Beaufort — kept
general interest directed to those regions, in
which Frobisher, Baffin, Davis, and Fox had so
nobly ventured. There were no falterers; every
call for volunteers was nobly responded to by
officers of the Royal Navy; and John Franklin,
Richardson, John and James Ross, Parry, Back, and King, with much devotion, toil, and suffering, forced open the portals beyond which the Eliza- bethan school of discoverers had not been able to penetrate, and added much to our knowledge of the geography and physical con- dition of the Arc- tic zone between Greenland and Behring’s Straits. Fifteen years of labour hadfailed, however, to solve the question as to the actual existence of a water communication between the Pacific and Atlantic. Repeated disappointment had damped public zeal. Just at this juncture, between 1838 and 1843, the success of Captain Sir James Ross in an expedition to the Antarctic
Pole with H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, as well