The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-24 00:00:00

THE FATE OF -F.R.ANKLIN.

ANOTHER SHIP AND HER CREW IN
DANGER.
Collinson and his crew ate yet among the ice. Are
they to be abandoned—to bs left, as Franklin and his
1 companions were, the victils of searches tardily insti-
-2 teted, carried on with implicit deference to official super-
ciliousness, and amid discreditable jealousies and squab-
bling on the part of those employed ? In discussing this
question the recent intelligence supplied by Dr. Rae has,
1 therefore, a practical interest. It ought to be critically
2 examined, and also with a view- to detect the errors
which have frustrated the searches after Franklin's ex-
pedition. This scrutiny ought to be conducted with
caution, modesty, and passion, but also with the most
fearless frankness.

With regard, then, to the probability of the story.
Let us leave out of view at first the corroborative
testimony of the articles procured from the Esqui-
maux. Without them the story rests entirely upon the
evidence of Esquimaux, and, moreover, of Esquimaux
who knew it only from the report of others. The re-
ports daily received from the seat of war show how
easily even civ;lieed and educated men can distort the
truth, and work up incomplete oral communications into
adventurous romances. Mach more must this be the
case among men of a limited range of ideas and an im-
perfectly developed language. The• accounts received
from the Esquimaux may be a combination of reports
of shipwrecked men met on the ice, with reminiscences
of the sufferings of Dr. Richardson's party on their
overland return. But the articles bearing the name
and crest of Franklin and the initials of several of his
companions prove that some of them must have been
met with by Esquimaux, the range of whose migrations
is known. That they were met to the west of Boothia
Felix, between the northern extremity of that penin-
sula and the mainland of America, seems certain.
The details of their horrible fate may be received
with more or less of scepticism, but there ap-
pear no reasonable grounds of doubt that it has a sub-
stantial basis of truth. It follows from this conclusion
that Franklin and his companions had been compelled
to abandon their ships, and that they perished in an at-
tempt to reach the Hudson's Bay settlements.
The next question that suggests itself is, when and
where were they obliged to abandon their ships? In
what year did they tread their weary pilgrimage across
the ice ? From what point did they start on that journey
to the tomb? According to Dr. Rae, the Esquimaux
state that the party of
_white men who perished was met
in the spring four years ago, that is in 1850. None of
the Esquimaux met by Dr. Rae had themselves seen the
white men ; theirs is mere hearsay testimony. Besides,
without characters to record their dates, their statements
about time are little to be relied upon. The four years
could only be received as an approximation to the
truth. But here an extraneous record comes to our
assistance. It was in 1850 that the traces of Franklin's
party ware first discovered at Cape Riley. No traces of
them have been discovered further to the north or fur•
Cher west. The story of the Esquimaux is, that the
white men intimated they had lost their ship in the ice.
From these facts we feel inclined to infer that Franklin's
expedition never got far up Wellington Strait ; that they
had, near its mouth, er in attempting to proceed west-
ward, been embedded in the ice ; that they had clungto
their ships till their provisions began to fail, and then
commenced their dreary journey to the southward, for
they were in want of provisions when met by the Esqui-
maux. The date of these events cannot be later
than 1850, when the solitary traces of the party
were found at Cape Riley and Beechoy Island. They may
have happened ae late as 1849, for to that time, according
to letters from Franklin, he thought his provisions might
be stretched out. With these few mementoes it may now
be allowed to associate a report which created sonic sen-
sation at the time, but was soon forgotten. We allude
to the reports of two ships having been seen in 1851 on
a field of ice, by the captain of a vessel sailing from Ire-
land to the St. Lawrence.
The reports of the Esquimaux, the traces found at the
entry of Wellington Strait, the report of two ships seen
on an ice-field nearly in the latitude of Newfoundland—
these are scanty data whereon to build a history of the
fate of Franklin's expedition. And yet they seem to
point irresistibly to the conclusion that so late as 1849 or
1850 Franklin, with the remains of his crew, abandoned
their vessels somewhere to the south-west of the entry
of Wellington Straits, struggled across the ice to the
shore of America near the mouth of the Great Fish
River, and there perished through hunger.
They appear to have been struggling onward after the
search for them had begun. They would seem to have
Leen at no great distance from some of those in search
of them. To what are we to attribute the entire failure
of the searching expeditions ? We are dispo'sed to attri-
bute it mainly to three causes.
In the first place, the expedition seat out in 1848,
under Sir James Ross, was not peremptorily instructed
to look first at the point traces of the musing ships and
crews where most likely to be found. Sir John Franklin
bad explicitly declared to more than one individual, be-
fore he left England, that he intended to proceed up
Wellington Straits. It was at the mouth of Wellington
Straits that the only traces of him found by Europeans
were met with. Had the expedition of 1848 proceeded
first to Wellington Straits, Franklin and his companions
might have been fallen in with.
In the second place, after it bad been shown to be
probable that Wellington Straits were the most likely
locality to find traces of Franklin, all the vessels fitted
out by various parties crowded thither—confinei their
researches exclusively to them. Instead of trying to
spread themselves over the seas south, west, and north
of the inlet, they all rushed into it.
Lastly, the proposals of Dr. King, Dr. M'Cormick,
and Dr. Rae to explore the shores and seas to the south
of the line of research pursued by the naval expeditions
were systematically pooh-poohed. The circumstance that
Franklin and his crews, having lost their ships, might be
struggling over the ice to the south was wilfully and sys-
tematically ignored. Yet the statements which Dr. Rae
has collected from the Esquimaux anti the articles he has
picked up among them make it certain thatan overland boat
expedition descending the first river, had it been sent
out in time, would in all probability have saved at least
a remnant of the crews.
To what have these errors been owing ? In the first
place, to the tardiness of the permanent Admiralty offi-
cials in instituting the search. In We second place, to
their obstinate and exclusive preference of large and
costly naval expeditions, which placed the distribution
of patronage in their hands, and their discouragement
of less pretentious expeditions, which would not thus
have gratified their jobbing propensities or vanity.
In the third place., to that pedantry which would
Rot even listen with courtesy to any •but profes-
sional advice--meaning by professional not even nauti-
cal opinion in the widest acceptation of the term,
but the opinion of mere fighting nauticals. What is
now known shows that, in the controversies of the last
seven years the landsmen have been nearer the mark
than the sailors—the sailors of the merchant service
than the officers of the Royal Navy. But the favourit-
ism of the Admiralty—its permanent officials—entrusted
the research almost exclusively to the officers of the
Royal Navy, listened only to their proposals, reserved
for them all honour and emoluments.
Thus have the permanent officials of the Admiralty
prevented Franklin from being saved. His blood, and
the blood of his brave companions, is on their heads !
Is the fate of Colliuson and his crew to be left in the
hands of such men ? Are they to be abandoned without
one effort more ? Or is the task of seeking for them to
be entrusted to the cancers of the loss of Franklin ?
Daily News.

MARKET .NEWS-(THIS DAY.)

HAY MARKETS.

Shirr/from—Meadow hay, 21 lOs to 41 10s ; clover
ditto, 414 s to 61 Cs; and straw, 11 6s to 11 12s per load.
Supply moderate ana trade rather dull.
UUMBiRLAND.—AIoadow hay, 21 12s to 41 12s ; clover
ditto, 41 03 to 5/ 15s; and straw, 118 s to 11 14s per load.
Both hay and straw moved off slowly, at •ur quotations.
WHITECFIAPEL.—Meadow hay, 2/ 10s to 4t lOs; clover
ditto, 4/ Os to 6! Os ; and straw, 11 6s to 1/ 12s per load.
Trade steady.