The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-11 00:00:00

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Although the infamous fabrication which was
lately put forth by the Dundee papers respecting Sir
John Franklin's party was suspected by us to be a
wicked imposture, it bas been suggested that a cir-
cumstantial exposure of the falsehood of its separate
details would be very sati3factory to the many whose
anxieties are greater than their knowledge of the
Arctic question ; we shall, therefore, enumerate the
various points upon which the whole story is made
to rest.

It was stated that on the 19th of June, the whaler
Flora, of Hull, which had been out a year and a half,
arrived at Stromness, and sent off thence her papers
and letters, amongst which was one addressed by the
mate of the Flora, Mr. George Douglas, to his
brother, Mr. John Douglas, living in Ring-street,
Aberdeen. These circumstances are false with-
out exception. No Mr. John Douglas is to be found
or heard of, not a single whaling vessel touched at
Stromness on the date mentioned, nor during the
entire month of June, nor since. No whaling ship
whatever, much less the Flora, of Hull, there being
no such vessel, has been out a year and a half, and by
thus minutely stating the period of her absence, fresh
proof of falsehood is afforded, since it obliges the
Flora to have sailed in the month of January, by more
than two months earlier than it is the practice of the
Davis' Straits whalers to leave England. The writer
has presumed, without shame or limit, upon the igno-
rance of his readers.

But we have not done with enumerating the
falsehoods of this wicked production. The above
statements preface the supposed letter from Mr.
George Douglas, and are given upon the authority of
a Mr. Thomas Reid, whose existence under that
name we may presume to be as fabulous as the al-
legations with which he ventures to delude the public
mind.

The writer is made to state that in February last
the crew made a snow house on the land, the precise
position being judiciously suppressed, the ship having
at that time been frozen in Lancaster Sound for five
months ; that they were visited by Esquimaux,
who inquired if they were English or Americans (!).
On being satisfied, they further inquired if they
belonged to Chief Frankum's party, and then made
signs to intimate that some had gone to sleep. It was
finally resolved to visit the spot pointed out by the
Esquimaux, and a party started on the 27th of March,
having previously packed the provisions, arms, &c.,
" into a flat-bottomed boat." The next sentence de-
scribes their journey overland, and the finding, on
the sth of April, of the bodies of four men, the signal
which guided them to the spot being a black silk
handkerchief, tied to a walking-stick, stuck into the
snow above the bodies !

We have avoided giving the useless details, no
less than the writer's reflections, and almost scorn
to employ argument against such paltry and trans-
parent fiction. Who does not know that by no
possibility could a ship which bad been wintering
in Lancaster Sound have reached home on the 19th
June, or eves six weeks later ?—and while we
cannot refuse a passing compliment to the march of
intellect which has suddenly developed the Esqui-
maux appreciation of international distinctions, we
would point out the clumsy discrepancy of making
the narrator stow away provisions in a boat more
than two months before the ice breaks up, the very
next sentence describing their entire journey as being
pursued overland.
We can now only leave the perpetrator of this in-
famous attempt at imposing upon the credulity of the
public to the mercy of those with whom he has suc-
ceeded, adding, by way of warning to all con-
cerned in this most miserable fraud, that we un-
derstand it is intended to prosecute in future
such offenders with the utmost rigour of the law.
We should be well pleased to find that the Govern-
ment had acted upon the proposal of Mr. Anstey in
the House, and themselves instituted a legal process.
Such a step would have more weight than anything
else with those who can steel themselves to every
claim not of sympathy alone, but of the commonest
humanity.—Chronicle.