Franklin to the Lords of the Admiralty, to
which the said Lords had, at the date of the
memorial, not vouchsafed any reply. Lady
Franklin showed good reason for protesting
against the premature decision that, by the
news brought from the estuary of the Great
Fish River, Dr. Rae had finally ascertained
the fate of Franklin and his crews.

In the first weeks of last June, when the
memorial of the geographers and Arctic
captains was laid before the Board of Admiralty
the letter from Franklin's widow—two
months' old—was still lying unanswered on
its table. In that letter the brave lady had
said, and truly said:

"It is not proved, by any facts we are in
possession of, that the party of white men who
arrived with their large boat (the remains of
which, with many articles belonging to it
have been found) within the estuary of the
Great Fish River, and who are said to have
perished there, were the only survivors of the
crews of the Erebus and Terror, and that
no other remnant of the original ships'
companies, amounting to about a hundred
and thirty- five men, took a different route.
And even as to this (known) boat party,
it has not been traced back to the ships or to
the wrecks from which it was equipped; nor
have the ships been sought for at all, though
there is much reason to conclude from the
nature of the objects brought home by Dr.
Rae, and of others seen by Mr. Anderson on
Montreal Island and the adjacent shore, that
they had been pillaged by the Esquimaux
and were not far distant. What secrets may
be hidden within those wrecked or stranded
ships we know not—what may be buried in
the graves of our unhappy countrymen, or in
caches not yet discovered, we have yet to
learn. The bodies and the graves which we
were told of, have not been found; the books
(journals) said to be in the hands of the
Esquimaux have not been recovered, and thus
left in ignorance and darkness, with so little
obtained and so much yet to learn, can it be
said, and is it fitting to pronounce, that the
fate of the expedition is ascertained?

"That your Lordships did not consider
that this question was resolved by Dr. Rae's
reports at the close of eighteen hundred and
fifty-four, and by the relics which to a certain
extent authenticated them, is shown by your
own proceedings when that tragic intelligence
arrived; for it was immediately decided that
steps must be taken to verify the truth of
these reports, which could not be accepted as
conclusive, and that further intelligence must
be sought for. There was but one feeling in
the country on this sad occasion. No amount
of expense would have been grudged to make
a final expedition of search complete; for it
was felt that, after six long years of failure
and disappointment, the clue which we had
asked and prayed for was now in our hands,
and that England's honour and credit were
concerned in holding it fast and following
it up till it led to the solution of the
mystery.

"My Lords, I shrink from recalling the
pain and woeful disappointment I felt, and
which many others felt with me, when the
response to this generous excitement in the
public mind, and the sole result of your
deliberations, was no more than a birch bark
canoe expedition down the Great Fish River,
confided to the Hudson's Bay Company, but
unsustained by any naval resources. In vain,
was it pleaded that a vessel might be sent to
co-operate with this river party, who, if they
ever reached the sea, could not venture to
embark upon it in their frail canoes; and, if
this were not granted, that at least a naval
officer might accompany and direct the
expedition, since it was well known that the
Hudson's Bay Company, with all their zeal
to accomplish the objects required of them
in the most effectual manner, would not be
able to supply to it an officer competent to
make the indispensable observations for
latitude and longitude. To the credit of Dr. Rae
and of the Hudson's Bay Company's officers
about to be employed, I may observe that he
made a similar recommendation, being
persuaded that those brave and right-minded
servants of the Company would not hesitate
to place themselves under the leadership of
an officer in her Majesty's navy, provided he
were one already tried and distinguished in
Arctic service. To add to the original
deficiencies of this over-land or river expedition,
it failed to secure an interpreter, so that all
the information it has brought back from
the Esquimaux, and that derived chiefly from
a few women, was transmitted only by signs.

"Every praise is due to the exertions of
the two zealous officers who, under all these
disadvantages, were able to accomplish
anything; but it is scarcely to be wondered at if,
after a rapid survey of nine days only, within
a very limited district, which did not extend
even to King William's Island, where our
fugitive countrymen were first seen, they were
compelled by the state of the damaged boats
hastily to return, and have thrown no new
light upon the history of those whose fate
they went to ascertain. Mr. Anderson has
been able to confirm the evidences of a large
party from the Erebus and Terror having
arrived from the sea within the estuary of
the Great Fish River; but his negative
testimony on other matters, such as the bodies
and the graves which were not to be found,
tends rather to throw doubt upon than to
confirm them.

"I may here, perhaps, be allowed to add,
without prejudice to that excellent servant of
the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Anderson,
that he is so far from considering the fate of
the expedition has been fully ascertained by
the results of his late survey, or that there is
nothing more to be done, that he has felt it
to be a duty to express to me since his
return, as he had done before he started, his