1852-54—Captain W. S. J. Pullen, of H.M.S. North Star, to Beechey island.
1853—William H. Fawckner, Master, Breadalbane Transport, Beechey island; crushed in the ice and foundered.
1853—Captain E. A. Inglefield, of H.M.S. Phœnix, and Lieutenant Elliott, of the store ship Diligence, to Beechey island.
1853—Dr. John Rae, under Admiralty orders, by sled to Victoria island, and by boat voyage to Victoria strait.
1854—Captain E. A. Inglefield, of H.M.S. Phœnix, and Commander Jenkins, of H.M.S. Talbot, to Beechey island.
1853-54—Dr. John Rae, boat expedition at the expense of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to Repulse bay, and the east side of King William island, bringing the first intelligence of the loss of the Erebus and Terror, and of all their crews.
1853-55—Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, of the United States navy, to Smith sound, Humboldt glacier and Grinnell land.
1855—Chief factor John Anderson, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, canoe voyage down the Great Fish river to Montreal island and Point Ogle, procuring further relics of the Erebus and Terror.
1857-59—Captain F. L. M’Clintock, R.N., in the Fox, Lady Franklin’s yacht, to Peel sound, Regent inlet, Bellot strait, King William island and Montreal island, bringing precise intelligence of the fate of the Erebus and Terror, and a short record of their proceedings.
The above list is taken from ‘The Polar Regions,’ by Sir John Richardson, and gives a very brief statement of the numerous expeditions sent out in search of these ill-fated ships. Lengthy records of most of these expeditions have been published, in which the trials and hardships undergone are recorded in a matter-of-fact way, without any attempt to excite sympathy, and all honour should be paid to the memory of these men, many of them volunteers, for the dangers they passed through in the endeavour to rescue their fellowmen from terrible death by starvation and cold in the inaccessible Arctics. Many lost their own lives, while others drifted all winter in ships crushed between great floes of arctic ice; others, again, travelled through the northern winter, with its short days and intensely cold nights, with only a fireless tent to shield them from death in the howling storms which sweep the treeless regions; all did their duty, and were faithful unto death.