As a boy, Franklin, in spite of his father's opposition, determined to be a sailor. At the age of fourteen he was in the Polyphemus at the battle of Copenhagen, and subsequently he was present at the battle of Trafalgar. Peace, then as always, brought unemployment for sailors with it, and at the age of twenty-nine Franklin found himself unwanted in the Navy. When, however, the Admiralty decided, in 1818, to send expeditions to find the North Pole and the North-West Passage, Franklin was chosen to command the Trent. This ship was totally unsuited for such a task, and owing to official economy—not to say parsimony—Franklin had to return without achieving any success.
In the following year he was again sent out with orders to explore the northern coast of Arctic America, and "the trending of that coast from the mouth of the Coppermine eastwards." Not until 1822 did this expedition of discovery come to a close, after 5,550 miles had been covered by water and land.
The tale of its adventures, extraordinary as they were, is only the preface to Franklin's life as an explorer. So famous indeed was he, that when, in 1844, he returned from Tasmania, where he had been Governor for seven years, he was offered the command of an important Arctic expedition. At this time he was nearly sixty years old, but he was anxious to resume his exploratory work, and in 1845 he sailed with the Erebus and the Terror (ships that had already won their laurels under Sir James Ross in the Antarctic).
In the hope of finding the North-West Passage, so much coveted and so long concealed, Franklin was instructed to try a route by Wellington Channel, if ice did not block the way. The channel was found to be clear, and the explorers made their way up it, until they reached 77° N. Then their advance was blocked by ice, and they turned south and found winter quarters off Beechey Island. All, so far, had gone well, and when the ships were released from the ice at the end of the winter, hopes of further success must have run high. But presently a mistake was made that had fatal results—a mistake due to an error of the chart-makers.
For some time the ships sailed gaily on, important discoveries being made from day to day. Then came the fatal decision. All was open to the south. "If they had continued on their southerly course, the two ships would have reached Bering Strait. There was the navigable passage before them. But, alas! the chart-makers had drawn an isthmus (which only existed in their imagination) connecting Boothia with King William Land. They altered their course to the west, and were lost."* Soon the ships were surrounded by a dense ice-pack, and were dangerously imprisoned. In the spring of 1847 travelling parties were sent out, and one of them, under Graham Gore's command, discovered a North-West Passage, and consequently proved the connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. When the parties returned Franklin was seriously ill, and he died on 11th June, 1847.
* Markham's The Lands of Silence (Cambridge University Press).
No more beautiful epitaph has ever been written than the one in Westminster Abbey, which Tennyson wrote in honour of John Franklin, his uncle-in-law:—
"Not here! The cold North hath thy bones, and thou,
Heroic sailor soul,
Art passing on thy happier voyage now
Towards no earthly pole."
A terrible winter for this gallant band of explorers followed. For months and months the ice remained impenetrable, and at last the ships had to be abandoned. Even if the Erebus and the Terror could have been freed from the ice, it was more than doubtful if they would float, so battered were they by their long, slow drift. Food was both inadequate in quantity and poisonous in quality. Twenty-two officers and men died during that winter of horror; the rest were so weak from privations that, although they knew their only chance was to retreat by Back's Fish River, none of them had the strength successfully to undertake such a march.
It is useless to dwell over the sufferings of these heroic men. Captain Crozier and Captain Fitzjames took every precaution, and made all preparations that were under the circumstances possible, but the dice were too heavily loaded against them. With their two heavy boat-sledges they started on 22nd April, 1848, to make their desperate effort. Not one of them survived. The Erebus sank when the ice released her. The Terror also sank, but not until she had drifted on to the American coast and been plundered by Eskimos. It is pitiable to think that prompt action from England might have saved some, at least, of these valuable lives. But at first, although there was considerable anxiety about their fate, no effort was made to find them. Not until 1848 were expeditions sent out in search of Franklin's party, and neither of these was successful in finding any traces. One of these expeditions was, however, noteworthy, for Leopold M'Clintock, who subsequently became so renowned as a sledge-traveller, took part in it.