My second in command was Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, R.N., an officer already distinguished in Arctic service. Captain Allen Young joined me as sailing-master, contributing not only his valuable services but largely of his private funds to the expedition. This gentleman had previously commanded some of our very finest merchant ships, the latest being the steam-transport 'Adelaide' of 2500 tons: he had but recently returned, in ill health, from the Black Sea, where he was most actively employed during the greater part of the Crimean campaign. Nothing that I could say would add to the merit of such singularly generous and disinterested conduct. David Walker, M.D., volunteered for the post of surgeon and naturalist; he also undertook the photographic department; and just before sailing, Carl Petersen, now so well known to Arctic readers as the Esquimaux interpreter in the expeditions of Captain Penny and Dr. Kane, came to join me from Copenhagen, although landed there from Greenland only six days previously, after an absence of a year from his family: we were indebted to Sir Roderick Murchison and the electric telegraph for securing his valuable services.
ASSISTANCE FROM PUBLIC DEPARTMENTS.
Like the Paris omnibuses we were at length tout complet, and quite as anxious to make a start.
Ample provisions for twenty-eight months were embarked, including preserved vegetables, lemon-juice, and pickles, for daily consumption, and preserved meats for every third day: also as much of Messrs. Allsopp's stoutest ale as we could find room for. The Government, although declining to send out an expedition, yet now contributed liberally to our supplies. All our arms, powder, shot, powder for ice-blasting, rockets, maroons, and signal mortar, were furnished by the Board of Ordnance. The Admiralty caused 6682 lbs. of pemmican to be prepared for our use. Not less than 85,000 lbs. of this invaluable food have been prepared since 1845 at the Royal Clarence Victualing Yard, Gosport, for the use of the Arctic Expeditions. It is composed of prime beef cut into thin slices and dried over a wood fire; then pounded up and mixed with about an equal weight of melted beef fat. The pemmican is then pressed into cases capable of containing 42 lbs. each. The Admiralty supplied us with all the requisite ice-gear, such as saws from ten to eighteen feet in length, ice-anchors, and ice-claws: also with our winter housing, medicines, pure lemon-juice, seamen's library, hydrographical instruments, charts, chronometers, and an ample supply of arctic clothing which had remained in store from former expeditions. The Board of Trade contributed a variety of meteorological and nautical instruments and journals; and I found that I had but to ask of these departments for what was required, and if in store it was at once granted. I asked, however, only for such things as were indispensably necessary.
DONATION FROM ROYAL SOCIETY.
The President and Council of the Royal Society voted the sum of 50l. from their donation fund for the purchase of magnetic and other scientific instruments, in order that our anticipated approach to so interesting a locality as the Magnetic Pole might not be altogether barren of results.
Being desirous to retain for my vessel the privileges she formerly enjoyed as a yacht, my wishes were very promptly gratified; in the first instance by the Royal Harwich Yacht Club, of which my officers and myself were enrolled as members—the Commodore, A. Arcedeckne, Esq., presenting my vessel with the handsome ensign and burgee of the Club; and shortly afterwards by my being elected a member of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club for the period of my voyage. Lastly, upon the very day of sailing, I was proposed for the Royal Yacht Squadron, to which the yacht had previously belonged when the property of Sir Richard Stratton.
REFLECTIONS UPON THE UNDERTAKING.
Throughout the whole period required for our equipment, I constantly experienced the heartiest co-operation and earnest good will from all with whom my varied duties brought me in contact. Deep sympathy with Lady Franklin in her distress, her self-devotion and sacrifice of fortune, and an earnest desire to extend succor to any chance survivors of the ill-fated expedition who might still exist, or at least, to ascertain their fate, and rescue from oblivion their heroic deeds, seemed the natural promptings of every honest English heart. It is needless to add that this experience of public opinion confirmed my own impression that the glorious mission intrusted to me was in reality a great national duty. I could not but feel that, if the gigantic and admirably equipped national expeditions sent out on precisely the same duty, and reflecting so much credit upon the Board of Admiralty, were ranked amongst the noblest efforts in the cause of humanity any nation ever engaged in, and that, if high honor was awarded to all composing those splendid expeditions, surely the effort became still more remarkable and worthy of approbation when its means were limited to one little vessel, containing but twenty-five souls, equipped and provisioned (although efficiently, yet) in a manner more according with the limited resources of a private individual than with those of the public purse. The less the means, the more arduous I felt was the achievement. The greater the risk—for the 'Fox' was to be launched alone into those turbulent seas from which every other vessel had long since been withdrawn—the more glorious would be the success, the more honorable even the defeat, if again defeat awaits us.
LADY FRANKLIN'S VISIT.