No. I.
A LETTER TO VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, K.G., &c., FROM LADY FRANKLIN.
60, Pall Mall, December 2, 1856.
My Lord,—
I trust I may be permitted, as the widow of Sir John Franklin, to draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the unsettled state of a question which a few months ago was under their consideration, and to express a well-grounded hope that a final effort may be made to ascertain the fate and recover the remains of my husband's expedition.
Your Lordship will allow me to remind you that a Memorial[29] with this object in view (of which I enclose a printed copy) was early in June last presented to, and kindly received by you. It had been signed within forty-eight hours by all the leading men of science then in London who had an opportunity of seeing it, and might have received an indefinite augmentation of worthy names had not the urgency of the question forbidden delay. To the above names were appended those of the Arctic officers who had been personally engaged in the search, and who, though absent, were known to be favorable to another effort for its completion. And though that united application obtained no immediate result, it was felt, and by no one more strongly than myself, that it never could be utterly wasted.
I venture also to allude to a letter of my own addressed to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in April last, and a copy of which accompanied, I believe, the Memorial to your Lordship, wherein I earnestly deprecated any premature adjudication of the reward claimed by Dr. Rae, on the ground that the fate of my husband's expedition was not yet ascertained, and that it was due both to the living and the dead to complete a search which had been hitherto pursued under the greatest disadvantage, for want of the clue which was now for the first time in our hands.
The Memorial above alluded to, and my own letter of earlier date, had not yet received any reply, when, in the month of July, the Lords of the Admiralty caused prompt inquiries to be made as to the possibility of equipping a ship at that advanced season, in time for effective operations in the field of search. The result was that it was pronounced to be too late, and the subject was dismissed for that season.
Upon this I addressed a letter to the Board (of which I take the liberty to enclose a copy), respectfully showing that by this unfortunate delay the opportunity had also been taken from me of sending out a vessel at my own cost, a measure which I had previously felt myself obliged to state to their Lordships would be the alternative of any adverse decision on their part. I pleaded therefore, as the only remedy for the loss of an entire summer season, that the route by Behring Strait was by some of the most competent Arctic officers considered preferable to the eastern route, and that the equipment of a vessel for this direction need not take place before the close of the year.
In reply, their Lordships caused me to be informed that "they had come to the decision not to send any expedition to the Arctic regions in the present year."