The North Star, an old twenty-six-gun frigate, of 500 tons, had in the meantime, in the spring of 1849, been despatched with provisions for Sir James Ross, under command of Mr J. Saunders. Having got blocked in by the ice for sixty-two days, she was compelled to winter in Wolstenholme Sound, on the western coast of Greenland.
Immediately on the return of the Enterprise and Investigator they were re-commissioned, and placed under the command of Captain B. Collinson, with directions to proceed to Behring’s Straits, to resume the search in that direction. HMS Plover, Commander Moore, was already there, employed in surveying the north-western coasts of the American continent.
The following were the officers appointed to them:—
“Enterprise.”
Captain, R. Collinson; Lieutenants, G.A. Phayre, J.J. Barnard, and C.T. Jago; master, R.T.G. Legg; second master, Francis Skead; mate, M.T. Parks; surgeon, Robert Anderson; assistant surgeon, Edward Adams; clerk in charge, Edward Whitehead. Total complement, sixty-six.
“Investigator.”
Commander, B.J. McClure; Lieutenants, W.H. Haswell and S.G. Cresswell; mates, H.H. Saintsbury and R.J. Wyniatt; second master, Stephen Court; surgeon, Alexander Armstrong, MD; assistant surgeon, Henry Piers; clerk in charge, Joseph C. Paine. Total complement, sixty-six.
Mr Miertsching, a Moravian missionary, who had spent five years on the coast of Labrador, was appointed to the Enterprise as interpreter. The vessels sailed from Plymouth on the 20th of January 1850, and reached the Sandwich Islands on the 29th of June. Meantime the Herald, Captain Kellet, had been ordered up from Oahu to Behring’s Straits, to assist in the search. At Petropaulski she met the Royal Thames Yacht Club schooner Mary Dawson, owned by Mr Shedden, who had come along the Chinese coast to Behring’s Straits, also in search of Sir John Franklin. After exploring for some time in company, they were compelled by the ice to leave the Straits; but the Plover wintered there, while Lieutenant Pullen led a boat expedition of a most arduous nature along the northern shores of America, towards the Hudson’s Bay establishment on the Mackenzie River. Sir John Richardson also led a land party from the south to the Polar seas, but was compelled to return without discovering any trace of the expedition.
In 1846, also, the Hudson’s Bay Company sent out an expedition, commanded by Dr John Rae, to survey the unexplored portion of the American continent, between the farther point reached by Dease and Simpson and the strait of the Fury and Hecla.
In the year 1850 several expeditions were sent out. The first consisted of HMS Resolute and Assistance, Captain Ommaney, with the screw-steamers Pioneer, Lieutenant Osborn, and Intrepid, Lieutenant Cator, as tenders, under the command of Captain Horatio T. Austin, in the Resolute. Their chief aim was to visit Melville Island, and to explore the shores of Wellington Channel, and the coast about Cape Walker. The ships were provisioned for three years, and a transport completed their supply at Whalefish Islands.