No expedition ever left England with a greater prospect of success, all engaged in it being enthusiastically resolved to use every exertion to advance the noble cause.
The ships were commissioned on the 28th of February 1850, and left England the 3rd of May. On the 16th of June they arrived at the Whalefish Islands, where they received the remainder of their supply of provisions from the transport.
At the same time that Captain Austin’s expedition was fitting out, another was arranged and placed under the command of Mr William Penny, an experienced whaling captain of Dundee, to act in concert with it. Mr Penny, by the directions of the Admiralty, proceeded to Aberdeen and Dundee, where he purchased two new clipper-built vessels, which were named the Lady Franklin and Sophia; the first in compliment to Sir John’s devoted wife, the latter to his admirable niece. These vessels were placed under Mr Penny’s command, with separate instructions direct from the Admiralty. The ships showed during the voyage the good judgment employed by Mr Penny in their selection, and the men acquitted themselves throughout the enterprise in a way to justify the praise bestowed on them by their associates in the ships-of-war. Mr Penny had been employed in the Arctic seas since he was twelve years old, and had commanded a whaling ship for sixteen years.
The ships left Aberdeen on the 13th of April, but did not fall in with Captain Austin’s squadron till the 28th of June, off Berry Island, on the west coast of Greenland.
About the same time that the above-named ships left England, three other expeditions were despatched; one in the Prince Albert, under Commander Forsyth, chiefly at Lady Franklin’s expense. She had a crew of twenty men. Her mates were W. Kay and W. Wilson, and Mr W.P. Snow acted as clerk. She sailed from Aberdeen on the 5th of June, and was thus the last vessel which left England that year. Another in the Felix yacht, with a tender—the Mary—under the veteran Captain Sir John Ross, at his own charge. The Americans likewise showed a generous sympathy in the fate of the missing expedition, and sent out one to aid in the search, under Lieutenant de Haven, in the U.S. brig Advance, and the U.S. vessel Rescue, commanded by Mr S.P. Griffen.
These various expeditions were to examine the different channels up which it was supposed Sir John Franklin might have endeavoured to work his way. The result of their examinations proved beyond almost all doubt that he proceeded up Wellington Channel.
Without following the ships step by step through their laborious progress across Baffin’s Bay, down Lancaster Sound and Barrow’s Straits, we will carry them at once to Beechey Island, which lies at the south-eastern extremity of Wellington Channel, just at its entrance into Barrow’s Straits. Here, on the 27th of August, Mr Penny discovered undoubted traces of Sir John Franklin. Here, accordingly, the ships assembled to prosecute the examination. Dr Sutherland, who went out in the Lady Franklin, gives the following account of the interesting event:—
“Traces,” he observes, “were found to a great extent of the missing ships: tin canisters in hundreds, pieces of cloth, rope, wood—in large fragments and in chips; iron in numerous fragments, where the anvil had stood, and the block which supported it; paper, both written and printed, with the dates 1844 and 1845; sledge marks in abundance; depressions in the gravel, resembling wells which they had been digging; and the graves of three men who had died on board the missing ships in January and April 1846. One of the shore party was despatched with this intelligence to Mr Penny, who immediately came on shore, accompanied by Sir John Ross, Commander Phillips of the Felix, Sir John’s vessel, Commander De Haven and Lieutenant Griffiths of the American expedition, which had joined our ships in Barrow’s Straits, and other officers. There were unequivocal proofs that the missing ships had spent their first winter in the immediate vicinity of Beechey Island. A finger-post was picked up, which we at once supposed had been made use of to direct parties to the ships during winter, if they should happen to have lost their way in a snowstorm. Captain Parry adopted the same precautions around his winter quarters at Melville Island; and it is not improbable some of the posts may be found, after a lapse of thirty years. Our ideas were, that the ships had wintered in a deep bay between Beechey Island and Cape Riley, which we called Erebus and Terror Bay.
“Immediately adjacent to the supposed position of the ships, we found the site of a large storehouse and workshop, and smaller sites, which were supposed to have been observatories and other temporary erections. Meat-tins to the amount of 600 or 700, and a great number of coal-bags, one of which was marked ‘T-e-r-r-o-r,’ were found. But there were no papers found anywhere that had been left by the missing ships.”
This station, in the opinion of Captain Penny, was occupied by Sir John Franklin’s party until the 3rd of April 1846, if not longer, as a look-out up Wellington Channel, to watch the first opening of that icy barrier which seems so frequently to block it up.