decided opinion that a vessel should be sent
out to the vicinity of King William's Land
to pursue the search.

"It is evident, he considers, that the
Esquimaux tribes on the shores of the straits
hold the secret we are in search of, and that
something more than a flying visit of a few
days must be effected before their perhaps
guilty fears can be allayed, and their
confidence won."

In this unanswered letter, we find, also,
the lady, for whose devotion England feels true
reverence, expressing "humble hope and
fervent prayer that the government of my
country will themselves complete the work
they have begun, and not leave it to a weak
and helpless woman to attempt the doing
that imperfectly which they themselves can
do so easily and well; yet, if need be, such
is my painful resolve, God helping me."

Will our patriotism consent that it shall be
told our children how the wife of Franklin
urged in vain a sacred claim like this upon
her country? "It is due to a set of men who
have solved the problem of centuries by the
sacrifice of their lives and in the very act of
dying, that their remains should be sought
for in the place where they perished; and
that as they assuredly devised some means of
preserving from destruction the last words
they dictated to those they loved, and the
records of their five long years of adventure
and suffering, the recovery of these precious
documents should be the aim of persevering
exertion, and held out as a fitting object for
reward."

Furthermore in this letter, to which, we
again remind the reader, that no answer at
all had been vouchsafed by the Admiralty
Board, there was this passage, in which we
point with small capitals a sentence that makes
the official neglect look yet more clearly
unworthy of a British government:

"My funds, since the settlement of my late
husband's affairs, are equal to the ample
equipment of the Isabel schooner, WHICH IS
NOW LYING IN DOCK, WAITING, AT A CONSIDERABLE
CURRENT EXPENSE TO ME, HER POSSIBLE
DESTINATION; and unless these my independent
funds should become exhausted, which I
do not foresee, I shall not even ask your
Lordships for the ordinary pension of a rear-
admiral's widow, to which I presume I am
entitled. My request to your Lordships will
be limited to such assistance as is entirely
independent of money, and indeed to such as
I have been assured, on the highest authority,
will not be denied."

Everything was denied, even to common
courtesy. A month after the receipt of the
memorial, the Lords of the Admiralty, who
left Lady Franklin's letter still unanswered,
and had replied nothing to the memorialists,
caused inquiries to be made as to the
possibility of equipping a ship at that advanced
season. It was pronounced to be too late,
and the subject was dismissed.

Then Lady Franklin wrote again — we
quote from published correspondence—stating
that she and others had been unable to interpret
unfavourably the silence of the Admiralty
Board, inasmuch as their Lordships were
well aware that so long as no adverse decision
was announced to her, she was precluded
from taking any steps for advancing her
private expedition, which depended entirely
on the non-adoption of the other. Thus she
wrote (on the eleventh of last July):

"Between doubt and hope, between
occasional misgivings and reviving confidence, but
withal in constant and harassing anxiety, I
have passed three long months (precious
months to me, who required them all for my
own expedition, if that great burden were
at last to fall upon me), till at last a time
has arrived when the equipment of a private
expedition is no longer possible, and a season
of probably unexampled openness for ice
navigation has passed away.

"I feel sure that if your Lordships would
only do me the favour of considering for a
moment, the painful position in which I have
thus been and am still placed, without a
single word vouchsafed to me either to
confirm my hopes or to extinguish them,
deprived of any means but such as I had a
reasonable objection to, of securing public
feeling in my behalf, whilst the Arctic papers
(including my appeal to your Lordships),
which were called for in the House of
Commons, continued to be withheld, unable thus
to make use of the present or to calculate
on the future, you would feel that a great
hardship—nay, that a great injustice, for such
I feel it to be—has been inflicted on me."

What say the people of England to this
way of dealing with a question of justice
and humanity, by a government that has just
now claimed the applause of the country,
because of its jealousy for the honour of
Great Britain?

In this second letter Lady Franklin pleaded,
as the only remedy for the loss of an entire
summer season, that the route by Behring's
Straits was, by some of the most competent
Arctic officers, considered preferable to the
eastern route, and that the equipment of a
vessel to be sent in this direction need not
take place before the close of the year. Then,
at last, the brave woman received a
communication, and was caused to be informed
by their Lordships that "they had come to
the decision not to send any expedition to
the Arctic regions in the present year." The
memorialists were, however, still left without
a reply, and therefore from his place in
the House of Lords, the President of the
Royal Society addressed a question to the
ministry, and received the assurance that
"Her Majesty's government would give the
subject their serious consideration during the
recess." In the conversation that followed,
Lord Stanley, who was spokesman for the
government, expressed himself as very favourably