ould not be for the honour of the nation that the
splendid discoveries of Hearne, Cook and Mackenzie should remain
uncompleted. To trace the Arctic water-way from the Atlantic to the
Pacific became now a supreme object, not of commercial interest, but of
geographical research and of national pride. To this was added the
fact that the progress of physical and natural science was opening up
new fields of investigation for the explorers of the north.

Franklin first sailed north in 1818, as second in command of the first
Arctic expedition of the nineteenth century. Two brigs, H.M.S.
_Dorothea_ under Captain Buchan, and H.M.S. _Trent_ under Lieutenant
John Franklin, set out from the Thames with a purpose which in audacity
at least has never been surpassed. The new sentiment of supreme
confidence in the navy inspired by the conquest of the seas is evinced
by the fact that these two square-rigged sailing ships, clumsy and
antiquated, built up with sundry extra beams inside and iron bands
without, were directed to sail straight north across the North Pole and
down the world on the other side. They did their best. They went
churning northward through the foaming seas, and when they found that
{94} the ice was closing in on them, and that they were being blown
down upon it in a gale as on to a lee shore, the order was given to put
the helm up and charge full speed at the ice. It was the only possible
way of escape, and it meant either sudden and awful death under the ice
floes or else the piling up of the ships safe on top of them--'taking
the ice' as Arctic sailors call it. The _Dorothea_ and the _Trent_
went driving at the ice with such a gale of snow about them that
neither could see the other as they ran. They 'took the ice' with a
mighty crash, amid a wild confusion of the elements, and when the storm
cleared the two old hulls lay shattered but safe on the surface of the
ice-pack. The whole larboard side of the _Dorothea_ was smashed, but
they brought her somehow to Spitzbergen, and there by wonderful
patching enabled her to sail home.

The next year (1819) Lieutenant Franklin was off again on an Arctic
journey, the record of which, written by himself, forms one of the most
exciting stories of adventure ever written. The design this time was
to follow the lead of Hearne and Mackenzie. Beginning where their
labours ended, Franklin proposed to embark on the polar sea in canoes
and follow the coast line. Franklin