Page images
PDF
EPUB

the Government ceased for a time their work in this direction, and it became evident that if Franklin sought employment at all, it must be of another kind. It was at this juncture that Lord Glenelg offered him the Governorship of Antigua, proceeding in thoroughly characteristic official fashion, as Mr Traill puts it, "to ascertain what was the most unimportant post that the aforesaid distinguished officer could be prevailed upon to accept." But Franklin, though modest enough by nature, on learning that it was only a subordinate post, and that he would not be responsible directly to the Colonial Office, recognised that there were occasions upon which it was no sin se faire valoir, and declined. His refusal was characteristically sailor-like. "I told him," he writes to his wife, describing his interview with Lord Glenelg, "that it seemed to me little more than being 1st lieutenant of a ship of the line."

That he was wise in refusing there could be no doubt, for within a fortnight he was offered the Governorship of Tasmania, a post of such importance that, however much he might have preferred an Arctic command, he could not do otherwise than accept it. In January 1837 he landed with his family at Hobart, and commenced his duties.

Hitherto Franklin's lines had on the whole been cast in pleasant places. Privation, indeed, he had known in its direst form, and suffering such as needed the extremest fortitude of a brave man to endure; but he had always been at peace with his fellow-men. We have seen how beloved he was on the Rainbow with officers and men alike, and this power of gaining the affection of his comrades seems to have been one of the most

marked features of his character. One of that enviable class whose fortune it is to be without enemies, he had had little experience even of the lesser but perhaps more trying evil of an uncongenial and cantankerous coadjutor. This was to be his portion, however, in Tasmania, and there is no doubt that his six years' reign in that colony must always have been remembered by him as the most distasteful period of his life.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the history of these unfortunate squabbles, and it is to be regretted, we think, that Mr Traill should have devoted such an inordinate array of pages to them; for in the public mind no odium ever attached to Franklin, and no question of clearing his character therefore presents itself. Captain Mackonochie, the Governor's private secretary, was a person with "humanitarian views" upon the subject of convicts, who combined with his duties the representation of an English society "for the improvement of penal discipline." Mr Montagu, the Colonial Secretary, was what is termed in sailor-language a sealawyer, and was not above secretly using the colonial Press in disloyal depreciation of his chief. Franklin was a man who regarded loyalty and obedience - not only in the letter but the spirit-as his unquestionable due. Add to these factors the existence of the bitterest and most acrimonious dissensions in smaller official circles, and a Press unrivalled for its scurrility, and we have all the necessary ingredients, it must be owned, for a quarrel of the first class. Such a quarrel, in fact, occurred. Captain Mackonochie found employment elsewhere, and Mr Montagu was suspended from office, but against the enmity of Lord Stan

ley Franklin had no remedy. Upon whichever side the right may have been, it is certain that the treatment he received at the hands of the Colonial Office was not only unjust, but unheard of. He was superseded by Sir Eardley Wilmot, who arrived, totally unexpectedly, by the same ship that brought out the despatch acquainting Franklin for the first time of his supersession. Mr Traill remarks that, though Lord Stanley did many remarkable things in his life besides taking his famous political "leap in the dark," one may well doubt whether he ever rivalled the feat of appointing a Colonial Governor to fill a chair which had not yet been

vacated:

"It was a supersession of the occupant in the strictest etymological sense-a supersession in the sense in which the Archbishop of York understood the word when, in the famous medieval struggle between the northern and southern archiepiscopates for precedence, he asserted his claim to the place of honour on the right of the sovereign by the direct method of seating himself on his brother of Canterbury's lap."

It is not astonishing that Franklin felt deeply hurt. The ill-will that his subordinates bore him, however, brought about a result they were not likely to have foreseen. A letter from Eleanor Franklin, in the writer's collection, which may be quoted here, testifies to the hearty sympathy accorded by the people to their Governor on his departure.

"These calumnies," she writes, "have only served to increase the attachment and affection of the colonists. This has been strongly apparent since papa resigned the government; indeed, nothing can exceed the courtesy and respect which has been shown him within the last three

months, and many persons who have been in other colonies have said that never was a Governor more beloved, and whose departure was more deeply deplored. The whole town turned out to accompany him to the vessel. Never, it is said, has there been a larger concourse in the island." Nor is this merely the ex parte statement of a devoted daughter, as is evident from the shoals of letters and addresses which poured in from every class of society.

Among all these worries and trials of official life, one incident occurred which must have cheered Franklin on his path and revived with double strength all his longings for a return to his work of Polar exploration-the visit of

Ross to Hobart on his ever-memorable Antarctic voyage in the Erebus and Terror; the very ships which, under Franklin's command, were destined for so melancholy a fate at the northern Pole. We cannot forbear the quotation here of a most pathetic passage in Mr Traill's book :—

"It was singular enough that the Erebus and Terror, these two companion vessels which had done so much, and were destined to do yet more battle with the Arctic ice, should have been selected for a service which brought them, at the other Pole of the world, into such close contact with the last commander the Erebus was ever to have; but this strange accident was to be yet more strikingly emphasised. During the sojourn of the explorers at the port of Hobart Town, the hospitalities customary in such cases were exchanged between ships and shore, and among the Franklin papers of the year 1841 is still preserved one of those usually trivial, fond records' of past festivities to which later events have lent a pathetic significance. It is the invitation card to a ball which was given on board the Erebus by the officers of that ship and of the Terror, and which the Government House party duly honoured with their presence.

the Government ceased for a time their work in this direction, and it became evident that if Franklin sought employment at all, it must be of another kind. It was at this juncture that Lord Glenelg offered him the Governorship of Antigua, proceeding in thoroughly characteristic official fashion, as Mr Traill puts it, "to ascertain what was the most unimportant post that the aforesaid distinguished officer could be prevailed upon to accept." But Franklin, though modest enough by nature, on learning that it was only a subordinate post, and that he would not be responsible directly to the Colonial Office, recognised that there were occasions upon which it was no sin se faire valoir, and declined. His refusal was characteristically sailor-like. "I told him," he writes to his wife, describing his interview with Lord Glenelg, "that it seemed to me little more than being 1st lieutenant of a ship of the line."

That he was wise in refusing there could be no doubt, for within a fortnight he was offered the Governorship of Tasmania, a post of such importance that, however much he might have preferred an Arctic command, he could not do otherwise than accept it. In January 1837 he landed with his family at Hobart, and commenced his duties.

Hitherto Franklin's lines had on the whole been cast in pleasant places. Privation, indeed, he had known in its direst form, and suffering such as needed the extremest fortitude of a brave man to endure; but he had always been at peace with his fellow-men. We have seen how beloved he was on the Rainbow with officers and men alike, and this power of gaining the affection of his comrades seems to have been one of the most

marked features of his character. One of that enviable class whose fortune it is to be without enemies, he had had little experience even of the lesser but perhaps more trying evil of an uncongenial and cantankerous coadjutor. This was to be his portion, however, in Tasmania, and there is no doubt that his six years' reign in that colony must always have been remembered by him as the most distasteful period of his life.

[ocr errors]

It is not necessary to dwell upon the history of these unfortunate squabbles, and it is to be regretted, we think, that Mr Traill should have devoted such an inordinate array of pages to them; for in the public mind no odium ever attached to Franklin, and no question of clearing his character therefore presents itself. Captain Mackonochie, the Governor's private secretary, was a person with "humanitarian views upon the subject of convicts, who combined with his duties the representation of an English society "for the improvement of penal discipline." Mr Montagu, the Colonial Secretary, was what is termed in sailor-language a sealawyer, and was not above secretly using the colonial Press in disloyal depreciation of his chief. Franklin was a man who regarded loyalty and obedience - not only in the letter but the spirit-as his unquestionable due. Add to these factors the existence of the bitterest and most acrimonious dissensions in smaller official circles, and a Press unrivalled for its scurril

ity, and we have all the necessary ingredients, it must be owned, for a quarrel of the first class. Such a quarrel, in fact, occurred. Captain Mackonochie found employment elsewhere, and Mr Montagu was suspended from office, but against the enmity of Lord Stan

ley Franklin had no remedy. Upon whichever side the right may have been, it is certain that the treatment he received at the

hands of the Colonial Office was not only unjust, but unheard of. He was superseded by Sir Eardley Wilmot, who arrived, totally unexpectedly, by the same ship that brought out the despatch acquainting Franklin for the first time of his supersession. Mr Traill remarks that, though Lord Stanley did many remarkable things in his life besides taking his famous political "leap in the dark," one may well doubt whether he ever rivalled the feat of appointing a Colonial Governor to fill a chair which had not yet been

vacated:

"It was a supersession of the occupant in the strictest etymological sense-a supersession in the sense in which the Archbishop of York understood the word when, in the famous medieval struggle between the northern and southern archiepiscopates for precedence, he asserted his claim to the place of honour on the right of the sovereign by the direct method of seating himself on his brother of Canterbury's lap."

It is not astonishing that Franklin felt deeply hurt. The ill-will that his subordinates bore him, however, brought about a result they were not likely to have foreseen. A letter from Eleanor Franklin, in the writer's collection, which may be quoted here, testifies to the hearty sympathy accorded by the people to their Governor on his departure.

"These calumnies," she writes, "have only served to increase the attachment and affection of the colonists. This has been strongly apparent since papa resigned the government; indeed, nothing can exceed the courtesy and respect which has been shown him within the last three

months, and many persons who have been in other colonies have said that never was a Governor more beloved, deplored. The whole town turned out and whose departure was more deeply to accompany him to the vessel. Never, it is said, has there been a larger concourse in the island." Nor is this merely the ex parte statement of a devoted daughter,

as is evident from the shoals of letters and addresses which poured in from every class of society.

Among all these worries and trials of official life, one incident occurred which must have cheered Franklin on his path and revived with double strength all his longings for a return to his work of Polar exploration-the visit of

Ross to Hobart on his ever-memorable Antarctic voyage in the Erebus and Terror; the very ships which, under Franklin's command, were destined for so melancholy a fate at the northern Pole. We cannot forbear the quotation here of a most pathetic passage in Mr Traill's book:

"It was singular enough that the Erebus and Terror, these two companion vessels which had done so much, and were destined to do yet more battle with the Arctic ice, should have been selected for a service which brought them, at the other Pole of the world, into such close contact with the last commander the Erebus was ever to have; but this strange accident was to be yet more strikingly emphasised. During the sojourn of the exthe hospitalities customary in such plorers at the port of Hobart Town, cases were exchanged between ships and shore, and among the Franklin papers of the year 1841 is still preserved one of those usually trivial, fond records' of past festivities to which later events have lent a pathetic significance. It is the invitation card to a ball which was given on board the Erebus by the officers of that ship and of the Terror, and which the Government House party duly honoured with their presence.

Virgil himself could have asked for no more grimly ironic commentary on his apostrophe of the

'Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futuræ !'

than this light-hearted meeting of Crozier and Franklin, host and guest, on the deck of the doomed vessel which five years later was to bear the elder and accompany the younger to their Arctic grave, and to leave her own stout timbers, so gaily trodden throughout that warm southern night by the tripping feet of the dancers, to be slowly crushed in the cruel clutch of the ice-pack amid the iron fastnesses of the Pole."

Arriving in London in May 1844, sick of civil work and all connected with it, and hungering only to find a rest for his foot on his own quarter-deck, Franklin, it may be presumed, would have jumped at almost any command. It so happened that the very thing above all others that he desired presented itself. In his absence many additions had been made to the knowledge of the northern seaboard of America. Dease and Simpson had filled in the two gaps that had remained unknown at the east and west of his own explorations, and the coast was now mapped from Bering's Strait to long. 95° W. But Parry had already overlapped this meridian, though in higher latitudes, having sailed into Melville Sound through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait. All that was wanted, then, to connect the two and prove the existence of a North-West Passage, was a north and south channel of some 300 miles in length, and the existence of this it was the great desire of Sir John Barrow still Secretary at the Admiralty to prove. An attempt at the solution of the problem was accordingly resolved on, and Franklin was formally re

quested to report and advise upon the projected expedition. It ended in his being offered the command.

[ocr errors]

We may imagine with what joy he accepted it. "Have you thought seriously of the nature of the undertaking at your age-for, you know, you are fifty-nine? asked Lord Haddington of him. "No, not quite," was the instant reply, ignoring the question; but Franklin might as truthfully have said that, so far as his feelings were concerned, he was but half that age. Indeed, those who saw him after his appointment remarked upon the rejuvenating effect it had had upon him—“he looked ten years younger," it was said. He had need of all his youth and energy, however, for the amount of work to be accomplished before the departure of the ships was enormous. How in addition to this he found time for the voluminous letters belonging to this period, of which Mr Traill gives several, is a matter for wonder. It affords, as our author remarks, most striking testimony to his extraordinary energy. But even he must have been glad when, on that May morning in 1845, the Erebus and Terror slowly dropped down the river from Greenhithe, and the voyage began that voyage from which he was never to return.

[ocr errors]

The story of this, the great romance of Arctic navigation, has often been told, but familiar though it may be, we can still re-read it. Mr Trail has, of course, nothing to add to it — it is scarcely likely now that anything ever will be added to itbut he puts freshly and clearly before us all that is known. As we turn over his pages its details come back vividly enough to our memories, and we catch ourselves wondering at the paucity of them,

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »