Dockyard Schools, were in course of time placed over them; and they considered that they were hardly dealt with. Some concessions, however, we believe, were afterwards made to such senior hands.

Once more winter approached; and I dreaded the ague, from which my wife continued to suffer. I applied to Lord Auckland for removal to another Yard, submitting medical certificates of my wife's ill-health, but was told that his lordship greatly regretted that he feared it was not in his power to comply with my wishes; and again, on further application some time after, that his lordship could hold out to me no hope of removal.

The Dart, a brigantine, was launched at Sheerness, and the Arab, Elk, and Heron, brigs of twelve guns each, at Chatham, in 1847. It may be added that the Wasp was broken up at Sheerness; for ships are not only built, fitted out, and repaired in our Dockyards, but are also, when no longer serviceable, taken to pieces or sold out of the Navy.*

There is something very touching in the breaking up of a ship that has often weathered the storm and tempest, and plunged into the thick of the fight amid the shattering broadsides of the foe; which bears unquestionable testimony to the hard service she has seen; the decks of which are dyed with the blood of heroes; and which now submits to, and now sternly resists,† the strokes that rend her to pieces, and seem like blows from an old friend. The masts on which the old flag has been proudly upheld amid the enemy's squadrons, and which have carried and borne the strain of sails often torn by fierce winds and sometimes riddled with shot; the helm that has guided her through the watery waste and the surging and doubtful depths; the figurehead that has so boldly faced all before it; every timber, every piece, every fragment, seems sacred. And even if she has seen no real service, and never been sent to sea (as sometimes happens‡), it seems almost cruel to hew in pieces,

* Among the notable ships which have been broken up were the famous Shannon and the Chesapeake, which both lay for a long time in the Sheerness Ordinary.

† Our warships are so strongly built that they are often difficult to break up.

Parliamentary Returns of Ships Broken Up which have never gone to Sea may be found in the British Museum. Such events are unavoidable

or even to sell for less noble purposes, the ship which has ever stood ready to do her duty, to protect our shores, or go forth to guard our commerce or do battle with the enemy.

1848. The Estimate of yard wages for Sheerness artificers, etc., in 1848-49 was £60,200; for teams, £360; for police, £2,063; and for new architectural works, £10,835. Provision was also made, as usual, for the wages to men of the yard-craft, amounting in the aggregate for all the yards to £15,107.

It is an honour to our country to be the leader in geographical exploration; and a distinction to Sheerness that it is the port whence our last expedition started for the mysterious North, as it had been that whence Sir James Ross had sailed in 1839 for the Antarctic Seas.* Let us think for a moment on our Arctic explorations. The discoveries of the Portuguese and the Spaniards in South Asia in the fifteenth century; their glowing reports of its boundless wealth; and the jealousy with which the latter guarded the route by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to India and China, aroused a desire among the other maritime nations of Europe to find a passage to those countries by some other route; and it seemed that the North-West and NorthEast Passages through the icy regions towards the Pole were the most promising, if practicable. It was, however, in either case, a dreary outlook for the explorers. Several attempts were made to discover a North-West Passage, but with so little success and such terrible suffering that the effort was at last, for the time, abandoned. In 1553, however, we had the honour of taking the lead in an attempt to discover a North-East Passage. We were followed by Holland and Russia, till the impracticability of that route forced itself on the convictions of all.t The endeavour to find a North-West Passage was afterwards resumed. More than two hundred voyages had been made in this

in a Navy in which thorough efficiency must at any cost be maintained; and even recent types must be superseded if proved to be no longer reliable, though they may be used as receiving or training ships, hulks, coal depots, etc.

* A veteran of this expedition-George Parr-was living in May, 1895, at New Brompton, Chatham, where he had been residing many years.

It was accomplished, however, as will be remembered, by the Swedish navigator Nordenskjold, in 1879, after 300 years' vain endeavour.

search (with which the names of Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, Cook, Scoresby, Ross, Parry, and others were associated; which exhibited an amount of daring, skill, patience, perseverance, fortitude, and devotion scarcely to be paralleled ; and which, nevertheless, failed in their object (though productive of important subordinate discoveries), when, in 1845, Sir John Franklin - whose name will ever shine with a mournful lustre in the annals of England and her explorations, and who had already conducted several Arctic expeditions and shown himself to be possessed of the highest qualifications-was commissioned* to make yet another effort. The Erebus, Captain Crozier, and the Terror, Captain Fitz-Stephen-Sir James Ross's ships on his Antarctic expedition-were fitted out here, and sailed from Sheerness under his command on the 25th May ('45).†

"Far in the Northern Ocean,

Amid the ice-floes drear,
Where grim and surly Winter

Reigns King throughout the year,
And piles him up huge pinnacles,
And builds him lofty walls,
And decks them with the solid spray
Of frozen waterfalls,

And with the red aurora lights
Illumes his crystal halls,—

"There, where the white bear roameth,
And barks the arctic fox,

And the grinding icebergs meet and crash
With sounds like tempest shocks;
Where, like a living island,

The great whale swims and sports,
And the furry seal glides in and out

Amid the snowy courts,

And the reindeer for the scanty moss

To the sheltered vale resorts,—

Franklin was delighted when he found that his appointment to the command was under consideration. The only question with the authorities seems to have been his age. The First Lord delicately suggested this to him: "He was informed that he was sixty years of age." "No, my lord," replied Franklin; "you have been misinformed; I am only fifty-nine." The difference was not great, but the reply was telling.

† Among the seamen who accompanied Sir John was Francis Richard Pocock, of Upnor, near Chatham, who became his coxswain, and to whom we shall have occasion to refer hereafter.

of,

"Out to those frozen regions

Went forth a gallant band,
Explorers of the unknown seas,
And of the desert strand;
They went with hearts high-beating,
And stern resolve, to brave
The Winter in his icy home,
The tempest on the wave;
And there was hope and manliness
In the parting cheer they gave.

"They went for good of all mankind;
To win a peaceful fame ;
Smiled Commerce on their enterprise,
And Science blessed their name.
Cheerly the gales sang in their sails,
And the sun illumed their way;
And their streamers floated proudly out
In the light of open day;

For every soul that breathed a prayer,

For their success might pray."

It was not anticipated that they would return till the close of 1847; but they were not seen by any whaler, or even heard for years. Indeed, the last that was seen of them was by the whaling ship Prince of Wales, on the 26th July, 1845; and the last despatches received from them were dated the 12th of that month. They had been furnished, it will be remembered, with provisions, fuel, clothing and stores calculated to last them three years-but three years only-i.e., to May, 1848. It was felt that they were our brethren, given to the cause of science; and that we must see what had become of them. Under these circumstances, and in consideration of the great anxiety of Lady Franklin and the nation, the Government determined in 1847 on sending out a searching expedition, in three divisions, to look for them; and the Plover having been prepared at this Yard for the western coast, left Sheerness in the beginning of January, 1848, with the most hearty good wishes for the success of

*

* Instructions were sent simultaneously to Captain Kellet, of H.M.S. Herald, then stationed at Panama, to join the Plover in Behring's Strait, and proceed with her along the American shore as far as possible in an easterly direction from Point Barrow, exploring the coast where necessary with boats until the approach of winter, when the Plover was to be secured in a safe harbour, and the Herald was to return and transmit intelligence viâ Panama of their proceedings.

its gallant captain* and crew, who had so nobly devoted themselves to their arduous and perilous task. The two other divisions were despatched subsequently: the first, or eastern, under Sir James Ross, in the Enterprise and Investigator, which sailed from England in the following June; and the boat expedition, through the Hudson's Bay territories, under Sir John Richardson (the faithful friend and companion of Franklin in his former travels), with Dr. Rea, an experienced Arctic traveller, Surgeon of the Hudson's Bay Company, second in command, which left Montreal in May. Lady Franklin, too, offered rewards of £2,000 and · £3,000 to any persons discovering or affording relief to the missing party, or making any extraordinary exertions to that end.

Time went on. Ague still haunted my household. I was assured by medical men that Sheerness did not suit my wife's constitution, and that it was necessary that she should remove from it. I had influential friends, and I sought their intercession with the Admiralty. Meantime I sent her to Bath to seek a restoration to health in her native air, while I remained, a lonely man, at Sheerness. Much effort was required to obtain my transfer to another port; and it would, after all, have been ineffectual, except by way of exchange (at a high premium) with some other clerk, but that a vacancy just then occurred in the Clerical Staff at Chatham. On the 6th May, 1848 +-an Admiralty Order was given for my removal to Chatham Dockyard.

Captain Thomas Moore, an officer of great experience, who had already made tive Polar voyages, and who was particularly famous as the only person that had traversed the earth at 75° 30' south latitude.

† Just before my removal the Chinese Junk Keying arrived in England, an event which excited great public interest. She was taken into the East India Docks, near Blackwall; and was visited by the Queen and Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and many other persons of distinction. Nor could she fail to excite special attention in the naval world; the ship and everything on board differed so widely from everything European. The mode of her construction, the great height of her stern--some forty feet- and its excessive and quaint ornamentation; the absence of keel, bowsprit, and shrouds; the mast, sail, yard, rudder, compasses, all so strange. Her saloon, with its hanging lanterns of horn, glass, silk, and paper; the portraits and landscapes, flowers, fruit, insects, birds, dogs, cats, and other paintings; the josses or idols), etc.,-all were so remarkable. Outside, she was very rudely built; and the Chinese who formed her Officers and crew appeared to have no appreciation of anything better.