Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage Read online

  In the south of England, Lady Franklin went to work. Among her influential friends, who had the ear of King William IV, she could scarcely conceal her shock and outrage. To think that a man of the stature of Sir John Franklin, an Arctic hero who had served his country so well, and at such cost to himself and those he loved, should be offered such a trifling position—why, the very idea was scandalous! What was England coming to? Every time she thought about it, and she could think of little else, Jane Franklin felt faint and had to lie down.

  News of the staggering insult to England’s Arctic hero reached King William IV, the “sailor king,” and the former lord high admiral was not slow to make his feelings known. On April 1, 1836, scarcely two weeks after dismissing Franklin from both the Colonial Office and his own mind, seemingly forever, Lord Glenelg found himself writing humbly to the captain, and leaving no doubt as to who was directing him: “Dear Sir—You will think me a persecutor—but an occasion now presents itself which may not be unpleasing to you. Col. [George] Arthur is about to quit the government of Van Diemen’s Land—and I am authorized by the King to offer you the succession to that Government. The salary is 2,500 a year. I shall be very happy if you feel yourself enabled to accept this important and interesting Station.”

  This was the offer, Franklin realized, for which his wife had been lobbying. The position carried a salary more than double that of the Antigua posting, and commensurate authority and prestige. He accepted with alacrity. Van Diemen’s Land! That distant island colony to the south of continental Australia! To be sure, the place was a penal colony where England was incarcerating tens of thousands of unwanted convicts. But John Franklin would be the man in charge. On the far side of the world, he and his wife would begin a fantastic new life. And even the far-seeing Lady Franklin had no inkling whatsoever that this adventure might culminate not in glory and exaltation, but in shame, defeat and devastation.

  As lieutenant governor of Van Diemen’s Land, later to become Tasmania, Sir John Franklin was out of his depth. The captain had shown that he could command a sixth-rate frigate with a complement of 175 sailors, all of whom shared the same background and understood the rules. If you talked back to an officer, you might receive a dozen lashes. Unfortunately for Franklin, directing a small naval vessel did not prepare a man to govern a penal colony of 42,000 people, among them not just convicts but also settlers, aboriginal peoples and a ruling class of civil servants, all with different agendas. John Franklin was a decent man known to tremble at naval floggings, a devout Christian who revelled in delivering sonorous readings of the scriptures. He had no business trying to run a penal colony.

  In Lady Franklin’s Revenge, I devote 117 pages to what happened in Van Diemen’s Land. Basically, the story is one of increasing estrangement between the Franklins and the powerful colonial secretary, John Montagu. By early 1841, the parties could scarcely exchange a civil word. Their mutual antipathy, exacerbated by proximity, became a ticking bomb with a short fuse. The spark came on January 7, 1842, when Franklin confronted Montagu over a newspaper article he had planted in the Van Diemen’s Land Chronicle.

  Already, claiming long tolerance for Franklin’s “evident incapacity, his demonstrated feebleness,” that newspaper had alleged that Sir John was an indolent time-server who had “long outlived respect.” As for Lady Franklin, she had offended by climbing Mount Wellington, which at 1,271 metres in height, overlooks the capital of Hobart; and by travelling almost 900 kilometres through rough-country Australia from Melbourne to Sydney. The newspaper opined that her ramblings meant that immense sums had been “wantonly and disgracefully lavished upon ridiculous journeys and fantastical deviations from the beaten paths of men.” Now, the two men called each other liar. As only the Colonial Office could fire Montagu, John Franklin suspended the man.

  Ruthless, unprincipled and diabolically clever, Montagu took his case to England. He believed himself wronged, and so justified in transgressing any boundary. When truth contradicted convenience, Montagu would lie; where evidence proved lacking, he would fabricate. To support his allegation that Sir John was “little removed from an imbecile,” he concocted damaging scenes and shaming anecdotes. And Lady Franklin? Montagu described her thus: “A more troublesome, interfering woman I never saw—puffed up with the love of Fame and the desire of acquiring a name by doing what no one else does.” Her interference “in everything is so great, and her mode of proceeding so extraordinary, that there is scarcely any subject she is not so prominently conspicuous in as to render it unavoidable.”

  In an age when woman’s place was in the home, and even courageous female authors would shelter behind male pseudonyms, rightly fearing ridicule and worse, Montagu alleged “corrupt, unbecoming, and malignant female interference in the affairs of state.” Montagu was a vindictive liar who conducted a revolting smear campaign. But he had the backing of George Arthur, now lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, whose investments he handled and whose niece he had married. And in England, his campaign of denigration succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings. The Colonial Office, headed now by Edward Lord Stanley, accepted that Franklin was “a man in petticoats” and recalled him from Van Diemen’s Land. The once-celebrated explorer returned home in disgrace.

  Lady Franklin clung to the hope that Londoners would grasp nothing of what had transpired. But in June 1844, soon after the couple debarked in Portsmouth, a relative made an insensitive allusion to the scandal of Franklin’s recall. The remark reduced Jane Franklin to tears. To the mortification of everyone present, she filled the house with the sounds of her weeping.

  The North-West Passage Region as Known in 1845, When the Franklin Expedition Sailed. From Sir John Franklin’s Last Arctic Expedition by R. J. Cyriax.

  On arriving in London, the Franklins learned that the British Admiralty was showing renewed interest in the riddle of the Northwest Passage. With the Russians making headway in the Arctic, and trade routes and national pride at stake, the overlords of the Royal Navy proposed to dispatch a two-ship expedition to discover a north-south waterway linking Lancaster Sound with Simpson Strait, so joining the discernible northern and southern channels of the Passage. How difficult could it be?

  One question remained: Who would lead this epochal expedition? The aging Sir John Barrow, still controlling exploration as second secretary of the Admiralty, had settled upon James Fitzjames, an early-thirties naval officer who was also a friend of the family. Barrow had broached the subject to Fitzjames as early as March 1844. Eventually, of course, the Admiralty board—seven lords, all political appointees—would have to approve any appointment.

  Whoever led the expedition, which was expected easily to “achieve the Passage,” would receive £10,000—a princely sum to share as he chose among officers and crew members. Equally important, if not more so, that expedition leader would be celebrated internationally as Discoverer of the Northwest Passage. And so there ensued a fierce behind-the-scenes competition—precisely the kind, involving secret machinations and friends in high places, that suited Jane Franklin.

  In this contest, despite Barrow’s support, young Fitzjames suddenly stood no chance. Ultimately he would sail as third-in-command. James Clark Ross, now Sir James, headed the original list of leadership candidates. He had accepted a knighthood after returning from his last Antarctic expedition. Ross had taken part in more polar voyages than any of his contemporaries. But at forty-four, and recently married, he wished to live as a country gentleman on his estate southeast of London. And so he demurred, explaining that, before marrying, he had promised his father-in-law to undertake no more polar voyages.

  Yet, as the first choice of many, Sir James wielded singular influence—and he had grown close to both Franklins, and especially Jane. While visiting Van Diemen’s Land during his four-year Antarctic expedition (1839–1843), he had entrusted her with purchasing a 640-acre estate for him. Now, Jane Franklin moved quickly to ensure that Ross should exercise his influence on behalf of her husband.
r />   Originally, both John Franklin and Edward Parry, who was four years younger, had been disqualified from consideration as too old for further Arctic rigours. Under normal circumstances, Franklin himself would probably have accepted this assessment. But since Van Diemen’s Land had devastated his reputation, he felt driven to seek the leadership of this momentous expedition to exonerate himself. Later, when published reports insinuated this motivation, Lady Franklin protested too much, insisting, for example, that “nothing can be more false and more absurd than the idea that he went on his Arctic expedition from any other motive than the pure love of Arctic discovery and enterprise.”

  Apart from young Fitzjames, two veteran officers still in their forties remained in contention: George Back, who had distinguished himself as an Arctic overland traveller, and Francis Crozier, who had sailed on significant voyages with both Edward Parry and James Clark Ross, and who would sail, ultimately, as second-in-command. Left to his own devices, John Franklin would never have bested Crozier.

  But behind him, he had the inexorable Jane, driven by the same desperate need for vindication. To James Clark Ross, Lady Franklin wrote with her usual astute mix of flattery and forthrightness. If Ross, who was clearly “the right person,” chose not to lead the expedition, then she hoped Sir John would not be overlooked because of his age. After being “so unworthily treated by the Colonial Office,” she wrote, “he will be deeply sensitive if his own department should neglect him, and that such an appointment would do more perhaps than anything else out of the Colonial Office to counteract the effect which Lord Stanley’s injustice and oppression have produced. I dread exceedingly the effect on his mind of being without honourable and immediate employment, and it is this which enables me to support the idea of parting with him on a service of difficulty and danger better than I otherwise should.”

  Soon after receiving this missive, Sir James Clark Ross went public, declaring that the only possible leader for this definitive expedition was Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin. At the Admiralty, John Barrow could only shake his head in dismay. Barrow tried one final time to lure Ross into taking on the leadership, holding out a baronetcy and a massive pension. He even offered to postpone the mission for a year, if that would persuade him. J. C. Ross stood firm.

  George Back visited Ross and pleaded for his support. Having twice travelled in the Arctic with Franklin, he insisted that the older man did not tolerate cold well, and argued that he was not physically fit to undertake such an adventure. Ross remained adamant. Sir Francis Beaufort, the Admiralty mapmaker, urged Ross to think again. And Edward Sabine, the man driving the Magnetic Crusade, did the same.

  James Clark Ross was feeling the heat when Lady Franklin brought up reinforcements. Drawing on family connections and moral suasion, she had got through not only to the Royal Geographical Society, which sent a ringing endorsement of Franklin’s candidacy, but to the redoubtable Edward Parry, who told Thomas Lord Haddington, the First Lord of the Admiralty, that Sir John was a better man than any other he knew: “If you don’t let him go, he will die of disappointment.”

  On February 5, 1845, Haddington summoned Franklin to Admiralty House, in the heart of London. In the first-floor boardroom, splendidly furnished with mahogany bookshelves, two colourful globes, a powder-blue device that indicated wind direction and numerous charts hanging in great rolls, the two men talked at a table that could comfortably seat ten. Lady Franklin, who was not there, later offered a detailed recreation of what transpired, which has been dismissed as too literary to be completely credible.

  Her account does provide a vivid approximation, however. As tactfully as he could, Lord Haddington raised the question of physical hardship. The decidedly overweight Franklin insisted that if he didn’t think himself equal to the expedition, he would not have sought the leadership: “If it had been a question of walking, my lord, then I would not be the right man. I’m rather heavier than I used to be. But this is a sailing expedition—something quite different. And to that I feel entirely equal.”

  Franklin offered to submit to a physical examination (immediately afterwards, acting on Jane’s advice, he sent a letter attesting to his good health, written by their close friend Dr. John Richardson). The First Lord, slightly embarrassed, said he was thinking also of mental toughness. He wondered if Franklin might not be exhausted by his recent ordeal in Van Diemen’s Land. Franklin told him that the stress of an Arctic voyage would be nothing as compared with governing a penal colony.

  “Look here, we’d like you to be our man,” Haddington said. “But at fifty-nine, your age is against you.”

  Franklin, his birthday two months away, responded, “But, my Lord! I am only fifty-eight!”

  On February 7, 1845, Thomas Lord Haddington announced his decision. The leader of this epochal Northwest Passage expedition would be that Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin. And three months later, on Sunday, May 18, 1845, at a village called Greenhithe, six kilometres above the main docks at Gravesend, Jane Franklin stood on the dock admiring the Erebus and the Terror. Freshly painted black and yellow, with a wide stripe running the length of each vessel, the two refurbished ships sparkled like success in the sun. Had not James Clark Ross sailed these same vessels to the Antarctic? Jane herself had boarded them more than once when Ross had sojourned in Van Diemen’s Land.

  Since then, the two former bomb-ships had been refitted yet once more, supplied with adapted railway engines and retractable screw propellers and a heating system that drove hot air through twelve-inch pipes. In a letter to a friend in Van Diemen’s Land, John Franklin expressed satisfaction with the ships, and added that his appointment to the leadership of this significant expedition demonstrated that the slanders of a certain civil servant “have failed to injure me.” Franklin was well satisfied, too, with his eager officers—“a fine set of young men, active, zealous, and devoted to the Service.” As for the crew, he observed that “many say that no ships could go to sea better appointed than we are.”

  One minor incident darkened the final days before Franklin sailed. Following naval tradition, and like Sir John’s first wife two decades before, Jane Franklin had stitched a British flag to give her husband as a parting gift. One afternoon, while he napped, she placed it gently over him. Sir John opened first one eye, and then the other: “Why, there’s a flag thrown over me!” He leapt to his feet, flinging it off: “Don’t you know that in the Royal Navy we lay the Union Jack over a corpse?”

  From Disko Bay, Greenland, where he called in to obtain fresh water, John Franklin sent what would be the last letter to reach his wife. He reported that his men remained in high spirits, and that he had opened the ship’s library to everyone on board.

  Shocked and hurt, Jane rose and left the room. John Franklin followed to apologize. “Forgive me, Jane. I was half asleep.” She relented, seeing his dismay: “As if my loving gesture, John, could be anything but a harbinger of your success.”

  And so at Greenhithe, on the last Sunday before Franklin sailed, and less than one year since arriving back in England from Van Diemen’s Land, Jane Franklin boarded the Erebus to hear Sir John read his first divine service on that vessel. She did not go dockside next morning, knowing that she would invite close scrutiny. But on May 19 she watched from a window at their lodgings as, starting around 10:30 a.m., the steamboat Rattler towed the ships into open water. From there, they sailed away.

  Over the next few weeks, Jane Franklin received several letters. The last of these her husband dispatched from Disko Bay, Greenland, via a whaling ship. The men remained in high spirits. To all those aboard, Franklin had opened the ship’s library. The 1,700 volumes included Arctic reference books and many tomes on religion, but also novels by Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, collections of plays by William Shakespeare and bound volumes of the magazine Punch. Jane could easily imagine Franklin conducting religious services and providing slates to illiterate crewmen who attended evening classes.

  Later in the year,
she proposed to sail to North America via the West Indies. She would land in the south and, when she received word that Franklin had accomplished the Passage, cross the North American continent to greet him on the west coast of America. She would share in his moment of glory.

  Part Four

  LEARNING FROM FIRST PEOPLES

  14.

  An Orcadian Scot Joins the Search

  When after two years Sir John Franklin had failed to emerge into the Pacific Ocean trailing clouds of glory, his wife, friends and naval colleagues grew worried. They began discussing search-and-rescue operations. Sir John Richardson, formerly Franklin’s second-in-command, volunteered to lead a small search party down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic coast. He had served with Franklin on his two overland expeditions and had married a niece of the missing captain. The Admiralty approved Richardson’s plan and sent four boats and twenty men to York Factory on Hudson Bay.

  Now in his late fifties, Richardson had not expected to return to the Arctic, which he had last visited two decades before. For years he had lived ninety-five kilometres south of London, near Portsmouth, where he was chief medical officer at Haslar, the largest hospital in the world. Richardson knew he would need a competent travelling companion to serve as second officer. He found himself sifting through applications from hundreds of gentlemen of various ranks and professions, all of them eager, none of them especially well qualified.

  Then, on November 1, 1847, while reading the London Times, Richardson discovered a report by Dr. John Rae, who had recently returned to Britain and Orkney after fourteen years in the North Country. In that report, written originally for the Hudson’s Bay Company, Rae described how he had led a dozen men north to map the Arctic coastline. He had wintered at Repulse Bay, living off the land. And he had demonstrated that “Boothia Felix” was a peninsula, not an island, and confirmed that—contrary to the surmise of Thomas Simpson and others—no northwest passage flowed west out of the bottom of the Gulf of Boothia. On reading Rae’s account at his home, a separate residence situated within the hospital grounds, Richardson jumped to his feet and to his wife cried out: “I have found my companion, if I can get him.”