in May,
offering to go with Captain Penny, or any good sailing-master, to
give his services without pay, and pledging himself to go to work
and raise funds.

Finding it impossible to go with any British expedition, he turned
his entire efforts to organizing another from America. His chivalric
enthusiasm enlisted the sympathies and active support of Henry
Grinnell and George Peabody, the first loaning the ship and the
latter contributing $10,000 for general expenses. The United States
again aided, not only putting Kane on sea-pay, but also attached ten
men of the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions,
etc., were likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid
in other directions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the
Naval Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this
juncture the discoveries of Captain Inglefield, R. N., in Smith
Sound, afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The scheme,
as far as the search for Franklin was concerned, was well-meaning,
but none the less fallacious and illogical. Kane was personally
cognizant of the fact that Franklin had gone into Lancaster Sound,
and had wintered in 1845-46 at Beechy Island, plainly following the
direct and positive orders of the Admiralty, that he should push
southward from Cape Walker to the neighborhood of Behring Strait.
Moreover, the last mail ever received from the Franklin expedition
contained a letter from Captain Fitz-James, in which he stated that
Franklin had shown him the orders, expressed his disbelief in an
open sea to the north, and had given "a pleasant account of his
expectations of being able to get through the ice on the north coast
of America."

A search for Franklin by the way of Smith Sound, seventeen degrees
of longitude and four degrees of latitude to the north and east of
his last known position, was to assume not only that Franklin had
disobeyed the strict letter of his instructions, but had also
abandoned his voyage after having accomplished one-third of the
distance from Greenland to Behring Strait.

As the initiator and inspirer of the expedition, Kane was the
natural head of it, but there were difficulties in the way.

The assignment of a surgeon to the command of a naval expedition was
unprecedented; but somehow Kane succeeded in overcoming even the
time-honored observances of the Navy, and was placed in command by a
formal order of the Secretary of the Navy in November, 1852.

K