and anguish with which Britain honours the memory of
those fallen in her cause.

John Franklin belonged to the school of naval officers trained in the
prolonged struggle of the great war with France. He entered the Royal
Navy in 1800 at fourteen years of age, and within a year was engaged on
his ship, the _Polyphemus_, in the great sea-fight at Copenhagen.
During the brief truce that broke the long war after 1801, Franklin
served under Flinders, the great explorer of the Australasian seas. On
his way home in 1803 he was shipwrecked in Torres Strait, and, with
ninety-three others of the company of H.M.S. _Porpoise_, was cast up on
a sandbar, seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest port. The
party were rescued, Franklin reached England, and at once set out on a
voyage to the China seas in the service of the East India Company.
During the voyage the merchant fleet with which he sailed offered
battle to a squadron of French men-of-war, which fled before them. The
next year saw Franklin serving as signal midshipman on board the
_Bellerophon_ at Trafalgar. He remained in active service during the
war, served in America, and was {92} wounded in the British attempt to
capture New Orleans. After the war Franklin, now a lieutenant, found
himself, like so many other naval officers, unable, after the stirring
life of the past fifteen years, to settle into the dull routine of
peace service. Maritime discovery, especially since his voyage with
Flinders, had always fascinated his mind, and he now offered himself
for service in that Arctic region with which his name will ever be
associated.

The long struggle of the war had halted the progress of discoveries in
the northern seas. But on the conclusion of peace the attention of the
nation, and of naval men in particular, was turned again towards the
north. The Admiralty naturally sought an opportunity of giving
honourable service to their officers and men. Great numbers of them
had been thrown out of employment. Some migrated to the colonies or
even took service abroad. At the same time the writings of Captain
Scoresby, a whaling captain of scientific knowledge who published an
account of the Greenland seas, and the influence of such men as Sir
John Barrow, the secretary of the Admiralty, did much to create a
renewal of public interest in the north. It was now recognized that
the North-West Passage offered no commercial {93} attractions. But it
was felt that it w