The Arctic Queen - A Poem Dedicated to Elisha Kent Kane, in Search of Sir John Franklin
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The Arctic Queen - A Poem Dedicated to Elisha Kent Kane, in Search of Sir John Franklin - John Knox Laughton
THE
ARCTIC QUEEN
A POEM DEDICATED TO
ELISHA KENT KANE,
IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
Copyright © 2021 Ragged Hand
This edition is published by Ragged Hand,
an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any
way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.
For more information visit
www.readandcobooks.co.uk
TO
DR. ELISHA KENT KANE,
COMMANDER OF THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION
IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN—
THIS POEM IS DEDICATED:
WITH SINCEREST ADMIRATION OF HIS ENTERPRISE, COURAGE AND HEROIC SELF-DEVOTION,
AND OF HIS SUCCESS AS DISCOVERER
OF THE OPEN POLAR SEA.
Contents
SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
By John Knox Laughton
PART FIRST
PART SECOND
PART THIRD
SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
By John Knox Laughton
Arctic explorer, the twelfth and youngest son of Willingham Franklin of Spilsby in Lincolnshire, was born on 16 April 1786. It had been intended to bring him up for the church, but a holiday visit to the seashore excited a strong desire to go to sea, which his father vainly endeavoured to overcome by sending him for a voyage in a merchant vessel as far as Lisbon. On his return he entered the royal navy on board the Polyphemus, then just sailing for the Baltic, where she played a leading part in the battle of Copenhagen. Two months later Franklin was appointed as a midshipman to the Investigator, under the command of his cousin, Matthew Flinders, and on the point of sailing for Australia. While in the Investigator Franklin distinguished himself by his remarkable aptitude for nautical and astronomical observations; he was employed at Sydney as assistant in a little observatory which Flinders established, and won the notice of Captain King, the governor, who used to address him familiarly as Mr. Tycho Brahe. When the ship's company was broken up after the wreck of the Porpoise, Franklin accompanied Lieutenant Fowler to China in the Rolla, and, taking a passage home in the East India Company's ship Earl Camden, was with Commodore Dance in his extraordinary engagement with Linois (15 Feb. 1804), on which occasion Fowler commanded on the lower deck and Franklin took charge of the signals. On arriving in England Franklin was appointed to the Bellerophon, in which he was present in the battle of Trafalgar, again having charge of the signals, and being one of the few on the Bellerophon's poop who escaped unhurt. Two years later he joined the Bedford, and, continuing in her after his promotion to lieutenant's rank (11 Feb. 1808), was employed on the home station till the peace in 1814, when the ship was ordered to North America, to form part of the expedition against New Orleans. In a boat attack on some gunboats in Lac Borgne Franklin was slightly wounded; and he had besides a full share in the laborious duties of the campaign. Its failure may account for the fact that no attention was paid to the strong recommendation of Sir John Lambert, in command of the troops with which he had been serving, and that he remained a lieutenant, serving on board the Forth frigate, with Sir William Bolton, Nelson's nephew. With Franklin's appointment in January 1818 to command the hired brig Trent, fitting out to accompany Captain Buchan in the Dorothea, Franklin's career as an Arctic explorer commenced. Their instructions were to pass between Spitzbergen and Greenland, use their best endeavours to reach the pole, and thence, if possible, to shape a course direct for Behring's Straits. The two ships sailed on 25 April, sighted Spitzbergen on 26 May, and passed without difficulty along its western coast; they were then stopped by the ice, and, being driven into the pack on 30 July, the Dorothea received so much damage as to be in momentary danger of foundering. They got into Dane's Gat, where such repairs as were possible were executed, but it was still very doubtful whether she could live through the passage home, and further contact with the ice was clearly out of the question. Buchan's instructions fully authorised him in this contingency to move into the Trent and send the Dorothea home; but he was unwilling to appear to desert his shipmates in a time of great danger. The Dorothea's state was such as to forbid her being sent home unattended, and Franklin's request that he might be allowed to go on rendered the task of superseding him the more disagreeable. So Buchan judged rightly that his proper course was to take the Dorothea home, with the Trent in close attendance on her. They arrived in England on 22 Oct.
Early in the following year Franklin was appointed to the command of an exploring expedition to be sent out with the general idea of amending the very defective geography of the northern part of America, and with more particular instructions ‘to determine the latitudes and longitudes of the northern coast of North America, and the trendings of that coast from