FRANKLIN, Benjamin (1706-1790), one of the most eminent journalists, diplomatists, statesmen, and philosophers of his time, was born in the city of Boston, and in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, on the 17 th of January 1706. He was the youngest of ten children, and the youngest son for five consecutive generations. His father, who was born at Ecton, in Northamptonshire, England, where the family may be traced back for some four centuries, married young, and emigrated to America with three children in 1682. From his parents, who never knew any illness save that of which they died (the father at eighty and the mother at eighty-five), he inherited an excellent constitution, and a good share of those heroic mental and moral qualities by which a good constitution is preserved. In his eighth year Benjamin, who never could remember when he did not know how to read, was placed at school, his parents intending him for the church, That purpose, however, was soon abandoned, and in his tenth year he was taken from school to assist his father, who, though bred a dyer, had taken up, on his arrival in New England, the business of tallow-chandler and soapboiler. The lad worked at this, to him, most distasteful business, until his twelfth year, when he was apprenticed to his elder brother James, then just returned from England with a new printing press and fount of type, with which he proposed to establish himself in the printing business. In 1720-21 James Franklin also started a newspaper, the second that was published in America, called The New England Courant. Benjamin’s tastes inclined him rather to intellectual than to any other kind of pleasures, and his judgment in the selection of books was excellent. At an early age he had made himself familiar with the Pilgrim's Progress, with Locke On the Understanding, and with some odd volumes of the Spectator, then the literary novelty of the day, which he turned to good account in forming the style which made him what he still remains, the most uniformly readable writer of English who has yet appeared on his side of the Atlantic. His success in reproducing articles he had read some days previously in the Spectator led him to try his hand upon an original article for his brother’s paper, which he sent to him anonymously. It was accepted, and attracted some attention. The experiment was repeated until Benjamin had satisfied himself that his success was not an accident, when he threw off his disguise. He thought that his brother treated him less kindly after this disclosure; but that did not prevent James from publishing his paper in Benjamin’s name, when, in consequence of some unfortunate paragraphs which appeared in its columns, he could only obtain his release from prison, to which the colonial assembly had condemned him, upon condition that he “would no longer print the Neιυ England Courant.” The relations of the two brothers, however, gradually grew so inharmonious that Benjamin determined to quit his brother’s employment and leave New England. He sold some of his books, and with the proceeds, in October 1723, he found his way to the city of Philadelphia, where, 400 miles from home, at the immature age of seventeen, without an acquaintance, and with only a few pence in his pocket, he was fortunate enough to get employment with a Jew printer named Keimer. Keimer was not a man of business, and knew very little of his trade, nor had he any very competent assistants. Franklin, who was a rapid composer, ingenious and full of resources, soon came to be recognized by the public as the master spirit of the shop, and to receive flattering attentions from prominent citizens who had had opportunities of appreciating his cleverness. Among others, Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, who may have possessed all the qualifications for his station except every one of the few which are quite indispensable to a gentleman, took him under his patronage, and proposed to start him in business for himself, and to give him the means of going to England and purchasing the material necessary to equip a new printing office. Franklin, rather against the advice of his father, whom he revisited in Boston to consult about it, embraced the governor’s proposal, took passage for London, which he paid with his own money (the governor being more ready with excuses than coin), and on reaching London in December 1724, where he had been assured he would find a draft to cover his expenses, discovered too late that he had been the dupe of Keith, and that he must rely upon his own exertions for his daily bread. He readily found employment at Palmer’s, then a famous printer in Bartholomew Close, where, and afterwards at Wall’s printing house, he continued to be employed until the 23d of July 1726, when he again set sail for Philadelphia in company with a Mr Dunham, whose acquaintance he had made on his voyage out, and who tempted him back by the offer of a position as clerk in a commercial business which he proposed to establish in Philadelphia. While in London Franklin had been engaged in setting up the type of a second edition of Wollaston’s Religion of Nature. The perusal of this work led him to write and print a small edition of a pamphlet, which he entitled A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. Had he deferred printing it a few years, it would probably never have been heard of, for he lived to be rather ashamed of it. It procured him, however, the acquaintance of Dr Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees, whom he described as a most facetious and entertaining companion. Only a few months after Franklin’s return to Philadelphia, the death of Mr Dunham put an end to his career as a merchant. While awaiting something more favourable, he was induced by large wages to return to his old employer Keimer. This led to his making the acquaintance of a young man of the name of Meredith, whom he afterwards described as a“Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work, honest, sensible, who had a great deal of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to drink.” He was learning the printer’s art, and offered to furnish the capital to establish a new printing office—his father being a man of some means—if Franklin would join him and direct the business. This proposal was accepted, the types were sent for, a house was rented at £20 a year, part of which was sublet to a glazier who was to board them, and before the expiration of a year from his return to Philadelphia, Franklin, for the first time in his life, was in business for himself. “We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order,” he says, “before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman’s five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave us more pleasure than any crown I have since earned, and the gratitude I felt towards House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been to assist young beginners.”

Almost simultaneously, in September 1729, he bought for a nominal price the Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper which Keimer had started nine months before to defeat a similar project of Franklin’s which accidentally came to his knowledge. It had only 90 subscribers. His superior arrangement of the paper, his new type, some spirited remarks on a controversy then waging between the Massachusetts assembly and Governor Burnet (a son of the celebrated Bishop Gilbert Burnet) brought his paper into immediate notice, and his success, both as a printer and as a journalist, was from that time forth assured and complete. The influence which he was enabled to exert by his pen through his paper, and by his industry and good sense, boro abundant fruit during the next seventeen years, during which he was at the head of journalism in America. In 1731 he established the first circulating library on the continent; in 1732 he published the first of the Poor Richard's Almanacs, a publication which was continued for twenty-five years, and attained a marvellous popularity. The annual sale was about 10,000 copies, at that time far in excess of any other publication in the colonies, and equivalent to a sale at the present time of not less than 300,000. In the next ten years he acquired a convenient familiarity with the French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin languages.

In 1736 Franklin was chosen a clerk of the general assembly, and was re-elected the following year. He was then elected a member of assembly, to which dignity he was reelected for ten successive years, and was appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Indians at Carlisle. In 1737 Colonel Spotswood, then postmaster-general, appointed him deputy postmaster at Philadelphia. About this time he organized the first police force and fire company in the colonies, and a few years later initiated the movements which resulted in the foundation of the university of Pennsylvania and of the American Philosophical Society, in the organization of a militia force, in the paving of the streets, and in the foundation of a hospital; in fact, he furnished the impulse to nearly every measure or project which contemplated the welfare and prosperity of the city in which he lived. It was during this period, and in the midst of these very miscellaneous avocations, that he made the discoveries in electricity which have secured him undisputed rank among the most eminent of natural philosophers. He was the first to demonstrate that lightning and electricity were one. The Royal Society, when an account of his experiments, which had been transmitted to a scientific friend in England, was laid before it, made sport of them, and refused to print them. Through the recommendation of his friend they were printed, however, in an extra number of the Gentleman's Magazine, of which the publisher ultimately sold five editions. A copy chancing to fall into the hands of Buffon, he saw their value, and advised their translation and publication in France, where they immediately attracted attention. The “Philadelphia experiments,” as they were called, were performed in the presence of the royal family in Paris, and became the sensation of the period. The Royal Society of London found it necessary to reconsider its action, published a summary of the experiments in its Transactions, and, as Franklin afterwards averred, more than made him amends for the slight with which it had before treated him, by electing him an honorary member, exempting him from the customary payments, and sending him for the rest of his life a copy of the Transactions. Since the introduction of the art of printing, it would be difficult to name any discovery which has exerted a more important influence upon the industries and habits of mankind.

In 1754 a war with France was impending, and Franklin, who by this time had become the most important man in the colony of Pennsylvania, was sent to a congress of commissioners from the different colonies, ordered by the Lords of Trade to convene at Albany, to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations for their common defence. Franklin there submitted a plan for organizing a system of colonial defence which was adopted and reported; it provided for a president-general of all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies. The colonies so united, he thought, would be sufficiently strong to defend themselves, and there would then be no need of troops from England. Had this course been pursued, the subsequent pretence for taxing America would not have been furnished, and the bloody contest it occasioned might have been avoided. The Lords of Trade, however, feared that any such union of the colonies would reveal to them their strength; and the project of union, though accompanied with a recommendation from the governor of the province of Pennsylvania, when it was brought into the assembly, as it was during Franklin’s casual absence from the hall, was rejected. This Franklin thought a mistake. “But such mistakes,” he said, “are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those who govern, having much business ón their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.” Instead of allowing the colonists to unite and defend themselves, the home Government sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops, whom the colonists were expected to maintain. The proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn, sons of William Penn, and the hereditary governors of the colonies, however, “with incredible meanness,” instructed their deputies—the governors they sent out—to pass no act for levying the necessary taxes unless their vast estates were in the same act exempt. They even took bonds of their deputies to observe these instructions. The assembly finally, “finding the proprietaries obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people but with the service of the crown,”—we are quoting the language of Franklin,— “resolved to petition the king against them,” and appointed Franklin as their agent to go to England and present their petition. He arrived in London on the 27th July 1757, not this time as a poor printer’s boy, but as a messenger to the most powerful sovereign in the world from a corporate body’of some of his most loyal subjects.

Franklin lost no time, after reaching London, in waiting upon Lord Grenville, then president of the council, and held with him a conversation which he deemed of so much importance that he made a record of it immediately upon returning to his lodgings. Nor did he exaggerate its importance, for in it were the germs of the revolt and independence of the North American colonies. “You Americans,” said Grenville, “have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king’s instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the law; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the law of the land, for the king is the legislature of the colonies.” Franklin frankly told his lordship that this was new doctrine,—that he understood from the colonial charters that the laws of the colonies were to be made by their assemblies, approved by the king, and when once approved the king alone could neither alter nor amend them. Franklin admits that he was alarmed by this conversation, but he was not as much alarmed as he had reason to be, for it distinctly raised the issue between the king and a fraction of his people which was to require a seven years’ war to decide. Franklin next sought an interview with the brothers Penn to lay before them the grievances of the assembly. Finding them entirely inaccessible to his reasonings, he supplied the material for an historical review of the controversy between the assembly and the proprietaries, which made an octavo volume of 500 pages. The success of Franklin’s mission thus far was not encouraging, for he appealed to a class largely interested in the abuses of which he complained. Meantime, Governor Denny, who had been recently sent out to the province by the proprietaries, tired of struggling with the public opinion which was surging about him in Pennyslvania, and in disregard of his instructions, assented to the passing of laws which taxed equally the entire landed property of the province, and assumed that the assembly was the proper judge of the requirements of the people it represented. An equivalent in paper money was issued upon the faith of this tax. The proprietaries were very angry with the governor, recalled him, and threatened to prosecute him for a breach of his instructions. But they never carried their threat into execution.

The subject of “taxing all estates,” after a careful discussion by counsel on both sides in London, was finally referred to a committee of the privy council for plantations, who reported adversely to the petitioners vzhom Franklin represented. Disappointed, but not discouraged, he suggested a compromise involving a personal engagement on his part that, among other things, the assembly should pass an act exempting from taxation the unsurveyed waste lands of the Penns’ estate, and secure the assessment of the surveyed waste lands at the usual rate at which other property of that description was assessed. Upon this proposal, to the infinite disgust of the Penns, a favourable report was made, and approved by the king, George II., then within a few weeks of his death. “Thus,” wrote Franklin, a few days later, to Lord Kames, “the cause is at length ended, and in a great degree to our satisfaction.” Franklin’s stipulation gave to the Penns nothing, in fact, which they had not always had, and therefore the assembly never passed the superfluous act for securing it. They did, however, relieve Pennsylvania from the financial embarrassments that must have followed the repeal of a money bill which had already been a year in operation, and it established the principle till then denied by the proprietaries, that their estates were subject to taxation. The success of his first foreign mission, therefore, was substantial and satisfactory.

During this sojourn of five years in England, Franklin made many valuable friends outside court and political circles, among whom the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith are conspicuous. In the spring of 1759 he received the degree of doctor of laws from the Scottish university of St Andrew’s. He also made active use of his marvellous and unsurpassed talent for pamphleteering. He wrote for the Annual Register, of which young Edmund Burke was then editor, and with whom, at a later day, he was destined to have closer relations, a paper “On the Peopling of Countries,” traces of which may readily be discerned in the first book of The Wealth of Nations. In this paper Franklin combated the popular delusion that the people and wealth of the colonies were necessarily so much population and wealth abstracted from the mother country, and he estimated that the population of the colonies, by doubling once in every twenty-five years, would, at the end of a century, give a larger English population beyond the Atlantic than in England, without at all interfering with the growth of England in either direction. Franklin’s conjecture, that the population of the colonies would double every twenty-five years, commended itself to the judgment of Adam Smith, who adopted it; and it has thus far been vindicated by the census.

On the 25th of October 1760 King George II. died, and his grandson ascended the throne. A clamour for peace followed. Franklin was for a vigorous prosecution of the war then pending with France, and wrote what purported to be a chapter from an old book, which he said was written by a Spanish Jesuit to an ancient king of Spain, entitled, On the Means of disposing the Enemy to Peace. It was ingenious and had a great effect, and, like everything Franklin wrote, is about as readable to-day as when first printed. Soon after the capture of Quebec, Franklin wrote a more elaborate paper, entitled, The Interests of Great Britain considered with regard to her Colonies and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadeloupe. Its purpose was to show that, while Canada remained French, the English colonies of North America could never be safe nor peace in Europe permanent. Tradition reports that this pamphlet had great weight in determining the ministry to retain Canada, which, thanks in a large degree to his foresight and activity, is to-day one of the brightest jewels in the English crown. “I have long been of opinion,” he wrote about this time to Lord Kames, “that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America; and though, like other foundations, they are low and little now, they are nevertheless broad and strong enough to support the greatest political structure that human wisdom ever erected. I am, therefore, by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British. Britain will become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce. The Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe and awe the world.” What Englishman can read these papers to-day without a feeling of regret that Franklin was not permitted to occupy a seat in parliament as one of the representatives of the British colonies, so that England and the world might have had the advantage in a larger measure of his rare wisdom, sagacity, and patriotism ì

Franklin sailed again for America in August 1762, after an absence of five years, during which he had found an opportunity of visiting large portions of the Continent, and of acquiring information about European affairs both in and out of England, which made him more than ever an enlightened and trustworthy authority in America upon all foreign questions affecting the interests of the colonists. The peace with the proprietary government was only temporary. The question of taxing their estates had come up in a new form, and finally resulted in a petition from the assembly drawn by Franklin himself for a change of government for Pennsylvania. The election which took place in the fall of 1764 turned upon the issue raised in this petition, and the proprietary party succeeded, by a majority of 28 votes out of 4000, in depriving Franklin of the seat to which he had been chosen for fourteen successive years in the provincial assembly. The victory, however, was a barren one, for no sooner did the assembly convene than it resolved again to send Franklin as its special agent to England to take charge of their petition for a change of government, and to look after the interests of the province abroad. On the 7th of November following his defeat, he was again on his way across the Atlantic. We may as well here say at once that the petition which he brought with him for a change of government came to nothing. Franklin presented it, and the Penns opposed it; but matters of so much graver consequence continually arose between 1765, when it was presented, and 1775, when the revolution began, that it was left to the final disposition of time. The Penns at last had the sagacity to sell betimes what they were not wise enough to keep. The State of Pennsylvania gave them .£130,000 for their interest in its soil, and the British Government settled upon the head of the family a pension of £4000 a year.

Early in the year of 1764 Grenville, the prime minister, had sent for the agents of the American colonies resident in London, and told them that the war with France which had just terminated had left upon England a debt of £73,000,000 sterling, and that he proposed to lay a portion of this' burthen upon the shoulders of the colonists by means of a stamp duty, unless the colonists could propose some other tax equally productive and less inconvenient. He directed the agents to write to their several assemblies for instructions upon this point. The assembly of Pennsylvania, which expressed the sentiment of all the colonies, was decidedly of the opinion that to tax the colonies, which were already taxed beyond their strength, and which were surrounded by aboriginal enemies and exposed to constant expenditures for defence, was cruel, but to tax them by a parliament in which they were not represented was an indignity. While such was their feeling, they allowed it to be understood that they would not reject any requisition of their king for aid, and if he would only signify his needs in the usual way, the assembly would do their utmost for him. These views were summed up in a “resolution” thus expressed: “that, as the assembly always had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of them in the usual manner.” To prevent the introduction of such a bill as the ministry proposed, and which Franklin characterized as “the mother of mischief,” he left no stone unturned, by personal intercession, by private correspondence, and through the press. At last, in despair, he, with his associate agents, sought an interview with thej minister. They found him inexorable. The Government wanted the money, and it did not wish to recognize the principle upon which the colonists resisted the Government method of obtaining it. The bill was introduced, and was promptly passed, only 50 voting against it in the Commons, and the Lords not dividing upon it. The sum expected from this tax being only £100,000, it was thought the colonists would soon be reconciled to it. This was evidently Franklin’s hope, which he did his utmost to realize. Writing home to a friend shortly after the passage of the Act he said, “The tide was too strong for us. We might as well have hindered the sun’s setting; but since it is down, my .friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliament.” But.when the news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the colonies, and its provisions came to be scanned, the indiscretion of those who advised it was manifest. Meetings were held in all the colonies, where resolves were passed unanimously to consume no more British manufactures until the hateful Act was repealed. For."simply recommending a trusty person to collect the tax, Franklin himself was denounced, and his family in Philadelphia was in danger of being mobbed. The Act not only failed of its purpose in producing a revenue, but before it went into operation a formidable agitation for its repeal had already commenced.

The succeeding session of parliament, which began in December 1765, is specially memorable for Franklin’s examination before a committee of the House on the effects of the Stamp Act; for the magnificent parliamentary debut of Edmund Burke, whose speeches for the repeal, said Dr Johnson, “filled the town with wonder;” and for the repeal of the offensive Act by a majority of 108. The first six weeks of this session were devoted to taking testimony at the bar of the house on American affairs, and especially upon the probable advantages and disadvantages of the Stamp Act. Franklin was the only one of the witnesses who lifted a voice that could be heard by posterity. Burke said the scene reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of schoolboys. George Whitfield, the great field preacher, wrote—“Our trusty friend, Dr Franklin, has gained immortal honour by his behaviour át the bar of the House. The answer was always found equal to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honour to his country.” The examination was first published in 1767, without the name of printer or of publisher, and the following remarks upon it appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for July of that year: “From this examination of Dr Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition of America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the object of public attention till now. The questions in general were put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honour to Dr Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities.”

The light thrown upon colonial affairs by Franklin’s examination, more probably than all other causes combined, determined parliament to repeal the bill almost as soon as it was to have gone into operation, and immediately upon the conclusion of Franklin’s examination. It was to Franklin a never-to-be-forgotten triumph. He celebrated it characteristically. “As the Stamp Act,” he wrote to his wife, “is at length repealed, I am willing you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send sooner as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbours unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woollen and linen of my wife’s manufacture, that I never was prouder of my dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary. I told the parliament that it was my opinion, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making. I have sent you a fine piece of Pompadour satin, 14 yards, cost Ils. a yard; a silk négligée and petticoat of brocaded lute string, for my dear Sally [his daughter]; with two dozen gloves, four bottles of lavender w

FRANKLIN, Sir John (1786-1847), rear-admiral, was born at Spilsby, Lincolnshire, April 16,1786. Sprung from a line of free-holders, or “franklins,” his father inherited a small family estate, which was so deeply mortgaged by his immediate predecessor that it was found necessary to sell it; but by his success in commercial pursuits he was enabled to maintain and educate a family of twelve children. John, the youngest son, was destined for the church by his father, who, with this view, had purchased an advowson for him. He received the rudiments of education at St Ives, and afterwards attended Louth Grammar School for two years; but having employed a holiday in walking 12 miles with a companion to look at the sea, which up to that time he knew only by description, his imagination was so impressed that he determined to be a sailor. In the hope of dispelling what he considered to be a boyish fancy, his father sent him on a trial voyage to Lisbon in a merchantman; but it being found on his return that his wishes were unchanged, an entry on the quarterdeck of the “Polyphemus,” 74, Captain Lawford, was procured for him in 1800; and this ship having led the line in the battle of Copenhagen in 1801, young Franklin had the honour of serving in Nelson’s hardest-fought action. Two months after the action of Copenhagen, he joined the “Investigator,” discovery-ship, commanded by his relative Captain Flinders, and under the training of that able scientific officer, while employed in exploring and mapping the coasts of Australia, he acquired a correctness of astronomical observation and a skill in surveying which proved of eminent utility in his future career. Franklin was on board the “Porpoise” when that ship and the “Cato” were wrecked, August 18, 1803, on a coral reef, off the coast of Australia (see Flinders). After this misfortune, Franklin proceeded to Canton, where he obtained a passage to England in the “Earl Camden,” East Indiaman, commanded by Sir Nathaniel Dance, commodore of the China fleet of 16 sail. On the 15th of February 1804 Captain Dance repulsed a strong French squadron, led by the redoubtable Admiral Linois. In this action Franklin performed the important duty of signal midshipman. On reaching England, he joined the “Bellerophon,” 74, and in that ship he was again entrusted with the signals, a duty which he executed with his accustomed coolness and intrepidity in the great battle of Trafalgar. In the “Bedford,” his next ship, he attained the rank of lieutenant, and remaining in her for six years, latterly as first lieutenant, served in the blockade of Flushing, on the coast of Portugal, alιd in other parts of the world, but chiefly on the Brazil station, whither the “Bedford” went as part of the convoy which escorted the royal family of Portugal to Rio de Janeiro in 1808. In the ill-managed and disastrous attack on New Orleans, he commanded the “Bedford’s” boats in an engagement with the enemy’s gunboats, one of which he boarded and captured, receiving a slight wound in the hand-to-hand fight.

On peace being established, Franklin turned his attention once more to the scientific branch of his profession, and sedulously extended his knowledge of surveying. In 1818 the discovery of a north-west passage became again, after a long interval, a national object, and Lieutenant Franklin was appointed to the “Trent,” as second to Captain Buchan of the “Dorothea,” hired vessels equipped for penetrating to the north of Spitzbergen, and, if possible, crossing the Polar Sea by that route. During a heavy storm, both ships were forced to seek for safety by boring into the closely packed ice, in which extremely hazardous operation the “Dorothea” was so much damaged that her reaching England became doubtful; but the “Trent” having sustained less injury, Franklin requested to be allowed to prosecute the voyage alone, or under Captain Buchan, who had the power of embarking in the “Trent” if be chose. The latter, however, declined to leave his officers and men at a time when the ship was almost in a sinking condition, and directed Franklin to convoy him to England. Though success did not attend this voyage, it brought Franklin into personal intercourse with the leading scientific men of London, and they were not slow in ascertaining his peculiar fitness for the command of such an enterprise. To calmness in danger, promptness and fertility of resource, and excellent seamanship, he added other qualities less common, more especially an ardent desire to promote science for its own sake, and not merely for the distinction which eminence in it confers, together with a love of truth that led him to do full justice to the merits of his subordinate officers, without wishing to claim their discoveries as a captain’s right. Added to this, he had a cheerful buoyancy of mind, which, sustained by religious principle of a depth known only to his most intimate friends, was not depressed in the most gloomy times. It was, therefore, with full confidence in his ability and exertions that he was, in 1819, placed in command of an expedition appointed to travel through Rupert’s Land to the shores of the Arctic Sea, while Lieutenant Parry was despatched with two vessels to Lancaster Sound. At this period, the northern coast of America was known at two isolated points only, viz., the mouth of the Coppermine River, discovered by Hearne,—but placed erroneously by him four degrees of latitude too much to the north,—and the mouth of the Mackenzie. Lieutenant Franklin, accompanied by a surgeon, two midshipmen, and a few Orkney-men, embarked for Hudson’s Bay, in June 1819. His instructions left the route he was to pursue much to his own judgment, guided by the information he might be able to collect at York Factory from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants there assembled. Wintering the first year on the Saskatchewan, the expedition was fed by the Hudson’s Bay Company; the second winter was spent on the “barren grounds,” the party subsisting on game and fish procured by their own exertions, or purchased from their native neighbours; and in the following summer the expedition descended the Coppermine River, and surveyed a considerable extent of the sea coast to the eastward. The survivors of this expedition travelled, from their start at York Factory to their return to it again, by land and water, 5550 miles. While engaged on this service, Franklin was promoted to be a commander, and after his return to England in 1822 he obtained the post rank of captain, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In the succeeding year he married Eleanor, the youngest daughter of Mr Porden, an eminent architect.

In a second expedition, which left home in 1825 (his wife dying within the same year), Franklin descended the Mackenzie and traced the coast-line through 37 degrees of longitude, from the mouth of the Coppermine River, where his former survey commenced, to near the 150th meridian, and approaching within 160 miles of the most easterly point attained by Captain Beechey, who was co-operating with him from Behring’s Strait. His exertions were fully appreciated at home and abroad. He was knighted in 1829, received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford, was awarded the gold medal of the Geographical Society of Paris, and was elected in 1846 correspondent of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Though the surveys executed by himself and by a detachment under command of Dr Richardson comprised one, and within a few miles of two, of the spaces for which a parliamentary reward was offered, the Board of Longitude declined making the award; but a bill was soon afterwards laid before parliament by the secretary of the Admiralty abrogating the reward altogether, on the ground of the discoveries contemplated having been thus effected. The results of these expeditions are described by Franklin and his companion Dr (afterwards Sir John) Richardson in two magnificent works published in 1824-29. In 1828 he married his second wife, Jane, second daughter of Mr John Griffin. His next official employment was on the Mediterranean station, in command of the “Rainbow,” and his ship soon became proverbial in the squadron for the happiness and comfort of her officers and crew. As an acknowledgment of the essential service he had rendered off Patras in the “war of liberation,” he received the Cross of the Redeemer of Greece from King Otho, and after his return to England he was created Knight Commander of the Guelphic order of Hanover.

In 1836 Sir John accepted the lieutenant-governorship of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). His government, which lasted till the end of 1843, was marked by several events of much interest. One of his most popular measures was the opening of the doors of the legislative council to the public. He also originated a college, endowing it largely from his private funds with money and lands, in the hope that it would eventually prove the means of affording to all parties secular and religious instruction of the highest kind. He requested Dr Arnold to select some one competent to take the direction of this institution; and the choice fell on the Rev. John Philip Gell. In his time also the colony of Victoria was founded by settlers from Tasmania; and towards its close, transportation to New South Wales having been abolished, the convicts from every part of the British empire were sent to Tasmania. On an increase to the lieutenant-governor’s salary being voted by the colonial legislature, Sir John declined to derive any advantage from it personally, while he secured the augmentation to his successors. In 1838 he founded a scientific society at Hobart Town (now called the “Royal Society of Tasmania ”), the meetings of which were held in Government House, and its papers printed at his expense. He welcomed eagerly the various expeditions for exploration and surveying which visited Hobart Town under command of Captains Wickham, Stokes, Owen Stanley, and others. Conspicuous among these, and of especial interest to himself, were the French and English Antarctic expeditions of Dumont D’Urville and Sir James C. Ross,—the latter commanding the “Erebus” and “Terror,” with which the name of Franklin was to be for ever so pathetically connected. A magnetic observatory, fixed at Hobart Town as a dependency of the central establishment under Colonel Sabine, was an object of deep interest up to the moment of his leaving the colony.

Thus pleasantly occupied, the years allotted to a colonial governorship drew to a close. Franklin had passed through phases of difficulty common to all governors of colonics remote from the imperial centre; and it was impossible for an impartial and high-minded ruler to avoid collision with personal interests. But that his unflinching efforts for the social as well as the political advancement of the colony were already appreciated was abundantly proved by the affection and respect universally testified by the addresses which proceeded from every section of the community, and by the demonstrations from all classes on his departure. A local newspaper, describing the scene in much detail, adds, “Thus departed from among us as true and upright a governor as ever the destinies of a British colony were entrusted to.” That this was no evanescent feeling is attested by the fact that several years afterwards the colonists showed their remembrance of his virtues and services by sending to Lady Franklin a subscription of £1700 in aid of her efforts in the search fortheir former governor, and later still by a unanimous vote of the legislature for the erection of a statue in honour of him at Hobart Town.

Sir John found, on reaching England, that the confidence of the Admiralty in him was undiminished, as was shown by his being offered in 1845 the command of an expedition for the discovery of the North-West passage; this offer he accepted. The prestige of Arctic service and of his former experiences attracted a crowd of volunteers of all classes, from whom were selected a body of officers conspicuous for talent and energy. Thus supported, with crews carefully chosen (some of whom had been engaged in the whaling service), victualled for three years, and furnished with every appliance then known, Franklin’s expedition, consisting of the “Erebus” and “Terror” (134 officers and men), with a transport ship to convey additional stores as far as Disco in Greenland, sailed from Greenhithe on the 19th of May 1845. The ships were last seen on the 26th of July in Baffin’s Bay by a whaler which was moored to an iceberg in lat. 74° 48' N. and long. 66° 13' W.; and at that time the expedition was proceeding prosperously. Letters written by Franklin a few days previous to that date were couched in language of cheerful anticipation of success, while those received from his officers expressed their glowing hope, their admiration of the seaman-like qualities of their commander, and the happiness they had in serving under him.

Franklin’s instructions were framed (in conjunction with Sir John Barrow and upon his own suggestions) by the eminent explorers with whom his former work had. closely connected him. The experience of Parry made it evident that a fresh attempt to force ships through the heavy ice seen by him to the south-west of Nfelville Island would be futile, as his since been fully proved. On the other hand, Franklin’s surveys of the north coast of America had long before satisfied him that a navigable passage existed along it, from the Fish River to Behring’s Strait. He was therefore directed to pursue a course towards the coast after he had approached the longitude of about 98° W., and was allowed the single alternative of previously examining Wellington Channel if the navigation were open. An explicit prohibition was given against a westerly course beyond the longitude of 98° W.

In 1817, though there was no real public anxiety as to the fate of the expedition, preparations began to be made for the possible necessity of succouring the explorers. As time passed, however, and no tidings of the expedition reached England, the search began in earnest; expedition after expedition was despatched in quest of them in 1848 and succeeding years, regardless of cost or hazard. In this great national undertaking Sir John’s heroic wife took a part which will ennoble her name for all time Between 1818 and 1854 about fifteen expeditions were sent out by England and America in the hope of rescuing, or at least finding traces of, the missing explorers. The details A the work done by those expeditions will be given in the article on Polar Regions ; here we shall confine ourselves to the results, so far as the search for Franklin w as concerned. Lady Franklin’s exertions were unwearied; she exhausted her private funds in sending out auxiliary vessels to quarters not comprised in the public search, and by her pathetic appeals she roused the sympathy of the whole civilized world. Traces of the missing ships were discovered by Ommanney and Penny in August 1850, and were brought home by the “Prince Albert,” fitted out by Lady Franklin with the especial object of following to the southward the route which ’ would be almost certainly taken by Franklin in carrying out his instructions. It was thus ascertained that the first winter had been spent behind Beechey Island, where they had remained at least as late as April 1846. No further tidings were obtained until the spring of 1854, when Dr Rae, then conducting an exploring party of the Hudson’s Bay Company from Repulse Bay, was told by the Eskimo that (as was inferred) in 1850 white men, to the number of about forty, had been seen dragging a boat over the ice near the north shore of King William’s Island, and that later in the same season, but before the breaking up of the ice, the bodies of the whole party were found by the natives at a point a short distance to the north-west of Back’s Great Fish River, where they had perished from the united effects of cold and famine. The latter statement was afterwards disproved by the discovery of skeletons upon the presumed line of route; but indisputable proof was given that the Eskimo had communicated with members of the missing expedition, by the various articles obtained from them and brought home by Dr Rae, who, on his return to England, claimed, and succeeded in obtaining, the reward of £10,000 offered by the Admiralty in 1849, “to any party or parties who, in the judgment of the Board of Admiralty, shall, by virtue of his or her efforts, first succeed in ascertaining” the fate of the missing expedition. On account of the information obtained by Dr Rae, a party in two canoes under Messrs Anderson and Stewart was in 1855 sent by Government down the Great Fish River, and they succeeded in obtaining from the Eskimo at the mouth of the river a considerable number of articles which had evidently belonged to the Franklin expedition; and many others were picked up on Montreal Island, articles evidently belonging to a boat which, it was reported, had been cut up by the Eskimo. This expedition was unable to make so thorough a search as was desirable, but it was clear from the results obtained by it, and from the examinations which had been made by the many other expeditions of all straits and inlets and coasts except the region to the north of Great Fish River, that King William’s Island,'the west coast of Boothia, and the neighbouring sea were the fields likely to yield the most satisfactory results. It was clear that a party from the “Erebus” and “Terror” had endeavoured to reach by the Fish River route the settlements of the Hudson Bay Company, and equally evident that the expedition in making a southerly course had been arrested within the channel into which the Great Fish River empties itself. At this time Government was wholly taken up with the events in the East, and when the war was over, it was deemed useless to spend any more money and risk any more lives in what was regarded as a hopeless quest. But Lady Franklin’s pious devotion to the memory of her noble husband prompted her to make one last effort to ascertain his fate; to this object she dedicated all her available means, aided, as she had been before, by the subscriptions of sympathizing friends, her judgment being confirmed by the opinion of all those best able to form one as to the hopefulness as well as the feasibility of such an attempt. Accordingly she purchased and fitted out the little yacht “Fox,” which sailed from Aberdeen in July 1857; the command was accepted by Captain (afterwards Sir) Leopold M i Clintock, whose high reputation had been won in three of the Government expeditions sent out in search of Franklin. Having been compelled to pass the first winter in Baffin’s Bay, it was not till the autumn of 1858 that the expedition passed down Prince Regent’s Inlet, and the “Fox” put into winter quarters at Port Kennedy at the eastern end of Bellυt Strait, between North Somerset and Boothia Felix. In the spring of 1859 three sledging parties went out, Captain (now Sir) Allen Young to examine Prince of Wales Island, Lieutenant (now Captain) Hobson the north and west coasts of King William’s Island, and M i Clintock the east and south coasts of the latter, the west coast of Boothia, and the region about the mouth of Great Fish River. The search was successful so far as ascertaining the course and fate of the expedition is concerned. From the Eskimo in Boothia many relics were obtained, and reports as to the fate of the ships and men; all along the west and south coast of King William’s Island remains of articles belonging to the ships were discovered, and skeletons that told a terrible tale of disaster. Above all, in a cairn at Point Victory a precious record was discovered by Lieut. Hobson that briefly told the history of the expedition up to April 25, 1848, three years after it set out full of hope. In 1845-6 the “Erebus” and “Terror” wintered at Beechey Island on the S.W. coast of North Devon, in lat. 74° 43' 28'' N.,long. 9T 39' 15" W., after having ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77 β and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island. This statement was signed by Graham Gore, lieutenant, and Charles F. Des Voeux, mate, and bore date May 28,1847. These two officers and six men, it was further told, left the ships on May 24, 1847, no doubt for an exploring journey, at which time all was well.

The success of the first year’s work, thus briefly stated, was greater than has been since attained within any one season in arctic service. The alternative course permitted by Franklin’s instructions had been attempted but was not pursued, and in the autumn of 1846 he followed that which was especially commended to him. But on his attempting to reach the coast of America, the obstruction of heavy ice, which presses down from Melville Island through M'Clintock Channel (not then known to exist) upon King William’s Island had finally arrested his progress. It must be remembered that in the chart carried out by Franklin this island was laid down as a part of the mainland of Boothia, and he therefore could pursue his way only down its western coast. The record that revealéd all which has been briefly stated was written upon one of the forms supplied by the Admiralty to surveying vessels, to be thrown overboard after the required data had been filled in. But upon the margin around the printed form was an addendum dated the 25th April 1848, which extinguished all hopes of a successful termination of their grand enterprise. The facts are best conveyed by the terse and expressive words of the record, which is therefore given verbatim :—“April 25th 1848. H. Μ. Ships ‘Terror’ and ‘Erebus’ were deserted on 22d April, five leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. Μ. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37' 42" N., long. 98° 4Γ W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.” The handwriting is that of Captain Fitzjames, to whose signature is appended that of Captain Crozier, who also adds the words of chief importance, namely, that they would “start on tomorrow 26th April 1848 for Back’s Fish River.” A briefer record has never been told of so tragic a story. Thus it was reserved for the latest effort of Lady Franklin to develop not only the fate of her husband’s expedition, but also the steps of its progress up to crowning success, mingled indeed with disaster almost unprecedented.

All of the party had without doubt been greatly reduced through want of sufficient food, and the injurious effects of three winters in these regions. They had greatly overrated their strength in attempting to drag with them two boats, besides heavily laden sledges, and doubtless had soon been compelled to abandon much of their burden, and leave one boat on the shore of King William’s Island, where it was found, near the middle of the west coast, by M'Clintock; it contained two skeletons. From the Eskimo we learn that the men dropped down as they walked, and often had to be left unburied. Although many relics were found in possession of the Eskimo, there seems no reason to believe that the retreating crews met with foul play. From all that can be gathered, one of the vessels must have been crushed in the ice and the other stranded on the shore of King William’s Island, where it lay for years, forming a mint of wealth for the neighbouring Eskimo. MOlintock examined all the shores of the island with the greatest care, but found no trace of a stranded vessel.

This is all we know of the fate of Franklin and his brave men. His memory is cherished as one of the most conspicuous of the naval heroes of Britain, and as one of the most successful and daring of her explorers. He is certainly entitled to the honour of being the first discoverer of the North-West Passage; the point reached by the ships brought him to within a few miles of that attained from the westward by the explorations of earlier years; he had -indeed all but traversed the entire distance between Baffin’s Bay and Behring’s Strait. On the monument erected to Franklin by his country, in Waterloo Place, London, the honour of discovering the passage is justly awarded to him and his companions,—a fact which was also affirmed by the president of the Royal Geographical Society, when presenting to Lady Franklin in 1860 their gold medal. More recently a fine monument, erected in 1875 in Westminster Abbey, commemorates the heroic deeds and fate of Sir John Franklin, the death (which occurred in that year) of Lady Franklin, and the inseparable connexion of her name with the fame of her husband. Most of the Franklin relics brought home by MOlintock were presented by Lady Franklin to the United Service Museum, while those given by Dr Rae to the Admiralty are deposited in Greenwich Hospital· Captain Hall, so well known in connexion with the “Polaris” expedition, spent five years with the Eskimo, and made two journeys in endeavouring to trace the remnant of Franklin’s party, bringing back in 1869 a number of additional relics and some information confirmatory of that given by M'Clintock. In 1878 a search expedition was sent out from America in consequence of a tale told to Mr Barry, the mate of a whaler, by some Nechelli Eskimo met by him at Whale Point, Hudson’s Bay. He obtained from these Eskimo some spoons bearing Franklin’s crest. The Eskimo were understood to say that these were received from a party of white men, who passed a winter near their settlement, and all died. The white men, the Eskimo stated, left a number of books with writing in them, which were buried. The story has some points about it that make one inclined to doubt its accuracy. Still it is satisfactory that the search party has been sent out, and we can only hope that it will be rewarded by discovering some of the records of the unfortunate expedition. (j. s. κ.)