55 25 .xl

Harvard Colle Library,
Kiunt Collection.
Git of

A. C. COOLIDGE,
Jan. 27, 1502.

"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers - they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here."

CHILDE HAROLD, canto iv. ver. 184.

LONDON:

SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW,
New-street-Square.

ΤΟ

LADY FRANKLIN,

AND THE

SUBSCRIBERS TO THE PRINCE REGENT'S INLET

BRANCH EXPEDITION

IN SEARCH OF

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

AND THE CREWS OF H.M. DISCOVERY SHIPS,

EREBUS AND TERROR;

This Volume

IS,

MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THEIR HUMBLE SERVANT,

W. P. SNOW.

PREFACE.

AT the request of several kind friends, who were of opinion that my private Journal would not be wholly uninteresting, from its giving a detailed account of the "Prince Albert's" remarkable cruise in the Arctic Seas, I have ventured, though with great timidity and hesitation, to send it forth upon the wide waters of public opinion. What to say about it I really know not. Rough and ready, there it is just as I wrote it, sometimes after a day's toil, and sometimes after many days' cessation from it, when the mind, wearied and distressed about other things, resorted to the pen for relief. No elegance of language nor polished style must be expected. I have merely given expression to a series of facts and feelings, and perhaps have troubled the reader with too many of them. If so, I must plead in excuse that my heart was, is, and always will be most deeply interested in the cause which led to our voyage.

With reference to myself, I may be permitted to observe, that I came over from America (where I was residing) at three days' notice, especially to join in any expedition going out under Lady Franklin's auspices to the Arctic Seas, in search of her gallant husband, having volunteered my humble services for that purpose. Too late, by a few days only, for Captain Penny's vessels, in which I had a hope held out to me of an appointment, I was attached by Lady Franklin to the "Prince Albert," which she had then recently bought. I joined that vessel more in a civil than in an executive capacity; but with the express understanding that most of my active duties were to commence upon our arrival in Prince Regent's Inlet, where I was to take charge of one of the exploring parties to Boothia and elsewhere. To Boothia I had long turned my attention in connection with the missing expedition, and had submitted to Lady Franklin a plan of search through North America which has since appeared in the Arctic Returns for 1850

In reading the following pages, it must not be forgotten, that this is merely my own private Journal,

a record of my own doings: although it will be seen, that in my own labours may be also traced those of other individuals. I have deemed it a duty to mention faithfully facts as they occurred, to give praise wherever I conceived that it was due,