Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/25

4 and written upon the subject. Let me here briefly mention why I myself, with no previous experience, and no past history of my own to help me, took it up as I have done.

In one word, then, it seemed to me as if I had been called, if I may so speak, to try and do the work. My heart felt sore at the thought of so great a mystery in connexion with any of our fellow-creatures,—especially akin to ourselves,—yet remaining unsolved. Why could not their true fate be ascertained? Why should not attempts be made, again and again, until the whole facts were properly known? Captain (now Sir F. L.) M'Clintock, in 1857–9, had gone forth once more to seek for some elucidation of this mystery, but still I felt that something more might yet be attempted toward cooperating with that brave officer. It was already known that his vessel, the Fox, had been caught in the ice and delayed a whole year. It was possible that she might still not be able to get through to her destination, and therefore I fancied the work could be more effectually done by an independent expedition proceeding in some other direction, afterward to join with M'Clintock, if need be, in his task. Accordingly, I conceived an idea that perhaps the British Government would lend, for a new American expedition, the arctic ship Resolute, which, having been abandoned in the ice, had drifted out, and was picked up in 1855 by Captain James Budington, of New London, who brought her to the States, where she was completely refitted at our national expense, and returned as a generous gift, in amity and good will, to England. I had heard that she was afterward dismantled, and laid up as a hulk in the River Medway, and I thought it possible she might now be loaned to us for another attempt to be made under the American flag. A printed petition to the British authorities was gotten up and signed by S. P. Chase (then Governor of Ohio), U. S. Senator George Pugh, and Mayor Bishop, of Cincinnati; but, before other names were attached to send it to England, M'Clintock returned with news of what he had discovered. What this was the civilized world is well acquainted with. He had obtained a few facts, but still left