Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/432

 early hour, we arrived at Fort Enterprise, having travelled about eighteen miles a day. I had the pleasure of meeting my friends all in good health.”

Mr. Back was advanced to the rank of lieutenant on the 1st Jan. 1821; and subsequently appointed to the Superb 78, Captain Sir Thomas Staines, in which ship he visited Gibraltar and Barbadoes. Towards the close of 1823, his Majesty’s Government having determined upon another attempt to effect a northern passage by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and Captain (now Sir W. E.) Parry, the commander of the two preceding expeditions, having been again entrusted with its execution, success, as far as ability, enterprise, and experience could ensure it, appeared likely to be the result. Yet, as the object was one for which Great Britain had thought proper to contend for upwards of three centuries, it seemed to Captain Franklin that it might be desirable to pursue it by more ways than one; he, therefore, submitted a plan for an expedition overland to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and thence, by sea, to the north-western extremity of America, with the combined object, also, of surveying the coast between the Mackenzie and Copper-mine Rivers.

Captain Franklin was well aware of the sympathy excited in the British public by the sufferings of those engaged in the former overland expedition, and of the humane repugnance of Government to expose others to a like fate; but he was enabled to show satisfactorily that, in the proposed course, similar dangers were not to be apprehended, while the objects to be attained were important at once to the naval character, scientific reputation, and commercial interests of Great Britain. In consequence of his proposal, he received directions from Earl Bathurst to make the necessary preparations for the equipment of an expedition, to the command of which he had the honor to be nominated.

Captain Franklin’s much valued friend. Dr. John Richardson, offered his services as naturalist and surgeon, and also