Читать книгу The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N. - H. D. Traill - Страница 5
ОглавлениеPREFACE
The exploits of SIR JOHN FRANKLIN are written so large across the map of the Arctic Ocean and its coasts; the circumstances of his tragic end have rendered his name and achievements familiar to so many Englishmen not otherwise specially conversant with the subject of Polar exploration; the story of his voyages and discoveries has so often been related as a part of the general history of English adventure, that the appearance of this biography, nearly half a century after his death, may seem to require a few explanatory words.
It has been felt by his surviving relatives, as it was felt by his devoted wife and widow, that to the records, ample and appreciative as many of them have been, of the career of the explorer there needed the addition of some personal memoir of the man. What Franklin did may be sufficiently well known to his countrymen already. What he was—how kindly and affectionate, how modest and magnanimous, how loyal in his friendships, how faithful in his allegiance to duty, how deeply and unaffectedly religious—has never been and never could be known to any but his intimates. But that knowledge ought not to be confined to them. The character of such men as Franklin is, in truth, as much a national possession as their fame and work. Its influence may be as potent and its example as inspiring; and it has been felt by those responsible for the production of this volume that some attempt should at last be made to present it to his fellow-countrymen.
It was the long-cherished desire of Miss Sophia Cracroft, niece of Sir John Franklin, and constant and attached companion of Lady Franklin, to perform this labour of love herself, and it supplied the animating motive of her unwearied industry in collecting the mass of documents hitherto unpublished which have been employed in the preparation of this work. Failing health and almost total loss of sight, however, prevented the accomplishment of her purpose, and eventually her executors, Mr. and Mrs. G. B. Austen Lefroy, have entrusted the work to the present writer.
Both to them and to him it is a source of much satisfaction that this Biography should issue from the house of Mr. John Murray, whose father was the publisher of Franklin's two Narratives of his Arctic Explorations and the personal friend of their author and Lady Franklin, and who has himself taken a warm interest in the present undertaking.
In dealing with Franklin's achievements as an explorer ample assistance was accessible to me in already published works. The story of his first two Arctic expeditions—the former a tale of unexampled toil and sufferings heroically endured—has been told with admirable clearness, simplicity, and modesty by Franklin himself. In 1860, after the return of the Fox from her famous and successful voyage, the late Admiral Sherard Osborn, himself an active and distinguished member of one of the earlier search expeditions, published a little volume of a hundred pages, entitled 'The Career, Last Voyage, and Fate of Franklin', containing a condensed but masterly sketch of his hero's earlier discoveries and a most graphic and moving description of his last ill-starred adventure. The particulars of Sir Leopold McClintock's search for and discovery of the sole extant record of the crews of the Erebus and Terror have been gathered from that gallant officer's painfully interesting narrative of his voyage. But still more important and indeed invaluable help has been derived by me from the able and exhaustive monograph on Franklin contributed to the 'World's Great Explorers' series by Admiral A. H. Markham, himself an Arctic officer of distinction, whose ready kindness, moreover, in advising me on an obscure point in the history of Franklin's closing hours and in perusing the proofs of the chapters dealing with his last expedition I desire most gratefully to acknowledge.
Nor can I close this record of my obligations without expressing my thanks to Miss Jessie Lefroy for such a lightening of my labours by the methodical arrangement of documents as only those who have suffered from the lack of such assistance in examining and digesting voluminous masses of manuscript material can fully appreciate.
H. D. T.
LONDON, 1895.
