It is now necessary to return to Parry’s friend and fellow explorer, John Franklin, who, it will be remembered, was summoned into Lord Melville’s presence with Parry on November 18, 1818. The results of this interview were that while Parry was appointed to the command of the _Hecla_ and _Griper_, Franklin was commissioned to undertake the no less important overland expedition to explore the shores of the North American continent from the mouth of the Coppermine River eastward. The members of this expedition were five in number, and consisted of Franklin himself, Dr John Richardson, a surgeon in the navy, George Back, who had sailed as mate in the _Trent_ with Franklin in 1818, Robert Hood, a midshipman, and John Hepburn, a sailor who was to act as servant. The object was to survey the coast carefully, to place conspicuous marks at the points at which ships might enter, and to deposit such information as to the nature of the coast as might be of service to Parry if he should actually succeed in finding a north-west passage. Franklin was also to conduct a series of scientific observations, making careful notes of the changes in the temperature, the state of the wind and weather, the dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and the intensity of the magnetic force. In order that his chance of success might be as great as possible, he was provided with letters of recommendation from the Governors of the two great fur-trading companies of British North America—the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North-West Company—in which the agents were ordered to do their utmost, by every means and in every way, to forward the interests of the expedition. Franklin’s first care on reaching Hudson’s Bay was to proceed to York Factory, where he consulted a number of officials, among them being Mr Williams, the Governor of the Factory, as to the best way of reaching the mouth of the Coppermine, where, of course, the serious work of his expedition was to begin. They were decidedly of opinion that he should proceed to Cumberland House, and thence travel northwards along the chain of the Company’s posts to the Great Slave Lake. This route is practically a water-way, though the portages separating the various streams and lakes of which it is composed are almost numberless. Mr Williams, therefore, offered to provide the expedition with one of the Company’s best boats, together with a large store of provisions and the other things necessary for the journey, an offer which, needless to say, was promptly accepted. Unfortunately, when these stores were brought down to the beach they were found to be of too great a bulk to be accommodated in the boat, so that a large portion of them, including the bacon and part of the rice, flour, ammunition, and tobacco, had to be left behind, the Governor promising to send them on during the next season.