On the same day the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ sailed away north-west up the Waigat Strait. On the 26th they were sighted by the whaler _The Prince of Wales_, moored to an iceberg near the south entrance to Melville Bay, waiting for a favourable opportunity to round the middle ice and enter Lancaster Sound. The master of the whaler, Captain Dannett, was invited to dine with Sir John on the following day, but a favourable breeze sprang up, and the ships parted company. Captain Dannett was the last white man to set eyes on the ill-fated _Erebus_ and _Terror_. CHAPTER XIII RAE AND THE BOOTHIA PENINSULA In order to preserve the chronological order of events, it is now necessary to leave the Franklin expedition for a while, and to take up the thread of the exploration of Northern America where it was dropped by Dease and Simpson. It will be remembered that shortly before his untimely death Simpson had written a letter to the Governors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, suggesting that he should conduct an expedition along the undiscovered shores that lay between the Castor and Pollux River and Fury and Hecla Strait. Though he was destined never to know it, the plan was very favourably received by the directors, and their letter, conferring on him the sole command of the expedition, reached America very shortly after his death. The immediate result of this sad event was that all plans for prosecuting the exploration of Northern America were held in abeyance for some years—till, indeed, 1845, when the news that England was fitting out a fresh expedition, with a view to discovering the North-West Passage, urged the Company on to further efforts. The command of the new expedition was offered by Sir George Simpson, who was still Governor-in-Chief of the Company’s territories, to Dr John Rae, then new to Arctic exploration, though he subsequently proved his worth, not only by the success which he achieved on the present journey, but also by the good work that he did in his search for Franklin.