It will be remembered that, in organising the Franklin search, the Government determined to send out expeditions from three points of the compass, east, west, and south. The first group was to follow in Franklin’s tracks, the second was to attempt to meet him by way of Behring Strait, and the third was to search the North American coast in the hope that he might have found his way thither. As we have seen, the _Herald_ and _Plover_ had already been sent to Behring Strait, but the authorities felt that there was ample room for another expedition in that direction, so in 1849 they refitted the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, and, putting them under the command of Captain Richard Collinson, C.B., and Captain J. Le Mesurier M’Clure, they despatched them on this hazardous service. Though Collinson was nominally leader of the expedition, M’Clure actually became its central figure, and it is with his doings that we shall have principally to deal. M’Clure was a fine seaman and a man of indomitable courage, but, as we shall see presently, he possessed almost more than his fair share of that peculiarly British quality of never knowing when he was beaten, and he came near, in consequence, to sacrificing the lives of every member of his expedition. The two ships set sail from the Thames on January 10, 1850, but early in February they parted company, and did not meet again till they reached Magellan Bay, though, curiously enough, they had crossed the line on the same day. On the evening of the day on which they left the Bay they were separated by a gale, never to meet again. The _Investigator_ was rather the better ship of the two, and she entered Behring Strait considerably in advance of her companion. Here M’Clure fell in first with the _Plover_ under Commander Moore, by whom he sent a message home to England saying that he was making for Banks Land and was provisioned for three years, and later with the _Herald_. Kellett, who commanded the latter ship, told him that nothing had yet been heard of the _Enterprise_, and ordered him to await her arrival in accordance with his official instructions. This plan, however, by no means commended itself to M’Clure, so, signalling back “Important duty; cannot on my own responsibility,” he sailed on his way. Kellett ought, no doubt, to have insisted on M’Clure obeying orders, but he was very awkwardly situated. He knew that the _Investigator_ was on its way to succour Franklin, and that a winter’s delay might ruin its chances of success, and, naturally enough, he did not like to incur the grave responsibility of stopping her in her work of humanity.