Camden," East Indiaman, commanded by Captain (afterwards Sir) Nathaniel Dance, and performed the duty of signal midshipman in the famous action of the 15th of February 1804 when Captain Dance repulsed a strong French squadron led by the redoubtable Admiral Linois. On reaching England he joined the "Bellerophon," 74, and was in charge of the signals on board that ship during the battle of Trafalgar. Two years later he joined the "Bedford," attaining the rank of lieutenant the year after, and served in her on the Brazil station (whither the "Bedford" went as part of the convoy which escorted the royal family of Portugal to Rio de Janeiro in 1808), in the blockade of Flushing, and finally in the disastrous expedition against New Orleans (1814), in which campaign he displayed such zeal and intelligence as to merit special mention in despatches. On peace being established, Franklin turned his attention once more to the scientific branch of his profession, and sedulously extended his knowledge of surveying. In 1818 the discovery of a North-West Passage to the Pacific became again, after a long interval, an object of national interest, and Lieutenant Franklin was given the command of the "Trent" in the Arctic expedition, under the orders of Captain Buchan in the "Dorothea". During a heavy storm the "Dorothea" was so much damaged by the pack-ice that her reaching England became doubtful, and, much to the chagrin of young Franklin, the "Trent" was compelled to convoy her home instead of being allowed to prosecute the voyage alone. This voyage, however, had brought Franklin into personal intercourse with the leading scientific men of London, and they were not slow in ascertaining his peculiar fitness for the command of such an enterprise. To calmness in danger, promptness and fertility of resource, and excellent seamanship, he added an ardent desire to promote science for its own sake, together with a love of truth that led him to do full justice to the merits of his subordinate officers, without wishing to claim their discoveries as a captain's right. Furthermore, he possessed a cheerful buoyancy of mind, sustained by deep religious principle, which was not depressed in the most gloomy times. It was therefore with full confidence in his ability and exertions that, in 1819, he was placed in command of an expedition appointed to proceed overland from the Hudson Bay to the shores of the Arctic Sea, and to determine the trendings of that coast eastward of the Coppermine river. At this period the northern coast of the American continent was known at two isolated points only,--this, the mouth of the Coppermine river (which, as Franklin discovered, was erroneously placed four degrees of latitude too much to the north), and the mouth of the Mackenzie far to the west of it. Lieutenant Franklin and his party, consisting of Dr Richardson, Midshipmen George Back and Richard Hood, and a few ordinary boatmen, arrived at the depot of the