All the party had without doubt been greatly reduced through want of sufficient food, and the injurious effects of three winters in these regions. They had attempted to drag with them two boats, besides heavily laden sledges, and doubtless had soon been compelled to abandon much of their burden, and leave one boat on the shore of King William's Island, where it was found by M'Clintock, near the middle of the west coast, containing two skeletons. The route adopted was the shortest possible, but their strength and supplies had failed, and at that season of the year the snow-covered land afforded no subsistence. An old Eskimo woman stated that these heroic men "fell down and died as they walked," and, as Sir John Richardson has well said, they "forged the last link of the North-West Passage with their lives." From all that can be gathered, one of the ships must have been crushed in the ice and sunk in deep water, and the other, stranded on the shore of King William's Island, lay there for years, forming a mine of wealth for the neighbouring Eskimo. This is all we know of the fate of Franklin and his brave men. His memory is cherished as one of the most conspicuous of the naval heroes of Britain, and as one of the most successful and daring of her explorers. He is certainly entitled to the honour of being the first discoverer of the North-West Passage; the point reached by the ships having brought him to within a few miles of the known waters of America, and on the monument erected to him by his country, in Waterloo Place, London, this honour is justly awarded to him and his companions,--a fact which was also affirmed by the president of the Royal Geographical Society, when presenting their gold medal to Lady Franklin in 1860. On the 26th of October 1852 Franklin had been promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. He left an only daughter by his first marriage. Lady Franklin died in 1875 at the age of eighty-three, and a fortnight after her death a fine monument was unveiled in Westminster Abbey, commemorating the heroic deeds and fate of Sir John Franklin, and the inseparable connexion of Lady Franklin's name with the fame of her husband. Most of the relics brought home by M'Clintock were presented by Lady Franklin to the United Service Museum, while those given by Dr Rae to the admiralty are deposited in Greenwich hospital. In 1864-1869 the American explorer Captain Hall made two journeys in endeavouring to trace the remnant of Franklin's party, bringing back a number of additional relics and some information confirmatory of that given by M'Clintock, and in 1878 Lieutenant F. Schwatka of the United States army and a companion made a final land search, but although accomplishing a remarkable record of travel discovered nothing which threw any fresh light on the history of the expedition. See H. D. Traill, _Life of Sir John Franklin_ (1896).