Undeterred by the failure of Austin and Penny, or the silence of Collinson and M’Clure, the British government in 1852 despatched again the four vessels used by Austin, and added a fifth, the _Assistance_, and a store-ship, the _North Star_, to form a depôt of supplies at Beechey Island. The old haphazard ways had given place to very systematic methods of advance and rescue; but steam was little employed as yet, because of the trouble and cost of supplying coal, although two small steam vessels, as tenders, accompanied this, the largest and most bountifully equipped expedition that had yet started out. The fleet, under command of Sir Edward Belcher, proceeded through Lancaster Sound, beyond which they scattered somewhat, and spent the first winter in extensive sledge-journeys, during which they discovered (by a message that M’Clure had left on Melville Island) where the _Investigator_ was imprisoned, and rescued all its people in June, 1853. This great expedition learned nothing of Franklin, although it did learn much of other Arctic matters, and left the map substantially complete south and west of Jones Sound; but its honors rested upon M’Clure, who, first of all recorded men, had really made the Northwest Passage by sailing and sledging around the northern end of America. The settlement of this long-discussed matter had proved it of no practical value; but the British Parliament kept its word, and gave £10,000 (half of the promised reward) to the officers and crew of the _Investigator_, besides raising M’Clure to knighthood. An incident of this expedition is the fact that Kellett’s abandoned ship _Resolute_ survived crushing long enough to drift out through Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound and down into Davis Strait, where in September, 1855, she was found and towed home by an American whaler. As she was little injured, she was presented to the British government with the compliments of the United States, and a few years later, when she came to be broken up, a fine table was made from her oaken timbers, and returned as a present to Uncle Sam; and it now stands in the private office of the President of the United States in the Executive Mansion at Washington.