FRANKLIN, Rear-admiral Sir John, an English naval officer of distinguished reputa tion, was h. at Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, April 16, 1786. He was descended from a long line of freeholders, and was the youngest son of a respectable yeoman. F. received the rudiments of his education at St. Ives; afterwards he spent two years at the grammar school of Louth. It is stated that he was intended for the church, but as he displayed a decided predilection for the sea, his father wisely abandoned opposition to his choice of a profession, and procured him, in 1800, a midshipman's post on board the Polyphe mus line-of-battle ship. In the following year, F.'s ship led the van in the desperate battle of Copenhagen. Two months after, he was removed. to the investigator, then fit Ling out under command of capt. Flinders, for discovery and survey of the Australian coast. In this expedition, F. had the companionship of the distinguished botanist Robert Brown, and of his coadjutor Ferdinand Bauer, and from them he learned the great importance of the natural sciences, in the promotion of which lie ever afterwards took a deep and intelligent interest. On his return to England, F. was appointed to the Belleropko a, in which he acted as signal midshipman in the battle of Trafalgar (1805), and had the good-fortune to escape unhurt. He subsequently served in the Bedford on various stations, and took a distinguished part in the attack on New Orleans in 1814. In 1819, F. was despatched by government to Hudson's bay, with orders to make his way thence to the Arctic sea, and survey as much of the coast as possible. In the course of this expedition, which lasted about three years and a half, F. traveled 5,550 miles under circumstances of the greatest hardship and privation, to which more than half of his companions succumbed. But the gain to science was great, alike frffin the carefulness and extent of the physical surveys of the mouth of the Coppermine river, and eastward along Coronation gulf, and from the attention devoted to the natural pro ductions of these inclement shores. On his return, in 1822, F. was made post-captain, and elected a fellow of the royal society. In 1825. he cooperated (overland) with the sea-expeditions of capts. Parry and Beeehey, and surveyed the North American coast from the mouth of the Coppermine westward to about Point Beeehey. F.'s discoveries now extended over 44 degrees of longitude, or more than a third of the distance between Baffin's bay and Behring's strait. For these valuable explorations, in which he was
engaged until 1827, he received the honor of knighthood from his sovereign, and the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford, while the French geographical society awarded him their gold medal, and at a subsequent period he was elected correspondi ng member of the institute of France. F. next took an active part in the Greek war of liberation. In 1836, he was appointed governor of Van Diemen's Land, where his wise and moderate conduct secured for him the warm approbation both of the 'government and the colonists. The latter established a collsge and a philosophical society in his honor; mid years after, they testified that the memory of his rule was still gratefully cherished, by subscribing £1600 towards an expedition designed for his rescue. In Slay, 1845, F., now bordering on his 60th year, but with physical and mental powers undiminished in vigor, started with the Erebus and Terror on his last and ill-fated expe dition to discover the North-west pos.-ear. The last time that the vessels were.seen was in July of the same year. To enter into the history of the efforts undertaken for the relief or discovery of the fate of F. would be out of place here. It is sufficient to say, that in the course of eleven years upwards of twenty separate expeditions, at the cost of about a million sterling, were sent out to look for the missing crews; and the discoveries of these expeditions added more to our knowledge of, the arctic legions than all previous explorations had done. See PASSAGE, It was not until 1859 that the fate of F. was ascertained by the commander of a little vessel fitted out by lady Franklin, after hope had been declared hopeless by all else. It then appeared that F. had died on the 11th Jane, 1847, 'artunately before his sympathetic heart had been lacerated by witnessing the awful sufferings of his men. F. was one of the boldest and most persevering explorers that Britain ever sent from her shores. His daring was qualified by judgment, and his sense of duty and responsibility as to the lives of those under his charge was of the keenest. His heart was tender as a woman's; and altogether he was one of the noblest types of a true Christian gentleman.