sive powers were insufficient to induce him to disclose the deep-laid plot by which he maintained that he could always insure his own sale.

On the whole, however, I am inclined to think that my friend Tom was wrong in laying down as a rule that a negro was better off even with a good master than free, more particularly with the great demand for free labour which now exists in the South; and in this I am rather borne out by the more violent pro-slavery party. A New Orleans paper, for instance, says " An end should also be put to the foolish, inconsistent, and dangerous practice of emancipation, except upon the condition that the free slave is taken into a free State;" clearly showing that the free slave, enjoying, as he probably does, large wages, is a cause of envy to his neighbours. Again, "It should be made the interest of our free population in our midst to emigrate." This somewhat contradicts the argument of Southerns, that the slave is happier than the free negro. It is so in numerous instances, as far as a free negro in the North is concerned, and numbers of fugitives, finding it is so, return; but not as regards one in the South. But perhaps it is hardly fair in the moderate party of the South to quote against them the sentiments of those who push their extreme views into the absurdest inconsistencies. For instance, on the ground of want of moral perception, the negro is not allowed to give evidence against a white man ; but, says a Southern paper,

"The existing laws should be so modified as to admit of slave testimony (for what it is worth before a committing magistrate or jury) against white Abolition emissaries who may endeavour to stir them up to revolt; and, in certain emergencies, the mode of trial in such cases would better conserve the public safety by being more summary; there should be no more than a brief prayer and a hurried farewell between the detection of a white insurrectionist and the gallows."

Whatever may be the value of the testimony of the slave, civilised people will generally agree that it would be worth more than the justice of

such a law. But the natural way of making that evidence available as against white insurrectionists, or white slave-owners, is to create, by education in the slave, a perception of his moral obligations. If, as is generally alleged, he is so obtuse that this process will never teach him to comprehend them, he must be too obtuse to learn his social rights either, and consequently education will not render him dangerous, while its application would remove one of the strongest arguments of the Abolitionists against slavery. If, on the other hand, he could be made to perceive his moral obligations, it is a sin not to instruct him in them, whatever might be the consequences. The following paragraph, however, contains the views of the paper already quoted on this subject; and we fear the writer is scarcely qualified to instruct the negro, or any one else, on the value of moral obligations:

"In all cases of incipient or developed instruction, while the negro should be judged with some leniency, because he is ignorant and deluded, and spared, if possible, because he is property, his white leader and instigator should have no mercy and a short shrive at the hands of those whose wives and children, whose lives and fortunes, they would have deliberately and fiendishly sacrificed."

If the effect of a well-conducted system of education, carried out by the slave-owners themselves, would result in their own massacre, no stronger condemnation is required of their system. So far from that, however, being the case, I believe that the more the slaves were educated by their masters, the more valuable property (to adopt the high moral ground taken above) would they be

come.

Such views as these generally meet the eye of the traveller, because they are ebullitions of the more violent party. Those, however, whose voice is really powerful, and whose moral character is respectable, are less fond of ventilating their opinions to the same extent, and therefore it is that the whole of the South is somewhat hardly judged.

Facts are more satisfactory than

words; and during 1856 ten thousand slaves were manumitted, of which five thousand went to Liberia, and five thousand remained in the States. Since then I have not had an opportunity of watching the statistics in this respect. All the more enlightened slave-owners will readily admit that the existence of slavery is in itself an evil much to be deplored; but they argue with great plausibility, that the evils involved by any remedy which has been proposed, are greater than those which attach to that existence. When, however, you avail yourself of this admission to protest against its extension into new territories such as Kansas, the question of political power is apt to override that of abstract morality, and few are liberal enough to wish to see Kansas a free State, though many know that, in process of time, it must inevitably become one. Indeed, as regards the maintenance of the political equilibrium, the South is in somewhat an unfortunate position. No moderate or far-sighted Southerner desires annexation beyond Texas. A new slave State, containing half a million or so of lawless Mexicans, would be an addition to the citizens of the Southern States not likely to confer any great honour on their population, or become very valuable members of society, either politically or socially: while to the north of Mexico the climate admits of white labour; and where that is the case, slavery in the long-run is out of the question. At the same timethough sooner or later the North must preponderate in political power -no one who knows the spirit of the South, or the magnitude of the interests involved, can suppose that it will ever be coerced into relinquishing its peculiar institution. Some spasmodic effort on the part of the South, such as the Fugitive Slave Law and the Nebraska Bill, to prevent the inevitable extension of Northern influence with Northern territory, will probably precipitate the crisis, unless the North ceases to make use of abolition as a political war-cry. Power in the hands of the South merely affects the patronage of a poli

tical party in the North; but power in the hands of the North affects the happiness of almost every individual in the South. The stakes for which the two sections are playing are not equal-the North are playing for the triumph of a party, the South for all they hold dearest to them. If the question of slavery were eliminated from American politics, the stakes would be equal; parties would alternate in power, and the Union might last for ever. It has always appeared to me, however, that the South exaggerates the consequences of Northern predominance, and unduly mistrust it. I doubt very much, if they were to come into power tomorrow, whether they would venture on any anti-slavery legislation; the political necessity for the abolition war-cry would have ceased to exist, and the abstract sentiment alone remain to animate them to prolong a crusade against slavery, and imperil, in doing so, what they deem most important material interests. The South in power, assailed violently by those out of it, may split the Union in frantic endeavours to preserve their entire property; the North in power would scarcely split it for the sake of a

principle. At present the popular opinion, founded a good deal on a traditionary sentiment, is, that such a separation would be disastrous to both sections. I think very differently. The interests of Texas and Maine are too far opposed to be confided to the same Federal Government. When this feeling becomes popular, as I think it must, the North will perhaps find that their interest and their principle united may induce them to force upon the South that crisis for which, when in power, the latter alone would not suffice, and both parties having begun to regard with complacency an event which is now only mentioned with regret, if not actual horror, a separation might be amicably effected, and two noble republics might be formed, each better able to develop their varied resources, and, by the increase of their commerce, to exchange more abundantly for the wealth of Europe the teeming produce of the West.

THE gallant officer, Captain F. L. M'Clintock, whose great good fortune it has been to bring to a successful issue the long-prosecuted search for Sir John Franklin and his companions, deserves at our hands a brief notice of his previous career in the Arctic seas, before we pass to the consideration of his simple and sailorlike narration of the remarkable voyage of the yacht "Fox." The modesty and unassuming nature of real worth have seldom been more charmingly exemplified than in the steady, unwavering good service of this explorer; and we feel under much obligation to the Royal Society of Dublin, and especially to the Rev. Samuel Haughton, M.A., Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin, for having early in the day appreciated the merits of Captain, then Lieutenant, M'Clintock; and by kindly support and countenance encouraged the young sailor not only to labour as a collector in specimens of natural history and geology, but to record much interesting information in a series of valuable though unpretending papers read before that learned Society. It is from these and other sources that we are enabled to state that, as early as 1848, Lieutenant M'Clintock entered into the search for Franklin, under the immediate command of that distinguished navigator, Admiral, but then Captain, Sir James Ross, who, with Commander J. Bird, proceeded into the Arctic seas with an expedition consisting of H.M.S. Enterprize and Investigator. It was under that great Arctic navigator that Lieutenant M'Clintock acquired experience which, in after years, he was to turn to such excellent account; and perhaps nothing stamps the reputation of Sir James Ross with higher lustre than the discoveries

*

subsequently made by his follower; for they go to prove that, so far as the judgment of Ross was concerned in the steps he took to rescue Franklin, he foresaw, with intuitive genius, the measures that were exactly necessary; and had Franklin or his officers been more impressed with the importance of placing records in cairns at the spots they visited, and stated the direction they were going, and their intentions as to the future, there can now be but little doubt that Sir James Ross would have arrived in time to have saved, if not life, at any rate all the records of that sad but glorious expedition. It is but justice to Sir James Ross that this much should be said. The Enterprize and Investigator could only reach Leopold Harbour at the western extreme of Lancaster Sound, owing to the ice-choked condition of Barrow's Straits. There the winter of 1848-49 was passed, and in the spring of 1849 Sir James Ross laid down two important directions whereon to despatch sledge searchingparties. The one was across to Cape Hurd, only a few miles distant from Beechey Island, wherein we now know Franklin had wintered in 1845-46, and the other and largest party Ross conducted down the east shore of Peel Sound towards King William's Land, upon the very route which, we are assured, Franklin took in his last disastrous voyage. It was in the execution, and not in the conception of his plans that Sir James Ross failed, and that too from causes over which he had no control. Arctic sledging was then in its infancy; the equipment was sadly defective, and the officers of the navy very ignorant of its nature or requirements. The party with Sir James Ross, under whom was Lieutenant M'Clintock, consisted of twelve men ;

they marched what was in those days considered a great distance-or two hundred and forty miles-on the outward journey, and yet found no trace to show that their services had been in the right direction: they returned to the ships with nearly half the party entirely broken down by disease and excessive labour, after a journey of five hundred miles, a distance which was a great feat at that period. Ill-luck for the first time in Ross's career followed him; the party which had visited the near neighbourhood of Franklin's winter-quarters failed to find any traces; and when, on the opening of the ice in the summer of 1849, Sir James Ross sailed out of Leopold Harbour with the intention of proceeding farther westward, his expedition was caught in the grip of the Polar Pack, and swept by it, nolens volens, into the Atlantic Ocean, after a dangerous drift in the ice of nearly twelve hundred miles. This was the first experience our seamen had had of the danger of being beset in those great ice-streams which, by the laws of nature, are ever flowing from the pole to the equator. Lieutenant M'Clintock had not been an unobservant sharer in the labours and dangers of this remarkable voyage; he saw that, to render the search for Franklin effective, great distances must be accomplished on foot, with sledges; and that men and sledges, rather than ships, must be the means to the end. He turned a close and naturally analytical attention to the following points: the reduction of the weights carried on the sledges, an improved and nutritious dietary, calculated to support the seamen under excessive fatigue, in a region incapable of supporting even the hardy Esquimaux; and, lastly, an alteration in the form and fitting of the sledges and tents. At these improvements he steadily and constantly laboured, and freely gave the results of his experiments and experience for the furtherance of the service. The expedition of 1851-52 under Admiral Horatio Austin, as well as all subsequent ones, adopted M'Clintock's views, or improved upon them; and the grand result has been, that our seamen and officers have subse

quently accomplished distances which would astonish men in even temperate climes; throughout fearful temperatures, even as low as 75° below the freezing-point of water, sledging was steadily and safely prosecuted; the loss of life was brought down to so low an average that gobemouches in England began to declare the labour and climate must be most enviable; and before the sailing of the Fox upon her memorable voyage, M'Clintock assures us that no less than a distance equal to forty thousand miles! had been travelled over by a hundred sledge - parties within the Arctic zone-a very large fraction of that wonderful distance had been the share of the gallant and ingenious officer, who may be said to be the real discoverer of Arctic sledge-travelling. Throughout eleven long years Lieutenant, Commander, and now Captain M'Clintock, persevered in the search for Franklin's Expedition; no failure seems to have daunted him, or made him hopeless of ultimate success. Indeed it appears as if ripened experience of those regions of frost and ice only strengthened his views, that the solution of the mystery which hung over Franklin's fate merely depended upon steady perseverance, a quality in which he seems to have abounded, judging alone by the voyage of the "Fox."

It was in the spring of 1857 that Lady Franklin, rather than leave the fate of her heroic husband in the unsatisfactory condition it then was, determined to equip at her personal expense a small vessel, and send it to endeavour to reach King William's Land, whence, there was no doubt, must have travelled the party of officers and men from the "Erebus" and "Terror," reported by Esquimaux to have died at the mouth of the Great Fish River. The Government and Admiralty could no longer hope to save life by sending out expeditions in search of Franklin, and, with a strange want of generosity, they cared not to save the records of Franklin's voyage, and did not seem to desire to secure to that distinguished navigator the honour, which at their desire he had perished in securing to his country. The wife of Franklin de

termined to make one last effort, with all available funds of her own, aided by generous contributions from many kind friends, to place, beyond all doubt the fate of the crews of the Erebus and Terror, as well as to secure to her husband and his comrades the fame of being the first discoverer of the North-West Passage. Her selfsacrifice has been crowned with perfect success, and Lady Franklin has won a niche in English history, to which time will only add fresh lustre. With £7500 of her own, and £2900 from her friends, Lady Franklin was able to equip and pay the crew of the "Fox" during two years and a half. They numbered, including officers, only twenty-five souls, and it is truly wonderful to read how so small a party in a little yacht, only 170 tons burden, could do so much in seas where huge expeditions have often failed. All the officers were volunteers, and perhaps the best test of the enthusiasm which reigned amongst them is to be found in the fact that one of them, Captain Allen Young, of the mercantile marine, not only threw up a lucrative appointment to share in this chivalrous enterprise, but added from his private purse £500 to the general fund. To such men, under the energetic and persevering M'Clintock, all things were possible, and it needed a great deal more, as we see, than one failure to cross the great belt of ice which barred their road in Baffin's Bay, to make them desist from the generous cause which they had so gallantly undertaken. The summer of 1857 was one of those unfortunate close seasons," as the whalers term them, in which the polar-pack lies pressed together to such an extent, that the navigator may not pass through it to the open water beyond. At such seasons the fishermen do not attempt the hazardous experiment of battling through it; the little "Fox," however, came expressly to Baffin's Bay to dare all things, and by day and by night, for more than a month, was struggling to find a path through or round this pack into the waterspace whence it had come. The battle was an unequal one: September came in, followed by an Arctic winter, and on 10th September

they became hopelessly beset in Melville Bay, when only twenty-five miles from open water-water which M'Clintock's experience told him would at that season extend to Lancaster Sound.

In modest, uncomplaining strain, the gallant Captain describes the disappointment of himself and his companions; yet they seem to think far more of" poor Lady Franklin' than of themselves. In a similarly unpretending style, he tells of that long and dangerous ice-drift throughout the winter of 1857-58, and finds time to narrate many an interesting anecdote of Greenland experiences, told by Carl Petersen, a worthy Dane, whose name we recognise as an old associate of our English sailors in Arctic enterprise.

The tiny "Fox," two huge icebergs, and a continent of broken-up ice, refrozen together, sweep down in company from the upper part of Baffin's Bay into the Atlantic ocean—a ceaseless mysterious march occasioned by current, but accelerated much by the fierce storms which, during the winter season, blow from the night-enveloped pole. In April 1859, after an imprisonment of 242 days, our countrymen experienced a fearfuĺtempest in the pack, which broke it up and liberated them: they found them selves 1194 geographical, or 1385 statute miles, southward of the spot at which they were first caught in the ice! The description of that icestorm, and of their providential deliverance, are told in words all the more graphic from their touching simplicity; and the Captain thus modestly describes his feelings after safely conducting his noble little vessel through no ordinary trial of nerve and skill:

"After yesterday's experience, I can understand how men's hair has turned

grey in a few hours. Had self-reliance been my only support and hope, it is not impossible that I might have illusUnder the circumtrated the fact.

stances, I did my best to insure our inwardly trusted that God would favour safety, looked as stoical as possible, and

our exertions. What a release ours has

been, not only from eight months' imprisonment, but from the perils of that one day! Had our vessel been destroyed after the ice broke up, there remained