OFFICIAL PATRIOTISM.

GOVERNMENT is said to have gone to the
country for the special purpose of obtaining
a new parliament that should be jealous for
the honour of England, and it is now
supposed that such parliament has been
obtained. From this new parliament, then, we
must expect a prompt decision, that the final
expedition necessary to turn to account Dr.
Rae's discovery of Franklin's traces shall,
at last, be sent out, and that the search for
the remains of Franklin's expedition,
narrowed now to a voyage by a known route to
a single spot, shall be completed with all
possible despatch. No government, no
parliament priding itself on jealousy for the
honour of England, can leave such a duty as
this unperformed.

Although time has been pressing, we knew
well that we should waste our breath, unless
we delayed recurrence to this topic until, the
bustle of the elections being over and the
new parliament fairly at work, there might
be some hope that an independent member
of the House would be disposed to make one
more appeal to government, and, if necessary,
appeal from government to the sense of the
House itself, which is formed of a majority of
men so essentially patriotic. The matter
cannot possibly rest where it now stands.
Lady Franklin is prepared, if requisite, to
spend the whole remainder of her private
fortune upon doing, as well as her means
permit, what England might do perfectly and
most easily, yet leaves undone.

We have shown in a previous discussion of
the subject, that it is by no means ridiculous
or extravagant to think it possible that some
(if only two or three) of Sir John Franklin's
companions, vigorous men who went out at
the age of six or eight and twenty, and
would be now—as to their years—of the age
when men have but attained their complete
ripeness and strength, may have taken refuge
among the Esquimaux: as Dr. Kane declares
that it "required all his powers, moral and
physical, to prevent," his men from doing,
when they also were placed in a critical
position. Dr. Kane says of himself and his
men, "we regarded the coarse life of these
people with eyes of envy, and did not doubt
but that we could have lived in comfort upon
their resources." It is clearly possible then that
at least one Englishman may still be living
among the Esquimaux, parted by a vast and
impassable tract of desert continent from the
most northern settlements of his own countrymen,
and to whom the sight of a deliverer
would bring such joy, as we who live all the
years through among friends and in families,
are utterly unable to imagine. We have
already pointed out how the behaviour of the
Esquimaux has led more than one Arctic
sailor to believe that they know something
about Sir John Franklin's crews, that they
are indisposed to tell what they know, and
that it needs time and tact to extract their
knowledge from them.

The space of ground within which it is
now certain that Franklin's ships were lost,
and probable that their disabled hulls are to
be found, is of so limited extent, that even
on maps of a considerable size it may be
covered with a shilling. To Cambridge Bay
on one side of this region a single sailing
vessel has passed and returned home
unscathed, its commander expressing his
conviction that the passage is so constantly open,
that ships can navigate it without difficulty,
in one season. To the other side of this
region there is a choice of routes, and the
point that would be reached by a vessel
entering Peel Sound would probably be less
than two hundred miles distant from the limit
of the area of search on the western side.
From such a point, the whole area could be
explored easily and safely by the help of dogs.

If nothing tangible were found, we should
know certainly that all is lost; but, any
ship remaining long enough to win from
the Esquimaux the knowledge they possess
would bring home, we do not doubt, such
tidings as would set many a question at
rest. If absolutely nothing were brought
home—none of the papers which the men of
the forlorn crews must have deposited
somewhere, for the information of their country,
for satisfaction to the love of mothers,
brothers, wives, and children—no token—no
tidings—still the expedition would not have
been fruitless. For, it happens that the little
space within which lies locked up the story
of the fate of Franklin, is a space intervening
between limits of discovery eastward and
westward, the exploration of which by sledges