Lot 2229

GRAN BRETAÑA. Sg. 8 (2), 57. 1852 (May 14). ARCTIC EXPEDITION. Entire letter from his parents at West Boldon "By West India Mail May 14 1852" to Capt. Collinson on H.M.S. Enterprise "Artic (sic) Expedition Sandwich Islands Pacific" bearing 1841 1d. red-brown horizontal pair and 1847-54 embossed 10d. brown lightly cancelled and showing, on reverse, circular-undated WEST BOLDON, Manchester (14.5) and London (15.5) c.d.s.; the contents include reference to the Duke of Northumberland writing to the Admiralty urging them to search for Investigator and Enterprise at Melville Island as well as Franklin & Co. in Wellington Channel, other comments on Parliament and much family news; the adhesives with a few small faults though a remarkable letter to this important expedition. NOTE: In 1850 Collinson was instructed to look for him by sailing through the Bering Strait while Horatio Austin and others would use the normal route through the Parry Channel. He was given HMS Enterprise and was to be accompanied by Commander Robert McClure commanding HMS Investigator. They left Plymouth in January 1850. After becoming separated off the coast of Chile the two ships became independent. (McClure got to the Bering Strait first and was frozen in on Banks Island. When he was rescued and taken to England he became the first person to cross the Northwest Passage). When Collinson reached the Bering Strait and learned that McClure was ahead of him he turned back and spent the winter in Hong Kong. He returned to Bering Strait in mid-July 1851 and sailed east along the coast. On August 29th he was off the coast of Banks Island and saw an open strait tending northeast. This was the Prince of Wales Strait. He entered the strait thinking that he might have found the Northwest Passage but after a while he saw a flagpole on a hill. Under the flagstaff was a message saying that McClure had wintered here the previous year. Collinson pushed on a little beyond McClure's maximum before he was blocked by ice. Returning south he found another message saying that McClure had passed that point only 18 days before but it did not mention McClure's plan to circumnavigate the island. He went a little further southeast and chose winter quarters at Minto Inlet. Here he found another message left by one of McClure's sledging parties. In the spring of 1852 he sent a sledge party north to Melville Island where they found tracks from an unknown traveler (these were McClure's men who were frozen in to the west). On August 5th he was freed from the ice and went along the south coast of Victoria Island into the Coronation Gulf, the easternmost point reached by a ship from the Bering Strait. He wintered at Cambridge Bay on the southeast coast of Victoria Island.