F.L. McClintock to Lieut. Schwatka (1880 October 2)
Admiralty House Halifax
2 October 1880
My dear Sir
I beg to thank you for the Telegram you were so good as to send me which I received that day before yesterday. I had not then seen all the back numbers of the N.Y. "Herald" & have waited to procure them before replying to you as I did not understand "the difference between Point Victory and Irving Bay," which you referred to: nor have I found any passage explaining on it. The position of Pt. Victory is given in Captain Crozier's record deposited in the Cairn there. I do not know of any "Irving Bay." I named an island in "Terror Bay" after Lieut. Irving of the Terror. My plan for naming that previously unexplored coastline was to call the two principal Bays after the two ships & all the minor bays, - points, islands, etc. after officers of these ships; those of the Erebus being grouped about "Erebus Bay", similarly those of the Terror about "Terror Bay." I regarded that coastline as sacred to their mummies, I attached no other names than theirs' to it -
Allow me to congratulate you very heartily upon your most successful exploration & safe return to enjoy, I trust, the fruits of your honorable labors.
I must not trouble you with my opinion respecting the lost Expedition; you have them in my published narrative. My facts are confirmed by your minute examination and my conjectures have secured considerable strength from all that you have seen, or learn it through the natives, who told me also of a corpse on board the ship, & as I found the boat heading northward I concluded that she was endeavoring to return to the ships.
I greatly rejoice that no rumour of their being reduced to eat human flesh reached me. The natives have not our extreme repugnance to cannibalism. They would more readily assume it as a fact on much more slender evidence than wd satisfy us.
I hope you may see your way to omit any allusion whatsoever to this subject; its publication could not fail to cause very great pain to the surviving relatives and friends and could do no possible good & might even do positive harm in similar cases of extreme privation. Lastly, it is now impossible either to prove or disprove what is at best only suspicion.
One N.Y. "Herald" article is headed "Evidence of Cannibalism" – another one (24 September) about which I have written to Mr Gordon Bennett has a leader stating that there were evidences of a small party of officers having fed upon the weaker of their companions – Now this means that these officers had abandoned their men and finally the stronger of them had murdered & devoured their weaker companions!
This boat you judged to be a very large and heavy coppered one. Therefore it could not have been hauled up by a small party & it is very probable that a doctor accompanied this party & it is not improbable that a limb or limbs may have been amputated by him on account of frost bites.
However, this may be I think it sufficient merely to direct your attention to the painful nature of this subject, without discussing it further. We know that instances are not wanting of starving men when in a state of despair bordering on madness having broken through all restraint eaten the flesh of then deceased comrades & some such may probably have been amongst the lost one hundred & five men.
I am firmly convinced the ships were not lightly abandoned nor until it was prudent & necessary to do so. They started with three years' provisions, a considerable portion of which (Goldner's preserved meats) we have but too strong reason to presume were unfit for use. Moreover, the ships had been three years out. Consequently their abandonment seems to have been deferred till the last possible moment. Some of the newspapers in contrasting their having died where your party flourished, have, through ignorance dealt ungenerously with them. In April and May the Northwest Coast of King William Island is absolutely devoid of game & seeing that their numbers had been reduced from 129 to 105 it is only reasonable to suppose that the entire party were very far gone in scurvy when they landed. Of course all their sick were with them some quite unable to help themselves. The Hospital Tent at so short a distance from their starting point conclusively proves this. The change from a confined Lower deck and total inaction to Tent life & hard work almost immediately matures incipient scurvy. It was so with Lieut. Hobson who started in apparent health but became unable to walk & had to be carried back to the Fox upon his sledge. The same has happened in many instances, even proving fatal in 5 or 6 of these during the spring sledge travelling from Sir George Nares' recent Arctic Expedition.
I am truly glad that you have opened up the North East corner of the Hudson Bay Fur Company's Territory. After my return in the "Fox" I contemplated just such a route as you adopted, but all that region had been described as totally destitute of game & therefore impracticable; moreover active professional duties furnished other occupation for my time & strengths.
Believe me to be, Sir, yours very sincerely
F.L. McClintock
