Two years afterwards he sailed with the ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_ to search for a passage into the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic regions of North America. He entered the ice-bound regions of the north, and for many years no intelligence regarding his fate could be obtained. Lady Franklin prosecuted the search with a wife's devotion, long after others had given up hope; and, at last, the discovery of some papers and ruined huts proved that the whole party had perished in those frozen wastes.
#4. Governor Wilmot.#--Sir Eardley Wilmot had gained distinction as a debater in the British Parliament. Like Governors Bligh and Gipps, in New South Wales, Wilmot found that to govern at the same time a convict population and a colony of free settlers was a most ungrateful task. A large proportion of the convicts, after being liberated, renewed their former courses: police had to be employed to watch them, judges and courts appointed to try them, gaols built to receive them, and provisions supplied to maintain them. If a prisoner was arrested and again convicted for a crime committed in Tasmania, then the colony was obliged to bear all the expense of supporting him, and amid so large a population of criminals these expenses became intolerably burdensome. It is true that colonists had to some extent a compensating advantage in receiving, free of charge, a plentiful supply of convict labour for their public works. But when Lord Stanley ordered that they should in future pay for all such labour received, they loudly complained of their grievances. "Was it not enough," they asked, "to send out the felons of Great Britain to become Tasmanian bushrangers, without forcing the free settlers to feed and clothe them throughout their lives, after the completion of their original sentences?" To all such remonstrances Lord Stanley's answer was that Tasmania had always been a convict colony; and that the free settlers had no right to expect that their interests would be specially consulted in the management of its affairs. Sir Eardley Wilmot found it impossible to obtain the large sums required for the maintenance of the necessary police and gaols, and he proposed to the Legislative Council to borrow money for this purpose. Those of the Council who were Government officials were afraid to vote in opposition to the wishes of the Governor, who, therefore, had a majority at his command. But the other members, six in number, denounced the proposed scheme as injurious to the colony; and when they found that the Governor was determined to carry it out, they all resigned their seats. For this action they were honoured with the title of the "Patriotic Six".