Sherard Osborn

Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal;
Or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51

This edition features
 • illustrations
 • linked Footnotes
 
PREFACE
I fear with the many of my cloth, my crime in writing a book will be an unpardonable one; the more so, that I cannot conscientiously declare, that it has been at the urgent desire of my friends, &c., that I have thus made my début.

My motive is twofold: to tell of the doings of a screw steam-vessel, the first ever tried in the Polar regions, and by a light, readable description of incidents in the late search for Sir John Franklin, to interest the general reader and the community at large upon that subject. Without fear, favour, or affection, I have told facts as they have occurred; and I trust have, in doing so, injured no man. A journal must necessarily be, for the most, a dry narration of facts; I have, therefore, thrown in here and there general observations and remarks founded upon such facts, rather than a dry repetition of them.

To the officers and men serving under my command, I can offer no higher compliment than in having thus placed their severe and zealous labours before the public; and no professional reader who reads these "Stray Leaves," can fail, I am certain, to perceive how heavily must have fallen the labours here recounted upon the men and officers of the steam tenders, and how deep an obligation I their commander must be under to them for their untiring exertions, by which this, the first and severe trial of steam in the Arctic regions, was brought to a successful issue.
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About the Author
LIEUT. SHERARD OSBORN, COMMANDING H.M.S. VESSEL, "PIONEER"
"Sherard Osborn (1822 – 1875), was a Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer." --Wikipedia