After the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and the massive growth of its navy, England was one of the greatest powers in the world. After defeating Napoleon, the British Navy embarked in a new direction, to “map the world and fill in the blank spaces to expand the British Empire and influence through colonialism” (Mark Deets, Lecture on 6/29/15). The prestige of being a member of the elite British Navy enticed Franklin, while creating some personal hubris and arrogance, and inspired him to search for the greatest navigational discovery in the 19th century, the Northwest Passage. Franklin’s expeditions to find the Northwest Passage labeled him as a “national hero” (Brandt, 300), and although Franklin was originally, “forthright, honorable, [and] old school” (Brandt, 300), the intense desire to discover the Northwest Passage eventually consumed him and led to poor leadership and a multitude of mistakes which resulted in catastrophic failure and Franklin’s
After the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and the massive growth of its navy, England was one of the greatest powers in the world. After defeating Napoleon, the British Navy embarked in a new direction, to “map the world and fill in the blank spaces to expand the British Empire and influence through colonialism” (Mark Deets, Lecture on 6/29/15). The prestige of being a member of the elite British Navy enticed Franklin, while creating some personal hubris and arrogance, and inspired him to search for the greatest navigational discovery in the 19th century, the Northwest Passage. Franklin’s expeditions to find the Northwest Passage labeled him as a “national hero” (Brandt, 300), and although Franklin was originally, “forthright, honorable, [and] old school” (Brandt, 300), the intense desire to discover the Northwest Passage eventually consumed him and led to poor leadership and a multitude of mistakes which resulted in catastrophic failure and Franklin’s