The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871
Assistance
The Assistance, a 427-tonne discovery-class ship, was purchased in March of 1850.1 George Henry Richards served as deputy commander of the Assistance during an 1852-1854 expedition to the Arctic, to search for Sir John Franklin, who
was lost on an earlier expedition.2 Richards and his crew abandoned the Assistance in 1854 when the vessel became trapped in the Arctic pack-ice.3