The letter is a response to the Secretary’s request for lists of the officers and men who had served in the Arctic searches for her husband. The file includes lists of officers and men on the first and second voyages of the PRINCE ALBERT in 1850 and 1851-2, and the officers on the first voyage of the ISABEL, 1852, which Lady Franklin had enclosed with the letter.
She only lists the three private expeditions she had sponsored, and does not list the abortive second voyage of the ISABEL in 1853 or the 1857 FOX expedition, which was launched shortly after this letter was written.
Numbered 46 and 2814.

Administrative / biographical background
The daughter of a London silk merchant, John Griffin, Jane married naval officer and explorer John Franklin in 1829 after the death of his first wife Eleanor. Following Sir John’s recall from his appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1844, he was appointed commander of a naval expedition to explore the uncharted section of the North-West Passage. When there was no news of his two ships, Lady Jane took a active role in encouraging the search, fitting out five vessels with her own money. The last of these, the yacht FOX, set off in 1857 and confirmed the route and eventual fate of the missing expedition.