Markham had, through his various activities, come to know many influential people, and during the early 1870s used these connections to make the case for a Royal Naval Arctic expedition. Prime minister Benjamin Disraeli consented, in the "spirit of maritime enterprise that has ever distinguished the English people". When the expedition was ready to sail, Markham was invited to accompany it as far as Greenland, on , one of the expedition's three ships. Markham accepted, and left with the convoy on 29 March 1875. He was gone for three months, remaining with "Alert" as far as Disko Island in Baffin Bay.