Under the influence of John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, polar exploration had become the province of the peacetime Royal Navy after the Napoleonic War. Naval interest diminished after the disappearance in 1845 of the Franklin expedition, and the many fruitless searches that followed. After the problems encountered by the 1874–76 North Pole expedition led by George Nares, and Nares's own declaration that the North Pole was "impracticable", the Admiralty decided that further polar quests would be dangerous, expensive and futile.