He was a son of Captain Alexander Chesney, an Irishman of Scottish descent who, having emigrated to South Carolina in 1772, served under Lord Rawdon (afterwards Marquess of Hastings) in the American War of Independence, and subsequently received an appointment as coast officer at Annalong, County Down, Ireland.

[4] The objective of the party was twofold; firstly, to set up a new trade route between Britain and India which avoided the lengthy voyage around the South African Cape of Good Hope.

In 1835, Captain Francis Rawdon Chesney was put in charge of the expedition and carefully selected his associates, about fifty persons in total and for which Parliament voted £20,000, in order to test the navigability of the Euphrates.

[9] As the Euphrates commenced her voyage, William Francis Ainsworth, the appointed surgeon and geologist of the expedition, mused that "the scream of the startled pelican or the gurgle of some large siluroid wallowing in the waters, was no longer necessary to break the silent ripple".

[14] However, he trusted that the wreck of the Tigris had changed their circumstances, and believed that the government would not stand to lose their prestigious reputation by cancelling a major British project after one steamer had been inadvertently lost.

[15] Therefore, the party collectively chose to continue the descent of the river aboard Euphrates and reduce expenses by sending the survivors of the wreck back home.

Ainsworth recorded that "the unusual sinewy length and thinness of their limbs, a peculiarity of development which, as seen on a smaller scale in the shrimp girls of Boulogne, we could not but attribute to their living in a marsh".

[22] Since there were no new orders from India or England, Chesney was forced to make a decision about what to do with the expedition during the remaining ten weeks until the scheduled end of the mission, on 31 January 1837.

[23] The captain decided to go to Bombay himself aboard the steamer Hugh Lindsay on 1 December 1836,[6] leaving Estcourt in charge with instructions to further examine the Karun and the Tigris.

to an engraving of a painting by William Henry Bartlett (titled Antioch, on the Approach from Suadeah), published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837[27] Upon his return to England, Chesney was given the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal, having meanwhile been to India to consult the authorities there.

[28] He devoted much time to pushing for the establishment of a line of communication with India through Turkish Arabia as he believed that the information obtained through his expedition, that is, rapidity of transit and commercial advantages "require no exemplification".