TOTHE COURT OF DIRECTORS.
Gentlemen,
Gentlemen,
Gentlemen,
Gentlemen,
Since you were pleased to crown my former Dissertation with yourHonorary Gold Medal, I must now, (agreeably to what I long ago hinted,) beg leave to decline any share in your present pecuniary premium. In obedience, however, to your second resolution, respecting the publication of this Essay, I submit to your superior judgement. Since it has been honoured with your sanction, I have re-touched it throughout, in hopes of rendering it more worthy of your approbation. In compliance, therefore, with your obliging request, it now ventures, though not without diffidence, to meet the public eye.
As the naval force of Great Britain is computed to consist of not less than eight hundred ships of war; while her commercial fleets, and trading vessels of various denominations, surpass those of all other nations, disasters at sea, particularly at this juncture, are most seriously to be deprecated. So great, indeed, is the aggregate value of herships, with their respective cargoes and merchandise, that it can hardly be estimated. Great as it is, however, it can bear no competition with the lives of British seamen on board; yet between them and a watery grave is hourly interposed, only a thin partition of brittle planks!
The present subject, therefore, involving the lives of thousands of our fellow-subjects, and property to an amount almost incalculable, is perhaps one of the most momentous that can, at this time, engage our attention. When, under the signature of a Life Director, I first submitted this question to your consideration, as perfectly congenial to your life-saving institution, it was chiefly with a view to call forth the abilities of ingenious writers and experienced navigators. If the present Essay should ultimately contribute to so important a purpose, by opening a new path of inquiry, I shall think the labour well bestowed.
“Vice fungar cotis.”
“Vice fungar cotis.”
“Vice fungar cotis.”
“Vice fungar cotis.”
No philosophical work written expressly on shipwreck having yet reached my notice, the subject to me, appears to be novel, and in a manner untouched.[1]The following sketch, undertakenamidst a variety of avocations, though much short of what I could wish, is yet the best I could produce in so short a time, and with so few materials.
1. In contriving various means of forming a line of communication with the shore, that some of the methods proposed by me may have occurred to others, is not improbable, as has been hinted respecting Mr. Bell’s experiment. Had the anonymous writer in a late Morning Chronicle, who claims it as the discovery of another anonymous writer, and published eight years ago in an Anonymous French Journal, brought forth any thingMORE NEWorMORE PRACTICABLEthan what originally appeared in this Essay, when read before the Society in March last, it would assuredly have afforded me much pleasure to have announced it.But who the original inventor is, if not Mr. Bell, or in which of the numerous French Journals the supposed discovery is recorded, “thisdeponent saieth not.” Therefore,——“Si quid novisti rectius istis,Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum.”
1. In contriving various means of forming a line of communication with the shore, that some of the methods proposed by me may have occurred to others, is not improbable, as has been hinted respecting Mr. Bell’s experiment. Had the anonymous writer in a late Morning Chronicle, who claims it as the discovery of another anonymous writer, and published eight years ago in an Anonymous French Journal, brought forth any thingMORE NEWorMORE PRACTICABLEthan what originally appeared in this Essay, when read before the Society in March last, it would assuredly have afforded me much pleasure to have announced it.
But who the original inventor is, if not Mr. Bell, or in which of the numerous French Journals the supposed discovery is recorded, “thisdeponent saieth not.” Therefore,
——“Si quid novisti rectius istis,Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum.”
——“Si quid novisti rectius istis,Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum.”
——“Si quid novisti rectius istis,Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum.”
——“Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti, si non his utere mecum.”
Doubtless the Author may be accused of rashness, in thus venturing out of his native element, and in quitting, at once,terra firma, to encounter the dangers of the deep, and to brave the still more stormy sea—of criticism!
Presuming, however, on your wonted candor, that you, my Lords of the Admiralty (in other words, mySupreme Judges), will not be extreme to mark what may seem amiss, I here cheerfully submit to your inspection, my logbook, charts, and such implements as appear necessary to render sea-voyages less perilous, and, in case of shipwreck, to save the lives and property of unfortunate mariners in the hour of distress.