detriment. Many good seamen of knowledge and enterprise have been in that sea, within these few years. Let them say, candidly, what were their instruments, what their difficulties were, where they had doubts, where they succeeded, and where they were disappointed? Were these acknowledged by one, they would be speedily taken up by others, and rectified by the help of mathematicians and good observers on shore.
Mr Niebuhr has contributed much, but we should reform the map on both sides; though there is a great deal done, yet much remains still to do. I hope that my friend Mr Dalrymple, when he can afford time, will give us a foundation more proper to build upon, than that old rotten one, however changed in form, and suppofed to have been improved, if he really has a number of observations by him that can be relied on, otherwise it is but continuing the delusion and the danger.
If ships of war afterwards, that keep the channel, shall come, manned with slout and able seamen, and expert young officers, provided with lines, glasses, good compasses, and a number of boats, then we shall know these soundings, at least in part. And then also we shall know the truth of what I now advance, viz. that ships like those employed hitherto in trading from India (manned and provided as the best of them are) were incapable, amidst unknown tides and currents, and going before a monsoon, whether southern or northern, of knowing within three leagues where any one of them had ever dropt his sounding line, unless he was close on board some island, shoal, remarkable point, or in a harbour.
