Josiah Burchett,
NAVAL HISTORIAN,
Was born at Sandwich about 1666. He served in the capacity of Secretary of the Admiralty, a position which probably suggested to him the undertaking with which his name is chiefly associated. This was, what he called "A Complete History of the most remarkable Transactions at Sea from the earliest accounts of Time." To such an ambitious work the author, though not wanting in scholarship and knowledge of antiquity, and having^ access to official documents, was necessarily unequal, and its production met with severe criticism. One critic spoke of it as "progenitor of those tomes of ponderous verbosity … palmed upon the public as 'Standard authorities' in naval history," and another spoke of the author as a landed gentleman of England "very much at sea upon maritime matters." Nevertheless, the work is a monument of industry, sufficient to earn for its author a place of honour in his county. He represented Sandwich in Parliament in 1705, and again in 1721. He died 20th October, 1746.
[See "Pepys's Diary," and "Life and Correspondence," by Rev. John Smith; "Allibone's Dictionary of Authors."]