tract from a memoir of that scientific gentleman, published in 1812[1]:
“Mr. Horsburgh had the good fortune to sail for England in the Cirencester (East Indiaman), Captain Thomas Robertson. * * * * * Captain Peter Heywood, of the navy, was his fellow passenger; and from that experienced and intelligent officer, while arranging his works for publication, he derived great assistance. Since that period too, he has frequently benefited by commmunications from the same friendly source.”
The prinicpal work published by Mr. Horsburgh, at that period, is entitled “Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, the Cape of Good Hope, and interjacent Ports.” Exclusive of sailing directions, and local descriptions of winds, weather, currents, coasts, &c.; the geographical situations of particular head-lands, islands, ports, and dangers, are stated from actual observations of sun, moon, and stars; or by good time-keepers. The utility and necessity of a work of this kind had long been evident to navigators, all former directories having been compiled from a mass of heterogeneous materials, obtained when ships were navigated by dead reckoning, prior to the invaluable application of chronometers and lunar observations to nautical science, consequently fraught with error, and of very little use in the present improved state of navagation[2].
On the 20th Oct. 1806, Rear-Admiral George Murray being appointed to the command of a secret and important expedition, was pleased to select his former Lieutenant, the subject of this memoir, to be his Flag-Captain, in the Polyphemus, of 64 guns; which ship, attended by a small squadron, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, and was there joined by a fleet of transports, having on board upwards of 4,000 troops, towards the latter end of March, 1807.
The military commander, Brigadier-General Craufurd, had just before received a despatch from Rear-Admiral Murray, acquainting him that the destination of the armament had been changed in consequence of the reverses sustained by the British army in South America, and that instead of going by the eastern route to Lima, as was originally intended,
