apparent correctness of his surveys and drawings; and as a mark of their approbation, and an incitement to other officers to give their attention to similar pursuits, my Lords Commissioners will direct a selection of his drawings to be engraved and published for the benefit of Captain Smyth.”
This arrangement of their lordships was altered in consequence of some difficulties arising, and it was finally deternuMcd to engrave the “Atlas of Sicily” in the Admiralty Office; and for Captain Smyth to publish a “Memoir descriptive of the Resources, inhabitants, and Hydrography of that and the neighbouring islands, interspersed with antiquarian and other notices,” in a separate volume, of which the Board purchased 100 copies. This highly interesting work has been favorably received, and extensively reviewed, not only in England, but also in Germany, France, and Italy[1].
In the spring of 1816, Captain Smyth joined the squadron under Lord Exmouth, hoping that his Sicilian gun-bout, with her 68-pounder carronade and Congreve rockets, would have been in requisition to cover a landing on the Barbary shore, the Admiral’s object at this period being to oblige the piratical states to relinquish their depredations upon European commerce; matters, however, were for a time amicably adjusted.
After witnessing the liberation of numerous Christian slaves. Captain Smyth obtained permission from the Bashaw of Tripoli, to visit the ruins of Leplis Magna (situated on a fine level district to the eastward), to examine into the possibility of embarking the numerous columns which his Highness had offered to the British monarch. He accordingly proceeded thither, in company with the Consul, Colonel Hanmer Warrington.
“The ruins,” says he in his private journal, which he has obligingly placed at our disposal,) “had a very interesting appearance, from the contrast of their fallen grandeur with the mud-built villages of
Lebidah and Legatah, and those of the Nomadic tribes scattered around. The city,- ↑ Published by Murray, London, 1824.
