In the ulterior arrangement of this design, Lieutenant Frederick William Beechey, who had recently returned from the Polar Seas, received the appointment of assistant-surveyor to Captain Smyth, whose friend, Lyon, was selected to command one of the discovery ships then fitting out under the orders of Captain Parry. Henry W. Beechey, Esq. a brother to the lieutenant, who had acquired considerable proficiency in Arabic by a long residence in Egypt, joined the enterprise; and to these gentlemen were added Lieutenant Henry Coffin, R.N. a volunteer; Mr. John Campbell, assistant-surgeon; and Mr. Edward Tyndall, midshipman of the Adventure ; for which ship Captain Smyth received his commission in Jan. 1821. Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin also left England in the Adventure, as a passenger, but quitted her sooner than he originally intended, owing to the plague then raging on the African shore.
We are, as yet, unacquainted with the whole of the reasons which operated in preventing the fulfilment of this very promising mission: for it appears, by the orders which Captain Smyth addressed to Lieutenant Beechey, that the original intention embraced a wider sphere of action than what it was afterwards limited to; and geography and the classic arts will long have to regret such a meritorious object being frustrated. The following is an extract from that document:
“Sir,– As it appears to me that several delays, incident to the nature of the service you are about to proceed upon, will at present retard your departure from Tripoli, and as the summer is fast expiring, I consider it most conducive to the tenor of my instructions, to proceed forthwith to sea, in order to commence the survey where I discontinued it in 1817; noting, however, that in consequence of your appointment, I shall attempt only at ascertaining the latitudes and longitudes of the several capes and headlands, with a connecting coast line as the basis of a general chart, leaving the geographical and particular detail for your research, as the season most favorable for such operations is the one that obliges us to haul off the coast.
“The main point, therefore, is to get the nautical portion completed as quickly as possible; and from weighing well the nature of the means at our disposal, I think the wishes of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty will best be answered by a coast journey as far as Derna, the
