The charts and plans of Captain Smyth’s gigantic undertaking are now constantly used by the British, French, American, and Russian squadrons in the Mediterranean; and we perceive how highly they are appreciated by discerning officers, whose letters are before us: but by none have they been more warmly or liberally hailed than by the scientific Captain Beaufort, – himself an acknowledged first-rate hydrographer, – “The more I see of your Mediterranean surveys,” he observes, “the more I admire the great extent of your labours – the perseverance of your researches – the acuteness of your details – and the taste with which you have executed the charts. Take them altogether, no survey has ever before issued from the Admiralty that can be compared to yours. It is quite astonishing the work that you did, – and did in such a masterly manner, in the time you were abroad.”
As this service, though originating in the efforts, and at the expence, of an individual, cannot but be deemed honorable to the naval profession at large, we take pleasure in shewing how it has been mentioned in the widely circulated journal of the celebrated Baron de Zach.
Vol. I. p. 69. – “M. le Capitaine Guillaume Henry Smyth, de la Marine Royale de S.M. Britannique, chargé par son gouvernement d’une mission astronomique, geographique, et hydrographique dans al mer Mediterranée, pour y déterminer des positions, lever les plans des co^tes, rades, ports, &c. arriva avec sa corvette au mois de Février dans la port de Gênes; il veut me trouver, et j’eus l’honneur et l’avantage de faire la connoissance personelle de ce respectable officier, infiniment instruit, non seulement dans les pratiques de son état, mais dans plusieurs autres branches de sciences et de littérature, qu’on ne cherche pas, et qu’on trouve plus rarement encore, chez un bon marin. Assurément on ne pouvait confier une expédition aussi importante à un navigateur plus habile, plus expert, et plus zélé que le Capitaine Smyth. Il est muni à son bord d’une quantité de bons instrumens, sextans et circles de réflexion, horizones artificiels, théodolites, lunettes de toule espèce, garnies de micromètres, montre-marines, &c.”
And again in Vol. IV. p. 113, the Baron says:
