flag; and on the 8th of the following month, addressed the secretary of the Admiralty as follows:
“Sir,– I request you will be pleased to lay before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the enclosed suggestions of my late flag-lieutenant, Justinian Barrell, on an improved mode of supplying and receiving stores.
“After much reflection, and some experience, I beg to assure their lordships that I most entirely coincide in opinion with Lieutenant Barrell, whose assiduity and uniform good conduct entitle him to my warmest commendation. I have the honor to be, &c.
enclosure.
Jan. 31st, 1815.
“Sir,– Having, under your direction, many occasions of observing the losses and delays in conveying stores of all kinds from the dock-yard to H.M. ships, and the desertion, drunkenness, and irregularities among the seamen sent for this purpose, I beg to lay before you what has naturally occurred to me, from the mode of conveying stores from the ordnance and victualling departments, although the advantage to the King’s service is much more evident in the dock-yard stores, as will appear from the annexed Reference No. I.
“When stores are to be conveyed to foreign stations in ships of war, they are shipped in sailing lighters in a few hours by the dock-yard people, who are accustomed to the business; but the delay, confusion, and inconvenience incident to the warrant-officers drawing stores are so various, that they will most properly appear in Reference No. II.
“In my situation, it may appear presumptuous to pretend to calculate the additional number of lighters, or of labourers, to render ships’ boats and seamen unnecessary; but from the rough sketch which is made in Reference No. III., some idea may be formed of the expence: still less is it in my power to estimate the loss of stores and boats, with their gear; or of men, by desertion, sickness, and the upsetting or swamping of ships’ boats; but I am very much mistaken if those losses do not far exceed the expence proposed as a remedy.
“If the sending officers and men from Spithead to Portsmouth dockyard, and the shipping of stores from thence in open boats, are attended with losses and delay, the performance of the same service at the Nore, in the Downs, and Cawsand bay, is still more objectionable. I have the honor to be, &c.
“To Rear-Admiral Foote.”
