sailer, but also carries sail remarkably well, and has every good quality which a vessel can possibly have in utmost perfection, and more particularly in a large head sea. What is very extraordinary in the vessel is, that in turning up to windward from the Downes to Blackwall, where she arrived on Sunday evening, she beat every vessel between three and four miles an hour, right in the wind's eye, though there were at least a hundred sail of vessels coming up the river and the wind all the time blew very fresh, and right down the river, yet on Saturday evening she turned from about two miles to the westward of the Isle of Sheppy to the mouth of the river Thames in within four hours against the ebb tide, though at the height of the springs, which it is imagined was never done before, nor can be done by any vessel."
The same volume of the Gentleman's Magazine records that "In a letter from Dover mention is made of a late trial between the celebrated vessel constructed by Lord Ferrers, and two small shallops belonging to Lieutenants Friend and Columbine, when on a stretch from that port to the opposite coast and back again, his lordship's vessel was weathered full two leagues in coming in with Dover cliffs. A vessel launched lately for the captain of the Speedwell has since beat the shallops, and is thought to be the fastest sailing vessel on the coasts of the kingdom."
It would be interesting to know the rig, tonnage, build, and names of these vessels, but no particulars relating to these matters have been preserved.
In 1775 Richard Paton painted a picture of the
