siderations, but from strong advice, I wish to preserve entire control over the manufacture, as great accuracy is required in the construction, although it is not easily damaged or broken when once made; but a full description shall, as soon as possible, if permitted, be given to the public through your Magazine, with many thanks for your condescension in allowing me thus far to trouble your valuable pages. I have, &c.

To the Editor of the Nautical Magazine.

S. M. SAXBY.

MEMOIR OF REAR-ADMIRAL PHILIP PARKER KING, F.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.L.S., &c., &c., &c.

The life of a public man is to be sought in the history of his public acts; and the character of the lamented subject of this memoir, from an early age, secures the strong interest which arises from high accomplishments and intellectual vigour.

His childhood was spent at Norfolk Island, the place of his birth; his boyhood passed until fourteen years of age, at Sydney, when he entered the Royal Navy, in which he continued actively employed for twenty-three years-seven being spent in the survey of the coasts of Australasia-his mature life connecting itself by many incidents of peculiar interest with the annals of this colony. It is too evident that the excitement which the sudden death of this distinguished officer has created amongst those who have been in constant intercourse with him for years, can scarcely allow the formation of a calm estimate of the nature and extent of his reputation while living, and the probability of its permanently surviving him.

The career afloat, on active service, of the deceased officer, is so faithfully given in O'Byrne's Naval Biography, that we have only to supply a few preliminary notes to the subjoined extract from that valuable work, before we proceed to refer to those proceedings of colonial interest in which he took a prominent part since his return to, and settlement in, his native home.

The subject of this memoir was born on the 13th December, 1793, at Norfolk Island, the settlement of which had been effected by his father, Capt. P. G. King, in his capacity of Lieutenant of the frigate Sirius, the flag-ship of the "first fleet" under Governor Phillip. The great ability and tact displayed by Capt. King at Norfolk Island, when various unforeseen disasters threatened the perishing by famine of all its inhabitants, secured for him the appointment to the administration of the Government of New South Wales, when Governor Hunter departed for England in September, 1800. His administration lasted for six years, and it demanded all his energy and ancient tact to combat with the manifold difficulties of those troublous times. The only serious outbreak of the convict population since the settlement of the colony took place under his rule. It was termed the "Irish Rebellion." Some hundreds of convicts confined at a penal establishment at Castle Hill, near Sydney, attempted by force to regain their liberty; but, being armed only with pikes, were, after a very brief contest, retaken by the military at Vinegar Hill, on the Windsor-road, about twenty-seven miles from Sydney. Some were shot by the troops, the ringleaders were hanged immediately, and the rest implored mercy and were sent back to Castle Hill. This was not the

only painful incident during Governor King's rule. He had many factious opponents amongst his subordinate officers and the free settlers, in adverting to which Mr. R. Montgomery Martin relates the following anecdote:

"The Governor preferred charges against an influential gentleman in the colony, and despatches were prepared for being forwarded to the Secretary of State in England. The officer who was to have charge of the despatches imprudently mentioned the circumstance; but when he arrived in Downing Street the box, on being opened before the Secretary for the Colonies, was found to contain only a bundle of newspapers, the ireful despatches having been adroitly picked from the box in Sydney."

It may be well imagined that a youth of fourteen, ardent in the pursuit of knowledge and ambitious to embrace the profession of his father, was but too happy to leave these miserable scenes of convictism on the one hand, and of petty yet malicious faction on the other, and to find himself on board H.M.S. Diana, in the capacity of first-class volunteer, with the prestige of the name for which his father's career had secured every deserved honour. From the biographical work already referred to we now proceed to extract the most prominent particulars of the naval services of him whose death we record :

Philip Parker King entered the Navy in November, 1807, as a first-class volunteer on board the Diana, frigate, Capt. Charles Grant, whose FirstLieutenant, the late Capt. R. H. Barclay, he well supported in an attack made by the ship's boats in 1808 upon a French convoy passing between Nantes and Rochefort. On the night of the 2nd December, 1809, he was again noticed for his gallantry in the boats under Lieut. Daniel Miller at the cutting-out of three schuyts moored to the shore of Odenskirk, and provided with heavy ordnance. On the 18th May he obtained the rank of Midshipman, and in 1810 he proceeded as Master's Mate of the Hibernia, 110, Capt. John Chambers White, to the Mediterranean, where be followed the latter officer with the Centaur, 74; and in August, 1811, joined the Cumberland, 74, Captains Robert Walter Otway and Thomas Barker. Towards the close of the same year he was received on board the Adamant, 50, flag-ship at Leith, of Admiral William Albany Otway. After he had again served for eighteen months with Capt. Grant, in the Armada, 74, on the Mediterranean station, he was thence, in January, 1814, transferred to the Caledonia, 120, flag-ship of Sir Edward Pellew, through whom he was promoted, 28th February following, to a Lieutenancy in the Trident, 64, guard-ship at Malta, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Langhorne. He next, from July, 1814, until July, 1815, served on board the Elizabeth, 74, Capt. Edward Leveson Gower, flag-ship, part of the time, of Rear-Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleming, at Gibraltar, and in February, 1817, he was entrusted with the conduct of an expedition having for its object a survey of the coasts of Australia, a service on which he continued employed in the Mermaid, cutter, and Bathurst, sloop (to the command whereof he was promoted by commission dated 17th July, 1821,) until his return to England in 1823. The results of the undertaking are contained in a narrative of the survey of the inter-tropical and western coasts of Australia and in an Atlas, both compiled by Capt. King and published, the former by Murray, and the latter by the Hydrographical Office, at the Admiralty. In September, 1825, from the feeling of confidence with which he had impressed the Admiralty, in the discharge of his late duties, he was appointed to the Adventure, sloop, and ordered to survey the southern coast of America, from the entrance of the Rio Plata round to Chiloe, and of Tierra del Fuego. He was paid off on his arriva! in England. 16th November, 1830, and has not since been employed. His Post-commission bears date, 25th February, 1830.

“In 1832, Capt. King published, as the partial fruit of his recent voyage, a volume entitled Sailing Directions to the Coasts of Eastern and Western

Patagonia, including the Straits of Magalhaen and the Sea Coast of Tierra del Fuego. Besides being a F.R.S. and a F.L.S., Capt. King is a Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of London and a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society."

It was, we believe, about the year 1831 that Capt. King returned to New South Wales with the purpose of settling here. Every honour was paid to one who had achieved in various of the highest scientifical departments that success which his fellow-countryman, William Charles Wentworth, was then striving to obtain, and has since so brilliantly realized, in the difficult field of political and economical science.

Immediately after the publication of his sailing directions to the coasts of Eastern and Western Patagonia, we find Capt. King devoting the leisure he could command from the rural pursuits in which he engaged, to assist in examining every questionable point, and recording every useful fact in respect to the navigation of the coast line of Australasia. The passage within the reefs, or inner route, through Torres Straits had been one to which he had devoted unceasing care; and in a Calendar and Directory published under the conduct of the late Mr. Raymond, then Postmaster-General, Capt. King published, in 1833, his description of the coast, and in 1834 his directions for the inner passage through these, then supposed, dangerous Straits. From that period until the latest moment that his impaired health would permit him to take part in any correspondence which might arise on the subject of this navigation, he readily gave his valuable advice, founded upon his personal knowledge of the practicabilities of the Straits. From among the many instances we might mention of his anxious and continued observation in regard to this important point, we will select one of the latest.

In February, 1852, Capt. Snow, of the barque Caldew, performed a most difficult but successful voyage between Torres Straits and Sydney, compelled as he was by stress of weather to attempt the passage through Torres Straits to the westward, a passage up to that time but seldom attempted. His narrative of the voyage was published in these columns upon his arrival in Sydney, and Capt. King immediately expressed the interest with which he had read it, and having highly complimented Capt. Snow upon his seamanlike conduct in extricating his ship from the dangerous situation in which she had been placed, requested him to give in detail the full particulars of the ship's course in passing through the Straits. This request was complied with, and, after an able description of the voyage in the manner suggested by Capt. King, the gratified commander of the Caldew thus expressed his grateful sense of the manner in which so eminent an authority had suggested to him the best mode of apprising shipmasters of all nations of certain most important features in the navigation of the Straits :--

"I must repeat the expression of my satisfaction at finding that my account of my recent passage through these groups of islands, reefs, and sandbanks has attracted the attention of the distinguished navigator by whose admirable surveys an almost perfect knowledge not only of their dangers but also of the facilities which their passage offers to our rapidly increasing commerce with the regions of the East, has been imparted to seamen of all nations."

We must now retrace our steps to the year 1839, when Capt. King succeeded Col. Dumaresque as Chief Commissioner of the Australian Agricutural Company. In this responsible post he continued until 1849, when, differing from the London Board of Directors in respect to certain land schemes which he conceived they desired to carry out in the absence of local knowledge, he embarked for England, and after friendly conferences with the Board, whom, however, he failed to convince of what he conscientiously deemed to be an error, he resigned his appointment and returned to Sydney, continuing to maintain the most friendly relations with the company.

It will be remembered that in the Sessions of Council, 1846 and 1847, the subject of the monopoly granted to the Australian Agricultural Company on their first undertaking to work the coal mines at Newcastle was brought before the Legislature by Mr. P. Grant. In the latter session a select committee was appointed to inquire into the nature of the agreement made by the British Government with the Company; but, pending the investigation, Sir Charles Fitz Roy apprised the Council that he had been informed by the Commissioner for managing the affairs of the Company in New South Wales, that an arrangement had been made by the Court of Directors with her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, by which all existing privileges, both on the part of the Company and the Government, were to be given up, and without entailing any charge upon the Colonial Funds.

To Capt. King must be mainly ascribed the exercise of this tact in mediating successfully in this long and vexed point of dispute between the local legislature, the home authorities, and the company.

We now turn to an important question, in which Capt. King took, from the first, a decided and independent position.

In the early part of 1847, a correspondence took place between Mr. Joseph Hume and Mr. Mark Boyd, in London, and Mr. Benjamin Boyd, in Sydney, on the subject of the total abolition of the Imperial Navigation Laws. Mr. Hume strongly recommended that the complaints of the colonists, in respect to the injurious working of those laws, should be embodied in petitions to Parliament; and his advice, as soon as received in Sydney, was acted upon. Atthat time, the anomalous provisions and mischievous workings of the Imperial Act, (5 Wm. IV., c. 51,) which professed to regulate the practice and the fees in the Vice Admiralty Courts abroad, and to obviate doubts as to their jurisdiction, were loudly inveighed against by our leading merchants and shipowners. Mr. S. A. Donaldson and Mr. Lamb had taken the initiative, and their exertions to fully expose the iniquitous practices permitted under the sanction of the said Act, were zealously supported by the chief legal practitioners in Sydney.

It was determined that the questions of the total repeal of the Navigation Laws, and the careful revision of the Act under which the jurisdiction of the Vice Admiralty Courts in New South Wales were established, should be embodied in one petition to the House of Commons.

The petition in this shape was signed by the Speaker and every elective member of the Legislative Council then in Sydney, and by the majority of the non-official nominee members; by nearly every merchant, shipowner, and trader of the port. But one name was prominent amongst all these, and that was Capt. King's. From the first initiation of the movement, he took the most active part in its success; and in letters to influential friends in England, he strongly urged the expediency and justice of complying with the prayer of the petitioners, and to assent to the total repeal, revision, or modification of the then existing Navigation and Admiralty Laws. Upon presenting this petition to the Commons, Mr. Hume drew attention to the circumstance of its bearing the signature of Capt. King; and its favourable reception and results are now matters of history.

Capt. King, soon after the arrival of Sir Charles Fitz Roy, was appointed a non elective member of the Legislative Council. At the general election of 1851, he was invited to stand as a candidate for the electoral district of Gloucester and Macquarie, and was returned by a large majority. His career in Council (impeded as it too frequently was by his declining health) was one marked by an earnest desire to advance with zeal and fidelity the best interests of those whom he represented. A devoted supporter of the great cause of education, his best energies were directed to its advancement. He had for some time filled the office of Chairman of the Denominational Board of Di

rectors: and was a member of the select committee of the Legislative Council appointed on the 12th of July, 1854. to consider and report upon the general subject of establishing a Nautical School in the port of Sydney. In respect to this object, he had expressed his intention to address the public meeting heid yesterday, to adopt measures for the formation of such a school in accordance with the recommendations of the Legislature. This, however, was not to be. The gallant officer, whose promotion to the rank of Rear-Admiral was so recently notified to him, dined on Monday evening on board H.M.S. Juno: He left early in the evening, and on landing on the North Shore procceded to his residence, Grantham, St. Leonard's. He had reached the gate, when his falling to the ground was heard by one of his servants, who found him lying under the influence of an apoplectic stroke. His medical attendants were immediately in attendance, but every effort to restore him were unavailing, and he expired at half-past two o'clock on Tuesday morning. Thus has suddenly passed from us one of the most distinguished of Australia's sons; the first who rose to the high rank of Admiral in the Royal Navy of Great Britain.-Sydney Morning Herald.

NAUTICAL NOTICES.

SOUTH AMERICAN COAST-Pacific-Bay of Caldera-Caution.

Sunderland, June 6th. Dear Sir, I always read with great pleasure any nautical notice or directions in your work, feeling assured that they come from those who have been on the spot, which makes me act with greater confidence than I would do if I read the same from a directory. The directories say little or nothing about the entering of the bay of Caldera, and hearing many masters speak of the difficulty they had to make it out, I made a few remarks when at that port. I send them to you, hoping they may be of benefit to those who may have to discharge or load in it.

When coming from the South sail past the Morro Point at the distance of about four miles; this is a fine land-mark, and may be easily known by its bluff appearance and the three white patches on its side. When bound to Caldera, after passing do not be afraid to go well in, for a stranger will think there is no bay. At a short distance from the shore to the Southward Caldera looks like a ridge of rocks extending from the line of coast. From the point to the other side of the bay, it is about three miles. At Point Caldera there is a remarkable white rock and three small rocks above water at a cable's length from shore. Keep the shore on board at about two and a half cables' length, it being the weather shore, for ships often get to leeward of the town, and give themselves trouble to kedge up to it.

In the South-West corner of the bay, after rounding Point Caldera or first point, the vessels will show at Mr. Allison's copper-works, at the bottom of the bay. After rounding Point Caleta or second point, you will open out the town. In a line from second point you will have from 20 to 25 fathoms; as you procced the soundings decrease very regularly to 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and then to 3 fathoms. A small hill on the port shore on entering is worth mentioning; the top is black rock, and the sides are covered with sand two thirds up it,

NO. 7.-VOL. XXV.

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