a. 
aware. 
preparation, previous to its being shipped for the English 
market: but is merely made into bales, by being put ina 
press and screwed down. It is manufactured into every 
species of cordage, excepting cables, and Mr. Bieeg, the 
Commissioner of Enquiry to New South Wales, observes in 
his Report, pp. 52, 53, that ‘ its superiority of strength 
to the Hemp of the Baltic has been attested, both by expe- 
riments made at Sidney, and by one that was effected under 
his own observation in the King’s Yard, at Deptford.’ 
« The relative proportions of strength of each, however, 
I have, I am sorry to say, not been able to obtain for you. 
A casual mecting, however, which lately took place between 
an old and experienced captain of a merchant-vessel and 
myself, enables me to give you some information on this 
point. He had been for thirty five years at sea, and many 
years in the trade between Liverpool and Mauritius ; and 
from conversing upon sugar, Timor ponies, Torres Streights 
and coral reefs, we got upon the subject of New Zealand 
Flax and the rope it made, of which he spoke much in 
commendation, having employed it in the ships he had 
commanded. He had proved the superiority of the New 
Sealand Flax to Hemp in ropes, upon which there is al- 
ways a great strain on ship-board; such as stays, braces, 
tacks, sheets, &ec. ; and such were the strength, elasticity, 
(hence its value for stays) and durability of the fibre of the 
New Zealand material, that it admitted of the ropes for 
such purposes, which had been manufactured of it, being of 
less dimension, and therefore more convenient to use than 
the same description of rope, to be appropriated to the 
same purposes, of Baltic Hemp, necessarily required. As 
a comment on this information of the Mauritius’ captain, I 
will here briefly observe, that in one of our voyages, (Mer- 
maid, with Capt. King) we bent a new main-sheet at Port 
Jackson, (which, in a cutter, is a rope on which there 1s 
ever much stress,) and after nine months, returned from the 
N. W. coast, and the rope was still good and serviceable ; 
whereas, of Baltic Hemp, a main sheet, by friction an 
strain, would have been so worn, at the close of our survey 
on that coast, that it would have become indispensible to 
si another to carry us back from that shore to Port 
ckson, the voyage being seven or eight weeks. | 
Ihave not heard that canvass has been made of it, but _ 
my correspondent (a merchant from Sidney, now in Lov- 
don) informs me, that a person has been trying it in table- 
cloths, napkins, &c, but with what success he was not 
“ For ae 
