conduct this sailing without calculation does not reduce its merit. 

 Sorry should I be to believe that these remarks should in any manner 

 be construed into an attempt to reduce the credit due to Godfrey, 

 M'Kay of the ' Sea,' Boyce, Forbes, and other captains, who have dis- 

 played an amount of sldll in conducting composite sailing which will 

 entitle them to be regarded as men of whom our country may be justly 

 proud. Captain Godfrey, of the ' Constance,' first brought this 'sailing' 

 into successful practice in 1849, having made a voyage from Plymouth 

 to Adelaide in 77 days. He had previously tried the maximum latitude 

 of 55°, the same now suggested by yourself; but he reports that light 

 •winds prevail in the higher latitudes ; he therefore preferred the 

 maximum latitude of 51°, by which he made his then unprecedented 

 voyage. Afterwards, in the ' Statesman,' he accomplished the same 

 voyage in 7G days. Since that period M'Kay of the ' Sea,' Boyce of the 

 ' Eagle,' Forbes of the ' Marco Polo,' and other shipmasters out of this 

 port, have made tho voyage in still shorter periods. In fact, this sailing 

 is now adopted in navigating the great number of ships that leave this 

 port for Australia, and it is found that ships make this route in about 

 90 per cent, shorter time than those who pursue the previously adopted 

 track. Captains Forbes and Boyce simvdtaneously, in 1852, adopted 

 composite sailing, with extraordinary success, in returning from 

 Australia, as well as on the outward voyage ; and, if we make allowance 

 for the advantages of distance and winds which New York captains will 

 possess over those of Great Britain in making a voyage to and from 

 Australia, and also deduct the time that the ' Eagle' and ' Marco Polo' 

 remained in Australia, we may claim for Liverpool captains the honour 

 of having already accomplished that which you say 'it wiU seem like a 

 boast when I venture to predict that such will hereafter be the case.' 

 In 1849, the same year in which Captain Godfrey made his celebrated 

 voyage to Australia on composite sailing, Captain Boyce adopted the 

 same track out in the barque ' Pakenham,'and also composite sailing on 

 his homeward voyage ; and although he did not accomplish this voyage 

 in so short a time as he afterwards did in the ' Eagle,' still, when we allow 

 for the class of vessel he then navigated, and the heavy cargo of copper 

 ore he brought home, this voyage in 1849 entitles him to as much 

 credit as that which has been awarded him on account of his more rapid 

 passage out and home in 1852." 



Although Lieutenant Maury did not read this part of- my letter at the 

 council chamber, he commented on it thus, as reported in the local papers : 

 — " Although ]Mr. Towson was not the inventor of great circle sailing, 

 he had invented and computed an excellent set of tables which rendered 



