214 
in our officers. The proposed plan 
would supply the British navy with a 
superior sort of cruizer, to prevent 
in future wars a renewal of such dis- 
graceful depredations in the Channel, 
which, in the first three months of 
the year 1810 alone, amounted in 
value to near half a million ster- 
ling. It would also protect British 
trade in the straights of Gibraltar from 
Spanish gun-boats, which have con- 
tinually captured British ships, even 
within a few miles, and in sight of 
British cruizers laying at the rock, 
as they were unable to work to wind- 
ward against the prevailing westerly 
wind, in time to intercept either the 
gun-boats or their prizes; it is this de- 
fect of our cruizers that greatly di- 
minishes the value of Gibraltar as 
a naval station, the -only value it 
has, except that of a smuggling dépot, 
and the negative importance, that if it 
were possessed by the Spaniards, they 
would then command the straits dur- 
ing a levanter or east wind, as they now 
do from Algezieras during the prevail- 
ing westerly wind. It was even report- 
ed and credited in that garrison, during 
the late war, that the above-mentioned 
inability of our cruizers to intercept the 
enemy, had led te a tacit understanding 
between us and the enemy, that the gar- 
rison should not fire at a Spanish gun- 
boat when in chase of a British ship, 
unless the latter should have anchored 
within gun-shot of the garrison before 
she was taken; and in return, the Spa- 
nish gun-boats were not to fire on the 
town of Gibraltar. 
Though the author thus appeals on 
behalf of neglected science, fettered art, 
impeded commerce, baffled enterprize, 
and of hazarded lives and plundered 
property, yet he is not so sanguine as 
to expect that he can by any effort in- 
troduce this principle into the equip- 
ment of the British navy. A century 
elapsed between the proposal and the 
adoption in the Royal Navy of copper- 
sheathing, though the inventor, or at 
least the first advocate of that great 
improvement, was Pepys, the secretary 
to the Admiralty under Charles II., and 
therefore a century and a-half at least 
must elapse before the proposed prin- 
ciple of a ship-lugger will be adopted 
in the British navy, because it is the 
invention of an unprivileged civilian. 
France, or the United States of America, 
will probably precede this country in the 
adoption of the principle, but there may 
be some hope that so soon as it can be 
Original Notes on Van Diemen’s Land. 
fOct'T, 
copied from a French model, it may be 
legitimately fit for our navy. 
London, J. Min.er. 
9, Southampton-Buildings, Holborn, 
lst June 1824. 
i 
ORIGINAL NOTES 02 VAN DIEMEN’S LAND. 
HE climate of Van Diemen’s Land 
corresponds more nearly with that 
of France near Bourdeaux, than with 
the climate of, any other portion of 
Western Europe, making allowance for 
the difference between the insular cha- 
racter of the former, and the continental 
influences to which the latter country is 
subject. 
The atmosphere of Van Diemen’s 
Land is in general dry, and very little 
subject to mist or fog; the latitude be- 
ing one of variable winds, the weather 
is of course changeable, but not at all 
in those sudden or severe extremes that 
are injurious to health; rain is occa- 
sional and not periodical; a fall of snow 
in the vallies is a rare occurrence, and 
what little falls there, immediately dis- 
solves, though it remains visible for a 
considerable time on the tops of moun- 
tains, some of which are 3,800 feet 
high ; hail is not frequent, and is as 
usual local ; thunder and lightning are 
rare, and the latter is not particularly 
dangerous. 
The soil of those parts which have 
been surveyed and appropriated, is in 
general a fine deep loam, and very fer- 
tile, producing wheat and potatoes in 
the greatest perfection, the latter of 
which have been found in good preser- 
vation after a voyage to England. Barley 
and oats have not yet been extensively 
tried; the common garden roots and 
vegetables of England succeed well, but 
the settlement of the country is perhaps 
too recent to enable an opinion to be 
formed of the production of European 
fruits, though many of them can hardly 
fail to succeed. The natural grass is 
abundantly nutritive for sheep, horned 
cattle, and horses; sheep thrive well 
and increase fast, having extensive ranges 
of pasture, and being fond of uplands, 
which in that island are in general free 
from trees and brush-wood ; it is in the 
vallies that forest-trees chiefly abound, 
but not universally, many fine vales and 
plains being without wood. Horned 
cattle are rather scarce and dear in 
comparison with sheep; horses are to- 
lerably numerous, the race being much 
improved at Port Jackson and Sidney, 
from whence they are conveyed to Van 
Diemen’s 
