456 On saving the Lives of Mariners. 
respecting it, that its uses have since been extended, and 
the invention itself much improved, by Capt. Manby, as 
appears by the following copy of a 
Report from the Committee of Field Officers of Artillery, 
containing an Account of the Experiments made at Wool- 
wich, on the 18th and 20th May last, on Captain Man- 
by?s Invention for saving the Lives of Shipwrecked Ma- 
riners. (Printed by Order of the House of Commons.) 
« SIR, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, 2d May, 1811. 
*© Tn obediencé to the honourable board’s commands, 
transmitted in your letters of the 29th ultimo and the 3d 
instant, I assembled the committee of colonels and field 
officers of royal artillery, named below *, on the 18th 
and 20th instant, to take into'consideration, and to 
give their opinion on, Captain Manby’s discovery of an in- 
stantaneous manner of discharging pieces of ordnance for 
the relief of shipwrecked persons, without the application 
of fire; and further, to investigate the several subjects 
stated in Captain Manby’s letter to the honourable board, 
of the 2d instant, wherein he requests the report to extend 
* to the whole of his various productions, as they are now 
considered by him complete, and to the fullest of his 
wishes.’ 
“*The committee having communicated with Captain 
Manby on the subject of their meeting, he submitted to 
them his arrangement of the proposed experiments ; after 
which they adjourned to the ground for mortar- practice, in 
the barrack-field, where he exhibited them in the following 
order: 
** Ist-—* A person completely equipped with every neces- 
sary apparatus to cfect a communication with a vessel 
driven on a lee shore.’ 
«© A man mounted on horseback was exhibited, accou- 
tred with a deal frame, containing 200 yards of log line, 
ready coiled for service, which was slung as a knapsack, 
with a brass howitzer of a 3-pounder bore on its carriage, 
and two rounds of ammunition, the whole weighing 62 
pounds, strapped on the fore part of the saddle. The per- 
son thus cquipped, is supposed io be enabled to travel with 
expedition to the aid of ships in danger of being wrecked, 
on parts of the coast intermediate to the mortar stations : 
and with this small apparatus the log line is to be projected 
* Present, Lieut. Gen. Lloyd, Major Gen Ramsay, Col. Borthwick, 
Lieut. Col. Rion, Lieut. Col. “Spicer, Lieut. Col. Colebreoke, Lieut. Col. 
Beever, Major Gold, Major Buciacr. 
over 
