HORSBURGH. 



525 



gency question being discussed, proposed the ap- 

 pointment of a regent by address, rather than by 

 bill, because, as he contended, by the latter mode 

 parliament would usurp the legislative power of 

 the crown, and by a gross and illegal fiction, steal 

 the semblance of an assent, where there could be 

 no negative. During the debate in 1812, relative 

 to the two tellerships of the exchequer, he made 

 seven distinct motions on the subject, with a view 

 to confine those sinecures to fixed annual sums, all 

 of which were however negatived. Thus did Mr 

 Homer most indefatigably devote himself to the 

 public business of his country, till at length over 

 earnestness, and too great application, broke down 

 his constitution. In this unfortunate exigence, his 

 medical advisers urged him to retire from public 

 life, and try to amend his health by a change of 

 climate. He accordingly visited France, and pro- 

 ceeded onwards to Italy ; but his disease gained 

 upon his strength; and while at Pisa, he was com- 

 pletely overcome, and died. This event happened 

 in February, 1817, when he had only reached 

 thirty-eight years of age. A monument was 

 erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. 



HORSBURGH, JAMES, F.R.S., a distinguished 

 hydrographer, was born on the 23d September, 

 1762, at Elie, in the county of Fife, in Scotland. 

 His parents, though in a humble sphere of life, 

 were pious and respectable. At the age of six- 

 teen, having acquired the elements of mathemati- 

 cal science, book-keeping, and the theoretical parts 

 of navigation, with a view to a sea-faring life (to 

 which the maritime position of his native place, on 

 the Frith of Forth, probably invited him), he sailed 

 in various vessels, chiefly in the coal trade, from 

 Newcastle and the Frith of Forth, to Hamburgh, 

 Holland, and Ostend. In May, 1780, he was cap- 

 tured by a French ship of twenty guns, close to 

 Walcheren, and detained in prison at Dunkirk for 

 a short time. After his liberation, he made a voy- 

 age to the West Indies, and, on his return, pro- 

 ceeded to Calcutta. In 1784, he was made third 

 mate of the Nancy, bound for Bombay. He con- 

 tinued in this trade for about two years ; and in May, 

 1786, when proceeding from Batavia towards Cey- 

 lon, as first mate of the Atlas, he was wrecked 

 upon the island of Diego Garcia, owing to the in- 

 correctness of the charts then in use. This cir- 

 cumstance taught him the ad vantage of making and 

 recording nautical observations. On his return to 

 Bombay, he joined, as third mate, the Gunjava, a 

 large ship belonging to a respectable native mer- 

 chant, and bound to China. On the vessel's arrival 

 in China he became first mate, and in that capacity 

 he continued to sail backwards and forwards, in 

 that and other ships, between China, Bombay, and 

 Calcutta, for several years. His experience and 

 observation had now not merely furnished him 

 with a large share of practical skill, but en- 

 abled him to accumulate a vast store of nautical 

 knowledge, bearing especially on Eastern hydro- 

 graphy. By the study of books and by experi- 

 ments, he familiarised himself with lunar observa- 

 tions, the use of chronometers, c., and taught 

 himself drawing, etching, and spheres, devoting 

 his time, \fhen in port, often till midnight, to these 

 studies. During two voyages to China, by the 

 eastern route, he constructed three charts, one of 

 the Strait of Macassar, another of the west side of 

 the Philippine Islands, the third of the tract from 

 Dampier Strait, through Pitt's Passage, towards 

 Batavia, accompanied by a memoir of sailing direc- 



tions, which were published under the patronage 

 of the East India court of directors, for the use of 

 their ships. 



He finally returned to England in 1805, and soon 

 after published a variety of charts,* with "Me- 

 moirs " of his voyages, to accompany them, ex- 

 planatory of Indian navigation. Several of his 

 papers, which he presented to Sir Joseph Banks, 

 were published in the Philosophical Transactions 

 for 1810, particularly some remarks on luminous 

 animals ; and some are published in Nicholson's 

 Philosophical Journal, vols. 13, 14, and 15. 



In 1809 he published " Directions for Sailing to 

 and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and the interjacent ports." 

 This invaluable work, which is now a standard 

 authority, was compiled chiefly from original jour- 

 nals and observations made in the oriental seas, 

 during twenty-one years. Its great utility and 

 accuracy have been attested by the most competent 

 witnesses in all parts of the world ; and the author 

 was almost a slave to it, devoting all his attention 

 to correcting, revising, and enlarging it. He had 

 just completed a new edition of this work prior to 

 his death, all but the index. In 1810, on the death 

 of Mr Dalrymple, he was appointed by the court of 

 directors, hydrographer to the East India Company. 

 From this time, all his energies were dedicated to 

 the important duties of his office ; and to the con- 

 struction of a variety of valuable charts and 

 works; amongst these are, an Atmospherical Re- 4 

 gister, for indicating storms at sea (1816); a new 

 edition of "Mackenzie's Treatise on Marine Sur- 

 veying (1819)," and the " East India Pilot." He 

 also produced a paper, which was read before the 

 royal society, on the Icebergs in the southern hem- 

 isphere, which is printed in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1830.f His last work was a 

 Chart of the East Coast of China (1835), a very 

 curious and interesting one, from having the names 

 in the Chinese character and in English, translated 

 by himself. 



Mr Horsburgh died on the 14th May, 1836. He 

 was married in 1805, and left one son and two 

 daughters. He was a man of modest and unob- 

 trusive character ; of the most benevolent disposi- 

 tion, and the strictest probity. He was devoted 

 to those branches of science which belonged to his 

 profession. To be useful to his fellow creatures 

 seems to have been the impulse of all his labours ; 

 and the number of lives and the amount of pro- 



* A chart of the China Sea ; a chart of the Straits of Ma- 

 lacca ; a chart of the entrance of Singapore Strait : a chart of 

 Bombay Harbour. He afterwards published a chart from lat. 

 38 S. to the equator, comprising the Cape of Good Hope, the 

 east coast of Africa, the Madagascar, Archipelago, &c. ; a chart 

 of the Peninsula of Hindostan, the Chagos, Maldiva, and Lacca 

 Diva Archipelagos, and Ceylon, and a small chart of the islands 

 and channels between Lucconia and Formosa. 



t In examining the journals of the East India Company for 

 the whole of the previous century, captain Horsburgh found 

 no account of icebergs seen in the southern hemisphere, 

 though the vessels had proceeded into the parallels 40, 41, 

 and 42 south; while, during the two years previous to 1830, 

 icebergs had occasionally been met with by several vessels very 

 near the Cape of Good Hope, between lat. 36 a and 39 a . The 

 most remarkable instance adduced by captain Horsburgh is 

 that in which the brig Kliza fell in with five icebergs, in 1828, 

 lat. 37 31' ^., Ion. 18 17' E. of London. They were enormous 

 iii;issi>s of ice, from 250 to 300 feet high, of the shape of church 

 steeples. He attributes their appearance to the existence of a 

 large tract of land near the Antarctic circle, somewhere be- 

 tween the meridian of London and 20 east longitude: and their 

 unprecedented descent during the two years in question, to 

 their disruption from the place of their formation by the vio- 

 lent convulsion of an earthquake or volcano. He states it as 

 a remarkable fact, that icebergs are met with at the same 

 period of the year, April and May, whether in the northern or 

 southern hemisphere, although the seasons are then, in each 

 hemisphere, of an opposite character. 



