380 LETTERS OF A FRIEND TO THE NAVY. 



passed the act of the 18th May, 1836, expressly limiting the ex- 

 ploring expedition to a sloop-of-war and smaller vessels, and its 

 objects to those of surveying and exploring. This body is prob- 

 ably the only one who have acted in the face of two hundred 

 pages of printed documents, or ever read them. Two hundred 

 pages of printed documents ! They must have amounted to the 

 size of a cheese ! The audacious wretches ! The " Citizen" in 

 mercy gives them notice to prepare for a withering. 



It is probable that these two hundred pages of printed docu- 

 ments were composed, in part, of the report of the " Citizen" himself 

 of the 29th of September, 1828, describing certain islands, reefs, 

 and shoals in the Pacific Ocean, &c. If so, I have something to 

 say respecting these two hundred pages of printed documents, 

 which ought to be considered in extenuation of the offence of those 

 who have excited the wrath of the " Citizen." This report, if it is 

 to form the guide for the movements of the exploring squadron in 

 the Pacific, will as certainly involve them in trouble as they 

 double Cape Horn. 



If the " Citizen" shall be the Palenurus of the squadron, with 

 his report for his guide, he will swamp the whole concern, and 

 will never cast anchor at the point where all the meridians ter- 

 minate, nor leave the star-spangled banner to wave on the axis of 

 the earth itself. 



In 1828, soon after this report was made, a copy of it was sent 

 to the vice admiral. Kruzenstern, of St. Petersburg, a distin- 

 guished navigator, illustrious for his voyage round the world, see- 

 ing it had received the notice of the American Congress, he 

 thought, no doubt, he had gained a treasure of reefs, rocks, and 

 islands, of which he commenced the examination. He soon dis- 

 covered that the information which the writer had received from 

 the whalers, and which he had reported in his memoir, was not of 

 a nature to inspire any great confidence. That in his memoir we 

 see islands bearing the same name, but differing many degrees in 

 longitude ; and many others indicated under the same latitude and 

 longitude which certainly were but one and the same island ; that 

 we find in it descriptions of islands so circumstantially detailed, 

 that one can hardly call in question their existence, but of which 

 the nonexistence could be equally well proved, and with the same 

 semblance of truth. And speaking of another collection of a like 



