632 A Sixth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. [No. 127. 



the Northerly part of the gale,* and therefore near to or into the 

 centre. 



I have therefore marked for this storm a track from N. 60° E. to- 

 wards S. 60° W., or about N. E. by E. to S. W. by W. and between the 

 Pratas Shoal, and the edge of soundings, which will allow the ships to 

 have been about50miles from the centre of it. The curious circumstance 

 of the great Westerly drift again occurs in this as in the London and 

 Warley's storms, shewing clearly that the storm wave, or storm cur- 

 rent was carrying the vessels with it with great rapidity. The Scalebt/'s 

 log it will be noted, says 111 miles between noon of the 28th, and 

 noon of the 30th, or 48 hours. They undoubtedly made every allow- 

 ance before coming to this conclusion, and their chronometers were 

 corrected, if any error existed in them, by their arrival in a few days 

 in China. The impression there evidently was, that the True Briton 

 might have been lost by this current carrying her on to the Coast 

 of Hainan, or amongst the shoals in the strait between Hainan, 

 and the Coast of China ;f for we learn from Horsburgh, p. 328, vol. ii. 

 that in April 1810, Captain D. Ross, then surveying the China seas, 

 was sent down to the Coast of Hainan in search of her. I shall 

 notice more at length this remarkable current at the conclusion of 

 these memoirs. 



TRACK No. VI. 



Tyfoon of 20th to ZOth September, 1810. 



Documents from the India House. 



On the 28th to 30th September, 1810— The H. C. S. Arniston, 

 Wexford, Alfred, Winchelsea, Elphinstone, Woodford, and Cuffnells, 

 bound to China, experienced a severe tyfoon in the China seas. The 

 following are the abridgements of their logs : — 



* Every seaman is aware how some vessels, in a fleet both Merchantmen and Men 

 of War, though holding a good wind in average weather, will become much more 

 leewardly than others, when the force of a storm depresses them beyond a certain 

 bearing. 



t The ships in this storm were all drifted close to these Shoals, as will be noted by 

 their latitude and longitude on the 30th. 



