1848.] Fifteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. 51 



The early epoch at which this storm occurred is worth noticing for 

 future guidance. Horsburgh, p. 523, Vol. I. note, notices " a heavy 

 storm from the Southward, on the 20th and 21st of April, 1782, on 

 most parts of the coast, in which H. M. S. Cuddalore, the Revenge , 

 and several other ships foundered with their crews, and others were 

 dismasted," and he says that " since that time no others have occurred 

 so early in the season, but at the latter end of April and early in May 

 some have suffered by S. W. and Southerly gales," which may have 

 been the setting in of the monsoon. He mentions also, p. 529, a S. 

 E. gale at Bombay, in November, 1799, veering to the Eastward, and 

 blowing a hurricane for some time, in which ships were wrecked in the 

 harbour. If this was a true circular storm, it would have a track 

 coining in from the W. N. W., and adverting to my remarks in the 

 note at page 45, on the possible track of the East London's gale, it is 

 not, I think, wholly impossible that this may have occurred. 



Remarks on the lesson afforded by these hurricanes. 



It is singular that we have here again, as in the case of the loss of the 

 Golconda troop-ship, in the China sea, (Fourth Memoir, Jour. As. Soc. 

 Vol. IX.) three lessons of the highest importance from a single storm ! 

 We have the Sesostris steaming back out of the bad weather, between the 

 17th and 18th. The Essex in 1811, and the Buckinghamshire in 1847, 

 running headlong into the centre, and in imminent peril of founder- 

 ing ; and finally, the Cleopatra, which vessel there is every reason to 

 believe, (see Part II.) must have committed the same error, and has 

 been destroyed. 



If warnings like these are not listened to, it is difficult to say what 

 will be required. Nothing short of the destruction of a whole fleet 

 would seem sufficient to rouse the attention of those whom it behoves 

 to insist upon the laws of our science being as duly attended to as the 

 lead and the chart, and upon every Commander intrusted with public 

 property noting in his log his reasons for standing on or heaving to 

 on the approach of bad weather ; and this will, in case of his return 

 to port in a disabled state, at once show if he understood his position 

 or not. If he did not, he is unfit for the command of a vessel till 

 he does. 



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