Proceedings of Societies: 



[Oct. 



portunity of estimating the value of the services which might be de- 

 rived from this itayj, it having become necessary, in conseciuence of the 

 innumerable depredations committed by the pirates, and the great ex- 

 tent of coast which they had acquired, fo annihilate the power of the 

 celebrated pirate Angrea, who had got complete possession of all the 

 sea-coast, 120 miles in extent, from Taraana to Bancoot, and all the 

 inland country, as far as the mountains, which in some places are 

 thirty, in others twenty miles from the sea-coast. The ships and men 

 of that navy having been employed upon that occasion, under the com- 

 mand of one of their own officers, Commodore James, were completely 

 successful ; destroyed the whole of Angrea's fleet ; and, with the as- 

 sistance of some land troops, took his celebrated fort of Severn-droog, 

 and all his other forts ; and put an end to his authority and depreda- 

 tions. 1 From that time to the present period, they, as well in the 

 capture of the island of Ternate, in the Burmese war, in the expediti- 

 ons against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, as in a great many other 

 military expeditions upon which they have been employed, have 

 shown the greatest promptitude, the strictest discipline, and the most 

 undaunted courage. They have been equally distinguished by the 

 zeal, and by the great practical and theoretical science, with which they 

 have executed those maritime surveys by which they have been en- 

 abled, during the last forty years, to complete the most useful and va- 

 luable charts of different parts of the coasts of Asia, and of the coasts 

 of the Arabian and Persian Gulfs. ^ During the latter part of the last 

 century, many of the officers gained great credit by the different mari- 

 time surveys to which their names are respectively affixed. In the 

 beginning of the present century, Captains Ross and M'Gowan, made 

 a trigonometrical survey of the seas between the Straits of Malacca and 

 the Yellow Sea. In 1819, in consequence of the benefit which had been 

 previously derived, during the expedition against the pirates in the 

 Persian Gulf, from the accuracy v/ith. which they had examined the dif- 

 ferent inlets and creeks in that sea, some of the officers were employ- 

 ed by the Bombay Government, in making the chart of the whole of 

 the Persian Gulf, which was completed in 1828. In that year, in con- 

 sequence of the desire which was evinced by the public, of having a 

 communication between Great Britain and British India through the 

 Arabian Gulf, Captain Elwon was employed, in the Benares, in sur- 

 veying that Gulf, from the Strait of Babelmandeb to Judda, and Cap- 



1 The building on Shooter's Hill, called Severn-droog, was erected by Commodore 

 James, in honour of that event. 



s The collection of 118 charts, published by order of the East India Company, chiefly 

 from surveys performed by the officers of the Indian Navy, show the value of tb© 

 services executed by this able body of men. 



