The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-10-23 00:00:00

APPENDIX.

On the publication, in 1826, of the first edition of 'toy Pam-
phlet, on the construction in Douglas Bay of
.an Asyliim Har-
bour. for the Irish Sea, I felt • it' a' duly which I owed to my
country, to address myself to all the leading departmet* of his
Majesty's grivernment, and of the great public bodied of the
kingdom, connected with maritime affairs, and inore.parVcillar-
I y to the corporations, the merchants,' ana the underwriters of
Liverpool, and the other sea ports of the English,. Scottish, and
Irish shores, strenuously urging the adoption of this measure,
accompanied by numerous copies of the plan and pamphlet,
which f also widely circulated, in every quarter where .1 could
hope the cause would find support.
Subsequently, this project,has been honOured by the attentive
investigation of some able engineers, and 'many office/IS:of the
navy, the coast guard, and other services, Who have isited the
Isle of Man, and, who have' pronounced on the accuracy "of my
plans, and on the practicability and the vast importance of the
measure, on its most extended scale. •
But during this period, almost every storm has brought fur-
ther proofs of the evils of delay; and each 'succeeding winter has
fearfully added to the number of its victims, and to the amount
of property destroyed.

To give an accurate statement of this amount is impossible;
but from the most minute investigation, it appears ;that the
losses by shipwreck on the whole coast of the Isle of Man• have
been enormously great. In a single week, in November, 183-1,
besides thirteen persons who perished, vessels and their car-
goes exceeding the value of £60,000, were lost in Raihsay Bay,
and on the Castletown Coast—all of which passed ,Douglas
Bay, in search of shelter, and where they would have found.
'safety, had the 'proposec Asylum Harbour existed. And it, is
unquestionable, that within ten years, property to an amount
much beyond half' a million has been sacrificed on the cttas(s of
the Isle of Man and of the surrounding seas, by the wreck of
vessels which would certainty have found refuge within a breast:-
Water in Douglas Bay, besides the loss of time, and the incal-
culable extent of injury sustained in the masts, Jigging, an-
chors, arid cables, and the general wear and tear of hundreds
of vessels obliged to beat about during the lung tempestuous
nights of winter in these narrow sea:, and on these dangerous
shores, accompanied by a most lamentable extent of human
misery, anxiety, and peril, to those thus unnecessarily exposed
to the storm.
But these details of the great pecuniary losses which the com-
mercial and the shipping interests sustain, great and injurious
as they are, sink into insignificance when compared with the,
enormous havoc of
,human life, inseparable from the calamity
of shipwreck, under all its appalling forms, on every coast of
the Irish Sea, and which cannot be computed at less than one
thousand hunian beings.
It is, however, consoling to find that these disastrous events
have not taken place without producing a powerful impreision
on the public mind—and that the Commissioners of Harbours
of the Isle of Man have seriously tinned their attention to this
vital object—they are entitled to every praise for having, as a
preliminary measnre, must - jadiciously availed therosetves of
the great experience and talents of so distinguished an engi-
neer as Sir John Rennie, under whose direction, in the au-
tumn of 1833, valuable surveys have been made of most of the
sea-ports of the Isle of Man, and such improvements suggested,
on a greater or lesser scale, as their respective importance
might require, or of which their localit es were capable—and
more particularly as to Douglas Bay,- of a great harbour of re-
fuge for the Irish Sea—on which Sir John has recently pub-
lished an able report, accompanied with such surveys and plaps
for its accomplishment, as i feel gratified to find, are so much
in-accordance with those which I had ventured to submit to the
consideration of the public.

I More 'recently, itta'rileeting of the shipping interests in Li-
verpool, the expediency was suggested of still further extend-
in the proposed. harbour,- by commencing the Breakwater
nearer to Douglas head. In this I entirely concur, an4l have
alwaNs wished to see it accomplished, if the requisite funds
Could be obtained. This point, and the detail of the construe
tiort of the works, .can he best decided by those whose experi-.
euce and profesSional pursuits, have rendered them the most
competent to so.impnrtant a question,—but the practicability of
the measure can now no longer be doubted—it has been proved
to demonstration—every objection founded on the great cost of
carrying these plans into effect must fall to the ground, under
the proofs which have been adduced—of the enormous losses
which each year take place, and which must for ever continue
41,,petirr, until this one great remedy is provided.
Even should the harbour proposed, cause an expenditure of
£2{X),ooo—which the loss occasioned l,v the want of such R re-
fuge, amounts to much beyond L'5O,OOU each year, is it cot a