A Lecture, Or Essay On the most efficacious means of Preserving The Lives Of Shipwrecked Sailors And The Shipwreck

6 from me the honour of the invention. I only rejoice to find, that among my numerous opponents no one has ever been so hardy as to deny me the credit of bringing the plan for saving shipwrecked sailors into use : that, in short, of the 549 individuals who already owe their lives to it, every one would have been lost if it had not been for the perseverance, energy, and exertion on my part, which pointed out to the nation the means of saving our fellow-countrymen, and roused a slumbering population to come actively forward in the great cause of humanity, and establish institutions for such object. But feeling that my veracity is at stake, and feeling the necessity, as I before observed, to establish my pretensions ; from being told, first that Mr. Winn, then Lieutenant Bell, and many more, are entitled to the merit of the suggestion, I consider myself called upon thus boldly and unhesitatingly to claim my own, and not to subject myself, either while I live or after my death, to the despicable suspicion of dishonourable fraud. God forbid that I should rob any man of a tittle of his merits, and those of Mr. Winn and Lieutenant Bell I am among the first to admit: both of them pre- ceded me in point of time, but I borrowed from neither. Mr. Winn was a worthy seaman at Yarmouth seventy years ago: his plan was ingenious, but not feasible ; it was altogether different from mine, as it related only to vessels driven close to the shore. He wished, further, every ship to be provided with a rope studded with corks at set dis- tances throughout its whole length, and a buoy at the end. This rope was to be thrown overboard from the stranded vessel, and when it floated near the shore, the persons there assembled were to secure it by means of hooks to be cast by hand, and thus form a communication. To illustrate his plan, he caused an engraving of it to be published ; but the impractibility of it soon consigned it to oblivion, and the print is now only to be found in the portfolios of the curious. A somewhat similar plan was attempted from a ship-of-war (OtterJ, in Yarmouth Roads, about the year 1740, (as stated in the Gen- tleman's Magazine) by means of a paper kite, with a view of being applied for the preservation of shipwrecked mariners ; most sin- cerely I wish that such an ingenious plan could have been effective, or that the means of saving human life should be as numerous and efficacious as the warmest philanthropist can desire ; but, on the other hand, there is no shoal so perilous, nor against which we ought to guard with so much unceasing care and caution, as that