RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND THE BLACK SEA.
(Vol. ix., p. 103.)
Statements and complaints have often been made respecting the imperfect knowledge possessed by English navigators of the shores and coasts of the Black Sea, and of the great danger thence arising to ships and fleets from England, which would thus seem to be without the charts necessary for their guidance. The Guardian newspaper reiterates these complaints in its number for Jan. 11. This deficiency of charts, however, ought not to exist, and probably does not; since, no doubt, the English and French Governments would take care to supply them at the present time. As respects England, Dr. E. D. Clarke, in his well-known Travels in Russia, &c. (see vol. i. 4th edit., 8vo., London, 1816, Preface, p. x.), states that he brought—
"Certain documents with him from Odessa, at the hazard of his life, and deposited within a British Admiralty."
These documents, we are led naturally to infer, were charts; for he adds:
"They may serve to facilitate the navigation of the Russian coasts of the Black Sea, if ever the welfare of Great Britain should demand the presence of her fleets in that part of the world."
Happening to meet with this passage, in consulting Dr. Clarke's Travels, at the beginning of December, when the Fleets of Great Britain and France were on the point of entering the Black Sea, and having read in many quarters fears expressed for the fleets from the want of charts, I ventured to copy out the passage relating to these remarkable documents, and sent it to Lord Aberdeen; in case, from the alleged poverty of charts in the Admiralty Catalogues (see The Guardian, Jan. 11.), Dr. Clarke's "documents" should have fallen out of sight, and were forgotten. No notice, however, was taken of my communication; from which I concluded that it was wholly valueless.
John Macray.
Oxford.