e particularly from the entrance of the English
Channel to the frozen regions of the North. And when we recollect the
vast commercial fleets which the enterprise of our merchants adventures
into every sea, and during every season; when more than a thousand sail
of British vessels pass the sound of the Baltic each year; ought we not
to bear in mind to what hazards the subjects and vessels of Great
Britain are constantly exposed, on the whole of so extended a coast, and
in every stormy and dangerous sea? and shall we not be wanting to them
and to humanity, if we do not endeavour to obtain for our own
shipwrecked countrymen, in every foreign land, the same effectual aid in
the hour of danger, which, I doubt not, it will become one of the
proudest objects of this Institution to extend to the vessels of every
nation which may be in distress on the British shores?--Even during the
most arduous prosecution of war, the cause of humanity, and the
progress of civilization, would be eminently promoted by these noble and
generous efforts, for the rescue of those, whom the fury of the elements
had divested of all hostile character, and thrown helpless and powerless
on a foreign coast.

Thus would nations be drawn by mutual benefits into more strict bonds of
amity during peace, and thus might the rigours of war be ameliorated, by
having one common object of benevolence remaining; in the exercise of
which the jealousies and angry passions incident to a state of hostility
could not have any part with a generous and a high-minded people; whilst
the experience and penetration of liberal and enlightened governments
could, without difficulty, form such arrangements as would prevent that
which was intended as a benefit to mankind, from being made subservient
to any political abuse.

My utmost wishes would be accomplished by seeing these international
regulations established, in connexion with one great Institution, to
extend to the most remote province of the empire, on the exalted
principle, that wherever the British flag should fly, her seamen should
be protected; and that those who risked their own lives to save their
fellow-creatures from the perils of shipwreck should be honoured and
rewarded; whilst every stranger, whom the disasters of the sea may cast
on her shores, should never look for refuge in vain.

DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN,
28th Feb. 1823.

APPENDIX.

A year had scarcely elapsed after the first edition of the precedi