f all the various calamities which desolate the human race.

From the same motives, I have most respectfully submitted this national
and international system to the sovereigns and governments of the
principal maritime powers of Europe and of America; and I avail myself
with pleasure of the present occasion, to express my grateful
acknowledgments for the promptitude with which several of their
ministers, resident at this court, have transmitted it to their
respective governments.

Encouraged to persevere in my endeavours, by the flattering support and
approbation of many distinguished and enlightened characters, I am
induced to hope that the day is not remote, when this contemplated
institution may be established on a permanent basis, by the united
energies of a noble and a benevolent nation, to whose support such a
cause has never yet been addressed in vain.

The interest which this subject has already excited, has induced me to
commit another edition of my pamphlet to the press; whilst the magnitude
and vital importance of these objects, to our country and to
mankind,--on our own and every foreign shore,--in the present and every
future age,--will, I trust, best plead my excuse as a retired
individual, and acquit me from the charge of presumption, in having had
the temerity to submit my views to the consideration of so many
illustrious personages, and for the earnest solicitude with which I have
addressed myself to the humanity, the benevolence, and the justice of
the British nation.

10th November, 1823.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] The introduction to the second edition and the following
pamphlet were published previously to the formation of "the Royal
National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck," which
it originally projected, as will be obvious by reference to dates and to
the accompanying Appendix.

AN APPEAL,

_&c._

For many years, and in various countries, the melancholy and fatal
shipwrecks which I have witnessed, have excited a powerful interest in
my mind for the situation of those who are exposed to these awful
calamities; but the idea of the advantages which would result from the
establishment of a national institution, for the preservation of human
life from the perils of the sea, first suggested itself to me during my
residence on a part of the coast, often exposed to the most distressing
scenes of misery, and where the dreadful storms of the last autumn
prevailed with unusua