'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎425] (444/622)

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
425
011 i Hi
Marine Surveyor -General. Commander Taylor and other
officers had repeatedly urged the adoption of this course on the
Government, but in vain. ^ ,
When, in 1861, the Indian Survey Department was placed
under the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, in Whitehall, the
late Admiral Washington, who was already overburdened with
work "confessed his inability to see how this new plan could
be carried out." And the foresight displayed by Admiral
Washington, was borne out by the event; for we find that, in
1870, after nearly ten years of Admiralty management, at the
request of the Viceroy of India, a civil engineer, Mr. Robertson,*
was sent out to advise him on the ports of India, with a view
to their improvement, although at this time the Government
had at their command in England such unsurpassed marine
surveyors as Constable, Taylor, Ward, Sweny, and others fully
capable, from their familiarity with the coasts and the incidents
of Indian navigation, to advise them on these points. "It is,"
says Taylor, " for the scientific mariner to point out the wants
of his own service, and for the engineer to supply them. But
the maritime affairs of India have no representative either in
the Council or in the Administration in India, and thus questions
relating to them are referred to landsmen alone." He con
tinues : " I search the Admiralty catalogues of charts in vain
to fiud any really new charts of India for the last ten years.f
They who rashly undertook to succeed ' the pioneers
of navigation in the Eastern Seas,' have certainly not rendered
a good account of their ten years' stewardship, much less have
* Mr. Robertson was appointed in September, 1870. During 1870-71, be
examined the Madras anchorages on both sides of the peninsula, and in 1871-72,
lie was engaged on the Bengal and Bombay coasts, and also investigated the
schemes for a ship canal between India and Ceylon, when be reported in favour
of the late Sir William Denison's recommendation of a canal across the island of
Eameswar, as opposed to the grander, but more expensive scheme of constructing
one across the promontory of E-amnad, as urged by Sir James Elphinstone, M.P.,
and Commander Taylor. Mr. Robertson's examination was not very complete,
as he did not visit the ports of Zygbur, Viziadroog and Carwar, being three of
the eight principal harbours of Western India, and also Kolachel, a port on the
Travancore coast near Cape Comorin.
f We find by the Annual Report on India of 1869-70, that a survey of the
rivers and creeks in Orissa, and another of the Chittagong coast, had been under
taken, but the former were consequent on the Orissa famine, and the latter was
one of those recommended by Captain Constable and his coadjutors, in their
memorandum of the 3rd of March, 1862, addressed to the Hydrographer of the
Admiralty. " I may be pardoned," says Commander Taylor, " for saying that
very little might have been expected from those who, having had Ceylon as a
Crown colony for half a century, are not yet able to show us an accurate chart of
the east coast of that island. The west coast of Ceylon was surveyed by vessels
of the Indian Navy, paid out of the revenues of India. Thus, we find the ad
mirable new edition (1870) of ' Sailing Directions for the Indian Ocean/ by Mr.
A. G. Findlay, F.R.Gr.S., obliged to confess that 'we have no good account of
the east coast of Ceylon, but the discovery of two shoals, and the possible existence
of others, make it desirable that it should be avoided, or approached with cau
tion.' And this is the fact, notwithstanding the existence of the splendid harbour
and great British naval station at Trincomalee on that east coast."