uage of Captain Galloway, who thus deprecates, in strong
terms, the disgraceful conduct of the majority of the crew of the
Penelope:--'I feel it my duty,' he says, 'to state to you the infamous
conduct of the whole of the crew, with a very few exceptions. From the
time that the ship struck, their behaviour was not in the character of
British seamen in general; they had neither principle nor humanity;
some, in consequence, have suffered severely, and several died from
drunkenness.'

Captain Galloway died in 1846.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] _Parliamentary Report_, 255.

THE ALCESTE.

At the close of 1815, the Court of Directors of the East India Company
having represented to the British Government the impediments thrown in
the way of our trade with China, by the impositions practised by the
local authorities at Canton, it was determined to send an embassy to
the court of Pekin.

Lord Amherst was selected to undertake the mission, and Mr. Henry
Ellis was appointed secretary to the embassy.

The Alceste, a frigate of 46 guns, under the command of Captain,
afterwards Sir Murray Maxwell, was fitted up for the reception of the
ambassador and his suite.

On the 9th of February, 1816, the expedition sailed from Spithead,
and arrived in the China seas about the middle of July following. It
is not in our province to give any account of the proceedings of the
embassy, which have already been so ably described, and are well
known.

His excellency, having accomplished the object of his mission, took his
departure from China on the 9th of January, 1817, arrived at Manilla
on the 3rd of February, and finally sailed from thence in the Alceste,
on the 9th of the same month.

Captain Maxwell directed the ship's course to be steered towards the
Straits of Gaspar, in preference to those of Banca, as affording, at
that period of the monsoon, the most convenient and speedy egress from
the China seas; and though this passage is not so often taken as that
of Banca, the Gaspar Straits appeared by the plans and surveys laid
down in the Admiralty charts, as well as in those of the East India
Company, to be, not only wider, but to have a much greater depth of
water, and to offer fewer difficulties to navigation.

Early on the morning of the 18th of February, they made the Island of
Gaspar, and in a short time, Pulo Leat, or Middle Island, was descried
from the mast-head. The weather was remarkably fine and clear,--a mild
breeze blowi