An Auto-Biographical Memoir of Sir John Barrow, Bart., Late of the Admiralty: Including Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and Abroad, from Early Life to Advanced Age

534 Pages·2009·16.73 MB·English

by  John Barrow

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An Auto-Biographical Memoir of Sir John
Barrow, Bart., Late of the Admiralty
Sir John Barrow (1764–1848) was a distinguished British government servant
whose diplomatic career took him to China and Africa, and who in forty
years as Secretary to the Admiralty was responsible for promoting Arctic and
Antarctic exploration, including the voyages of Sir John Ross, Sir William
Parry, Sir James Clark Ross and Sir John Franklin (the last of which famously
ended in disaster). Barrow’s autobiography, written when he was eighty-
three, depicts a life extraordinary for its range of experience and activity,
from a small farm in the Furness peninsula to the court of the Emperor of
China, and from an apparently settled life as a civil servant at Cape Town
to the centre of affairs at a time when the British Navy’s reach and influence
reached their highest point. This fascinating account will be of interest to
anyone interested in exploration and the history of the British Navy.
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An Auto-Biographical
Memoir of Sir John
Barrow, Bart., Late
of the Admiralty
Including Reflections, Observations, and
Reminiscences at Home and Abroad, from
Early Life to Advanced Age
John Barrow
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© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009
This edition first published 1847
This digitally printed version 2009
iSBN 978-1-108-00470-1
This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect
the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.
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AN
AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR
SIR JOHN BARROW, BART.,
LATE OF THE ADMIRALTY;
INCLUDING
REFLECTIONS, OBSERVATIONS, AND REMINISCENCES
AT HOME AND ABROAD,
FROM EARLY LIFE TO ADVANCED AGE.
• " Hsec olim mcminissc juvabit."
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1847.

P R E F A C E.
IT may naturally be supposed that he who can sit
down, in his eighty-third year, to write a volume of
500 pages, must have been urged on by some powerful
motive to undertake such a task at so advanced a
period of life; when the faculties of mind and body
may be expected, in a certain degree, to have become
impaired. I had a double motive for setting about
the task:—the first was to gratify what I knew to be
the wish of my family; the second, to gratify myself,
by taking a wide range in recalling the remem-
brances of long by-gone years; quite certain that
by so doing I should be able to realize the motto
of my book, and say " hsec olim meminisse juvabit"
But I may also allege a third motive of gratification:
that of expressing publicly the many acts of kindness
and consideration I have experienced from numerous
friends, especially from those to whose patronage I
am indebted for the good fortune that has attended
me through life.
To me, indeed, the labour of putting together the
present volume has proved rather a delightful exercise,