JB/013/065/001

Click Here To Edit

1820. Novr 25.
J.B. to Mora

Since my last, I have taken down from my
shelves a copy I have of a Statement made by my Brother
of the services rendered by him to Government in the situation
of Inspector General of Naval works, a situation created
for him in 1792, when Earl Spencer was at the head of the
Admiralty. I was going to give you something of his history,
but the principal part of it may be seen in this work of his.
Though a great part of it will be unintelligible to you, as
well as to me, for want of professional knowledge, yet you
will find enough in it, or I am much mistaken, to excite
a most lively interest. To the objects of his pursuit, he bears,
much the same relation as I do to mine. You will read
me in his manner of stating and reasoning. He is nine
younger than me: our original temperaments are
very different: making allowance for this difference, his mind
was formed by mine. In 1791, he came hither in a furlough,
with laurels on his head, earned in the Russian service, a land
officer commanding a flotilla with which he had defeated a
Turkish armament composed of a flotilla of twice the force,
with three or four ships of the line. His being taken into the
English Admiralty service was produced by a system of
Mechanical invention of which Pitt, Dundas, and other
leading men about Ministers had been seeing at this
house of mine. He brought with him into the service that
stock of Mechanical and Chemical knowledge of which
the work in question shows the fruits. His situation was
intermediate between the Admiralty Board, and the Navy
Board. Below him, as well as above him, was a mass of
as compleat ignorance and ineptitude as an enemy could
have wished to see there: with the exception of Earl Spencer;
the first Lord of the Admiralty, by whom he was introduced,
and had just knowledge enough to distinguish my Brother's
knowledge from compleat ignorance: all the other Admiralty
Lords were empty headed men of quality, put in to earn their
salaries by their votes in Parliament. The Navy Board
was composed of two sets: the Accountant set, ignorant
of every thing without exception, put in under the system
of corruption on the same principle as the others, except a
Navy Captain or two, who understood the commanding a
ship and nothing else: the operative set consisted of the
men

Identifier: | JB/013/065/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 13.
Date_1	1820-11-25	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	013	Main Headings	rid yourselves of ultramaria
Folio number	065	Info in main headings field	jb to mora
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d5 / e5
Penner	john flowerdew colls	Watermarks	j whatman 1819
Marginals		Paper Producer	john flowerdew colls
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1819
Notes public	copy of letter 2713, vol. 10	ID Number	4514
Box Contents