Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/198

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POST-CAPTAINS OF 1817.
183

On the 26th April, a favorable answer was received from Mexico; and on the 6th May, more than half a million of dollars were embarked in the Conway: other large sums were subsequently received on board, all destined for London. Some of this treasure was sent by Spanish merchants; a small quantity by Mexicans; but the whole intended for the purchase of British goods.

During their stay at San Blas, Captain Hall and Mr. Foster made some experiments with an invariable pendulum of Captain Kater’s construction; as they had before done at Abingdon Island, one of the Galapagos. The details of these experiments were published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1823. They also surveyed the harbour and the town of San Blas, under the sanction of the commandant, “a remarkably sensible, unprejudiced, and well informed old Spaniard.”

On the 15th June 1822, the Conway sailed from thence; and after a voyage round Cape Horn, of nearly 8,000 miles, anchored in Rio de Janeiro on the 12th September; having been at sea upwards of twelve weeks without seeing land. She returned to England, and was paid off in the spring of 1823.

On the 17th April 1827, Captain Hall embarked at Liverpool, with his family, and sailed for New York, from whence he returned to the Isle of Wight, on the 22nd July 1828. During this interval of fifteen months and five days, independently of the double voyage across the Atlantic, he had travelled in North America, both by land and water carriage, 8,800 miles. In the course of his extensive tour, he made a visit, by invitation, to the Count de Survilliers, elder brother of Napoleon Buonaparte, and formerly King Joseph of Spain, who has resided for some years near Bordentown, in the state of New Jersey.

Captain Hall is the author of the following publications.

I. A Voyage to the West Coast of Corea and the Great Loo-Choo Island.

II. Extracts from a Journal, written on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the years 1820, 1821, and 1822, with an Appendix, containing a Memoir on the Navigation of the South American Station; – A Table, by Mr. Henry Foster, of the Latitudes, Longitudes, and Variation of the Compass, of the various Ports on the Shores of the Pacific Ocean, visited by the