An Autobiographical Memoir Of Sir John Barrow Bart Late Of The Admiralty

Description: Heavily annotated manuscript, including copies of correspondence, and publisher's proofs of Sir John Barrow's autobiography, published in 1847. The volume covers Barrow's employment, travels, diplomatic service under Lord Macartney (including a detailed description of China), time spent in the Cape Colony, and work at the Admiralty under a succession of First Lords of the Admiralty and Lord High Admirals.

Excerpt from 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 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 remembrances of long by-gone years; quite certain that by so doing I should be able to realize the motto of my book, and say "haaec 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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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.

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.