OR,

A SPIRITUAL VIEW

OF THE

OCEAN AND MARITIME AFFAIRS:

WITH

REFLECTIONS

ON

The Battle of Trafalgar,

AND OTHER EVENTS.

BY THE

AUTHOR OF THE RETROSPECT.

&c. &c. &c.

London:

PUBLISHED BY J. NISBET,

15, CASTLE STREET, OXFORD STREET;
Sold also by Longman and Co.; Hamilton; Ogles and Co.; Fenner;
Baldwin and Co.; Baynes; Williams and Co.; Button and Son;
Hatchard; Seeley; Conder; and Simpkin and Marshall:
W. Oliphant; Waugh and Innes; Ogles and Co.; and James Robertson,
Edinburgh: A. and J. M. Duncan; and M. Ogle, Glasgow.

1818.

141. K. 143.

PREFACE.

AFTER the substance of some of the shorter Essays which compose this volume had been drawn up and printed in a little tract, for gratuitous or cheap circulation among the more serious part of our brave tars, under the title of "The Seaman's Spy-glass,” it was thought, that some further Essays might be added; which, together with anecdotes and reflections on actual events, which passed under the writer's notice, might, altogether, form a little book, not wholly uninteresting or unprofitable to some pious officers and intelligent maritime youths, as well as to a few non-nautical Christians on shore.

Certainly, the Scriptures have authorized this mode of instruction. They have often thus compared and illustrated divine truths; and no one who attentively reads the Bible, and is acquainted with the sea and naval affairs, can for a moment doubt, whether these do not furnish many striking emblems and illustrations of the shortness and uncertainty of time-of the emptiness and vanity of all which this world calls great and good-of the privilege and importance of laying up a treasure in heaven, and of making the Creator and Judge of all the world our friend in time and in eternity.