Alexander Dalrymple

Alexander Dalrymple
Alexander Dalrymple Esq,. Hydrographer to the Admiralty
Born	(1737-07-24)24 July 1737 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	19 June 1808(1808-06-19) (aged 70)
Occupation	Hydrographer

Alexander Dalrymple by William Daniell, 1802

Alexander Dalrymple FRS (24 July 1737 – 19 June 1808) was a Scottish geographer and the first Hydrographer of the British Admiralty. He was the main proponent of the theory that there existed a vast undiscovered continent in the South Pacific, Terra Australis Incognita. He produced thousands of nautical charts, mapping a remarkable number of seas and oceans for the first time, and contributing significantly to the safety of shipping. His theories prompted a number of expeditions in search of this mythical land, until James Cook's second journey (1772–1775) led to the conclusion that, if it did exist, it was further south than the 65° line of latitude South.

Life

Dalrymple was born at Newhailes, near Edinburgh, the eleventh of fifteen children of Sir James Dalrymple and his wife, Lady Christian Hamilton, the daughter of the Earl of Haddington.

He went to London in 1752 and was appointed a writer in the British East India Company, being first posted to Madras. He arrived in Madras in 1753. He took the opportunity to study the old records of the company, and soon became knowledgeable about previous voyages in the East Indies. This proved its worth in 1758 when Captain William Wilson, who had befriended him on the voyage from London, arrived in Madras in command of the Pitt East-Indiaman. Wilson was intending to continue to Canton, in China, but hed been delayed, and it was too late in the season to sail by the standard route through the South China Sea as the contrary north-east Monsoon would start in October. The normal procedure would have been to wait several months for the return of the south-west monsoon, but Wilson was thinking of a different route, heading south-east to Batavia, now Djakarta, then east and north-east to the nort-west coast of New Guinea, then north-west to Canton, with the monsoon winds on his beam. This route was longer, and parts of it were not well-known to British sailors, but the winds were favourable. Wilson discussed this with Dalrymple, who was able to confirm its practicality on the basis of voyages in the previous century. Wilson took this route, and successfully completed his voyage six months earlier than expected. This was important for the Company, as the route became a standard alternative that opened up China navigation at any time of year.

While in Madras, Dalrymple had become interested in new possibilities of trade in the East Indies. He realised that Wilson's route took him close to the Sulu Sea, where there were numerous islands that were not controlled by rival Dutch or Spanish interests, and that could form a good trading base for the Company. Dalrymple proposed a voyage of discovery to the Sulu Archipelago to George Pigot, the Governor of Madras, and also expressed his wish to lead it in person. Pigot tried to dissuade him from this, as his absence on a long voyge would likely impair his promotion prospects, but Dalrymple was determined, and Pigot agreed. The vessel chosen was the Cuddalore, which sailed to Malacca under the command of George Baker, while Dalrymple travelled as a passenger on the Winchelsea with Thomas Howe, an experienced captain who took the opportunity to teach Dalrymple navigation and seamanship. In Malacca, Dalrymple transferred to Cuddalore, initially under the joint command of Baker and himself. They had to wait for suppies to arrive from Europe, and Dalrymple decided to explore and survey the islands to the north of the Philippines which were on the Wilson route to China. They left Macao on 27 July 1759, returning on 13 October. Baker resigned his command on 24 November, leaving Dalrymple in sole command.

There were then difficulties with the authorities in Macao over the return of some seamen who had deserted earlier, leading to a delay of several months. The Cuddalore then made a brief visit to Touranne and Cape Padarin in Cochin China, now Vietnam. This took him to regions little visited by the British, including the coast of Hainan, and Dalrymple sent his observations directly to William Pitt, Secretary of State, thinking they might be useful in case of hostilities with the Chinese. While relations with China at this stage were difficult, the active hostilities were with France, whose forces had taken much of Sumatra and were blockading the Sunda Strait, the normal route for East-Indiamen sailing from China to England. Dalrymple was asked to assist a convoy of five ships on an alternative route by way of the Sulu Sea, the Makassar Strait, and then through the Sapy (Sape) Strait into the Indian Ocean, after which sailing to England was straightforward. Much of this route was uncharted, and the Cuddalore could act as scout for the larger vessels. Dalrymple readiy agreed, as the route would take them to the Sulu archipelago, the main target of his plans.

Dalrymple's sketch chart of the strait of Sapy, surveyed in 1761

The convoy left on 30 December 1760, and after a stormy trip in which one ship went aground and was abandoned, arrived in Sulu late in January 1761. Here Dalrymple negotiated a provisional trading agreement with the sultan of Sulu. The convoy left Sulu after five days, and travelled through the Makassar Strait to Sumbawa. They then continued south into the Indan Ocean. Dalrymple wrote that they were "the first English ships that ever passed the Strait of Sapy, so far as I know". Dalrymple then undertook a survey of Sumbawa and the Sapy (Sape) Strait. He then returned to Sulu, where the trading agreement was ratified by the datus, the Sulu nobility.

Dalrymple then sailed north to Samboangan in the Philippines, where he met the governor of the Spanish fortress Don Manuel Galves, who he described as "an intelligent man, and the best artist I have known among the Spanish navigators". The governer, an experienced hydrographer, shared much information with Dalrymple, and gave him a letter of introduction to his brother in Manila, where Dalrymple next headed. However he was received there with some suspicion, perhaps because the authorities there were more aware of the possibillity of a war with Britain. The Cuddalore now made passage back to India, surveying the west coast of Palawan and the Anamba and Natuna Islands on the return journey, arriving back in Madras on 28 January 1762.

Dalrymple followed this up with a voyage in the London. Arriving in Sulu in August 1762, he found chaotic conditions due to famine, disease, and the death of the local leader most responsible for the contract. There were also delays in the arrival of trading goods, and a violent incident that led to the death of two crew members. Dalrymple had been considering alternative possibilities for a trading location, and now turned his attention to Balambagan, an Island off the north-east coast of Borneo, which was also within the Sulu sphere of influence. Towards the end of the Seven Years' War British forces had captured [[Manila] from the Spanish in a short seige. Dalrymple went there to investigate trade possibilities, and was able to arrange the release of the elderly Sultan of Sulu, who had been imprisoned by the Spanish. In gratitude the Sultan ceded Balambangan to the Company. Dalrymple remained some while in Manila, and was elected Provisional Deputy Governor by the Manila Council with the resignation of Dawsonne Drake on 29 March 1764. His main task was overseeing the evacuation of Manila, which was being returned to Spain under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. This completed, he left Manila on 10 April for Sulu with Sultan Alimuddin I.

Dalrymple then sailed to China, arriving in Canton November 1764, and then back to London, arriving in July 1765. He found that there had been a change in personnel, and the new administration was much less enthusuastic about his plans for expanding the Company's trade. He continued his work on historical voyages with a view to informing future projects of exploration and discovery. He had obtained some histories taken from the Spanish during the British occupation of Manila in 1762, and was also seeking out relevant material in the London bookshops. An important find was a collection of documents from the Spanish archives whic had once belonged to the French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert. This included an account of the voyage of Luís Vaz de Torres from Espíritu Santo to Manila in 1605-1606 through the strait between New Guinea and Australia, now known as the Torres Strait. Knowledge of this discovery had been lost, and this account was an important part of the material Dalrymple assembled.

Dalrymple's An Account of the Discoveries Made in the South Pacifick Ocean, Previous to 1764. was published in 1769, but printed in 1767 and privately circulated. The work included a description of discoveries in the South Pacific, as its title suggest, and also clarifies some uncertainties in identification of localities in the early accounts. But equally important is his advocacy of the idea of a southern continent. The idea that there needed to be a great land mass south of the equator to balance the known lands to the north has a history dating back to classical antiquity. It was often referred to as Terra Australis, the southern land. Dalrymple sums it up thus:

It has been commony alledged, and perhaps not without good reason, from a consideration of the weight of land to water, that a Continent is wanting on the South of the Equator, to counterpoize the land on the North, and to maintain the equlibrium necessary for the earth's motion.

Dalrymple's chart of the South Pacific showing discoveries made before 1764

The arguments he presents include reported sightings of the continent, areas known from previou exploration to be open water, and observations of wind, on the assumption that in open ocean winds will be constant, while variable winds indicate the preesence of a land mass. Taking these together he suggests that the continental mass would be found in the south Pacific, as southern regions of the Atlantic were much better explored. He included a chart showing his summary of discoveries to support this. He speculated that the continent could have a population of over 50 million, and provide great trading opportunities if claimed for Great Britain. Ideas such as these were influential, and widely disseminated and discussed in popular outlets such as the The Gentleman's Magazine as wll as in specialist journals.

In 1769 a Transit of Venus was due to occur, providing an opportunity to make observations to determine the Astronomical unit, the distance between the earth and the sun. This required observations to made from locations distant from one another, and by 1766 the Royal Society was making plans for an expedition to the south Pacific for this purpose. Dalrymple was already proposing himself as a candidate to lead a new voyage of exploration to the Pacific, writing to Lord Shelburne, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, with the support of Adam Smith, who he had met through his older brother Lord Hailes. Dalrymple attended several meetings of the Royal Society Council, and Dalrymple was chosen as the Society's choice to lead the expedition. Plans were approved by the Crown in 1768, with the Royal Navy to provide a ship and crew. It soon became apparant that the Navy was not willing to accept a non-naval man in command of a Navy ship, and Dalrymple was not willing to go unless he was leader of the expedition. James Cook was then selected as the leader, being both a naval officer with great experience in surveying, and a man with respectable scientific credentials. The expedition left for Tahiti on on 26 August 1768, with HMS Endeavour under Cook's command, Charles Green as astronomer and Joseph Banks as naturalist. Dalrymple gave a copy of his book and chart to Banks to take on the voyage.

While Dalrymple did not succeed in his bid to lead the Pacific expedition, the ideas he proposed in the Account had the desired effect. Cook was given secret orders to be opened after the completion of the astronomical work. These required him to search for the Southern continent. proceeding south and then west until he reached New Zealand. This he did, and found no southern continent. It took a second voyage in which Cook circumnavicated the globe between 60 and 65°S to establish that no such great continent existed. The much smaller southern continent of Antarctica, was discovered in the 19th-century. It is almost entirely south of the antarctic circle, and had no population until recently. It was definitely not what Dalrymple had in mind - he envisaged a continent "equal in extent to all the civilized part of Asia, from Turkey to the eastern extremity of China".

Between 1769 and 1775 Dalrymple's main activity was chart publishing. He started with a chart of the South Atlantic ocean, and then with six charts from his own surveys in the East Indies. A memoir was published with each chart which gave additional information and sailing directions. In 1769 and 1771 he published the two volumes of An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean This collection of descriptions and translations of accounts of Spanish and dutch voyages in effect replaces Part 2 of the Account, which was never published in that form, providing the detailed evidence on which the summaries in Part 1 are based. In 1775 he published A Collection of Plans of Ports, &c. in the East Indies. This was much more ambitious, containing plans of harbours and anchorages from South Africa to the Philippines. There were 83 in all, some newly published, others reprinted.

Dalrymple was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 14 February 1771. His proposers included Bnjamin Franklin, and the nomination described him as "a gentleman well versed in mathematical and geographical knowledge and translator of voyages to the South Seas and other places from Spanish".

In 1779, he headed the hydrographic office of the East India Company, and that of the Admiralty in 1795. He remained Hydrographer of the Royal Navy until his death in 1808.

In London Dalrymple became acquainted with the work of the civil engineer John Smeaton, who during the course of his studies on windmills had devised a descriptive scale for grading wind speed. This scale was included in the paper for which he was awarded the Copley Medal. In Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry, author Scott Huler relates that Dalrymple's voyages had convinced him that a standard scale for measuring the speed of wind at sea would be of great value to sailors, and that he had included Smeaton's scale in his work Practical Navigation, which was written around 1790 but never published. It is believed that Dalrymple conveyed this information to Francis Beaufort, who later refined the wind scale that bears his name and that is still in use today.

In 1782 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In 1820, he was honoured when a Scottish surgeon and botanist William Roxburgh, first published the genus name Dalrympelea to a group of flowering shrubs from Tropical Asia, in Pl. Coromandel Vol.3 on page 76 in 1820.

Sources

• Phillimore, Colonel R.H. (1945). Historical records of the Survey of India. Volume I 18th century. Dehra Dun: Survey of India. pp. 330–331.
• Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol.1 :1788–1850. 1966 Melbourne University Press.
• Dalrymple, Alexander (ca. 1790). Practical Navigation. Printer's proof. National Library of Scotland, shelfmark Nha.M90 (3)
• Friendly, Alfred. Beaufort of the Admiralty. New York. Random House, 1977
• Huler, Scott (2004). Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry. Crown. ISBN 978-1-4000-4884-7
• Howard T. Fry, Alexander Dalrymple (1737–1808) and the Expansion of British Trade, London, Cass for the Royal Commonwealth Society, 1970. ISBN 0-7146-2594-9

External links

• Portrait of Alexander Dalrymple, National Museum of Scotland
• Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean (1770–1771). (Canadiana and Internet Archive make available digitised scans taken from microfiche which were in turn filmed from volumes held at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, in the University of Toronto Library. Other libraries also hold physical copies of the original books.) IA Open Library, WorldCat 5258438
  • Volume I, Being chiefly a literal translation from the Spanish writers: Canadiana, Internet Archive.
  • Volume II, Containing the Dutch voyages. Canadiana, Internet Archive.