#MB41
1834
Folio (ca. 32,5x20 cm). 1 p. (bifolium, with a second blank leaf). Official printed form of the Admiralty (on the Smith & Son laid paper watermarked "1831"), completed in brown ink in secretarial hand and signed by Barrow at the bottom. With a manuscript note “Duplicate” and date 13 May/35 in the left upper corner. Mild fold marks, otherwise a very good document.
This official letter signed by John Barrow as the second Secretary of the Admiralty was addressed to Sir Graham Eden Hamond, 2nd Baronet GCB (1779-1862), a British Royal Navy officer (Admiral of the Fleet in 1862) who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. At the time he was the commander of the Royal Navy’s South American Station (16 September 1834 - 17 May 1838). The letter accompanied the copies of “their Lordship’s Circular Order of the 21 October last forbidding the use of Coal Tar upon Gun and Carronade Carriages as a substitute for Paint".
John Barrow was a renowned English statesman, traveller and great promoter of Arctic exploration; a member of the Royal Society (1805), a founding member and a president (1835-1837) of the Royal Geographical Society. He accompanied Lord Macartney’s embassy to China (1792-4), and served during the latter’s governorship in South Africa (1797-9) "collecting much of the commercial and strategic intelligence about the eastern seas and southern Africa" (Oxford DNB). He was the second Secretary of the Admiralty in 1804-1845 (except for the period between 10 February 1806 and 7 April 1807).
According to the chapter “Fitting and General Service” of the “Admiralty Instructions for the Government of Her Majesty’s Naval Service” (1844), “A coating of coal tar is never to be applied to guns of carronage carriages while on board Her Majesty’s Ships instead of paint, such substance being detrimental to the carriages.”
