1.

OR,

A SPIRITUAL VIEW

OF THE

OCEAN AND MARITIME AFFAIRS:

WITH

REFLECTIONS

ON

The Battle of Trafalgar,

AND OTHER EVENTS.

BODLETANA

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.