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 27th July 1759, returning on 13th October. Baker resigned his command on 24th 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 Jannuary 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 Spnish 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.

In 1765 he returned to London where was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. There he became acquainted with 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.

Whilst translating some Spanish documents captured in the British occupation of Manila in 1762, Dalrymple had found Luis Váez de Torres' testimony proving a passage south of New Guinea now known as Torres Strait. This discovery led Dalrymple to publish the Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean in 1770–1771, which aroused widespread interest in his claim of the existence of an unknown continent. Meanwhile, James Cook had been appointed in his place to lead an expedition to the South Pacific which in 1770 discovered the east coast of Australia.

In 1772 Dalrymple published his first set of charts, four of which were of the seas around Sulu. 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 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.