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190 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. ;

ceased from his labours, when a younger generation of officers
of the l)Onibay Marine took up the arduous task, and completed
a more accurate and detailed survey.
The next important survey undertaken by Lieutenant McCluer
was that of the Western coast of India. In 178(i, says
Dalrymple, in his valuable Memoirs, the East India Company
ordered the Bomba}' Government to survey the bank of soundings
off Bombay and the entrance to the Gulf of Cambay. There
is one paragraph in their instructions which is worth copying
—
it is as follows: "Let what is done be done completely, and
nothing left undetermined in this space ; if any doubt arises, let
them repeat their observations in such part, that an implicit con-
fidence may be placed in their work when finished.*' Lieutenant
McCluer had only one assistant (Lieutenant John Proctor) when
he began this survey on the 12th of October, 1787, and his
vessel, called the 'Experiment,' was too small for sounding in
deep water, so that they did not carry the soundings out very
far. Ragogee Angria then held possession of Kenery Island
and Colaba, Henery Island belonging to thePeishwa. Ragogee
had several ships, and, even as late as 1787, plundered every
vessel he could lay hands on except those of the English.
Besides the ' Experiment,' McCluer had a small pattamar. He
says he left the ' Experiment ' at Bancoot and went in the patta-
mar to Zyghur, but the natives would not let him sound and
ordered him off. On one occasion he met off Bombay some of the
pirates of Severndroog, who, on the same cruise, captured boats
and passed Bancoot in triunjph whilst he was there. The next
day they sent their respects to the British Resident at Bancoot,
acquainting him with what had been done, and told him that
there were no English letters on board, but that had they found
any they would have been happy to have forwarded them. Such
was the state of affairs on the western coast of India so late
as the last decade of the eighteenth century.
Lieutenant McCluer, assisted by Lieutenant Proctor, and, at
a later date, by Lieutenants Ringrove, Skinner, and Wedge-
borough, of the Marine, was employed, for some years, on
a systematic survey of the West coast of India. He com-
menced at Bombay, from which point, as a central position,
he extended his operations to the southward as far as
Cape Comorin, and to the northward, including the Gulf of
Cambay, occupying an extent of a thousand miles. The coast
was well examined by soundings, and the principal points were
determined chronouietrically east and west from Bombay. The
whole is contained in three sheets. The northern sheet includes
the Gulf of Cambay and the coast of India as far south as the
parallel of 19° North latitude; the middle sheet extends from
thence to Carwar Head ; and the southern sheet includes the
remaining part of the coast as far as Cape Comorin. The