The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Messieurs Printers,

Please to insert the following in your Gazette.

THE importance of Navigation and Commerce to this country, is too well known to need a single observation upon the subject. The wise legislature of this state, cannot be ignorant of the great benefit and advantage which would accrue to the community at large, as well as to individuals, by maintaining a light in the Light-House, at the entrance of this harbour. Every trading nation is fully sensible of the necessity of preserving its interest by all ways and means in its power, and there is nothing more essential to this preservation, than having lights kept in such places as shall be necessary for rendering Navigation more safe and convenient. There are not less than twenty lights kept and maintained upon the coasts of Great-Britain and Ireland, for the safety of such vessels as may happen thereupon, in the night, not to mention the very many which are kept to direct the Navigators into particular ports or harbours: some of the former are built and maintained at a very great expense, but this is not thought an object by any means adequate to the innumerable advantages which are derived from them. The other European nations are not inattentive to so important an object. Even the ancients, young as they were in Navigation, were too well acquainted with their interest to neglect Light Houses, as the Pharos and Colossus sufficiently evince. A short account of which may not perhaps be unentertaining or disagreeable: The first we read of was called Pharos, and this was so superb a fabric, as to be reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world: it was built by Ptolemy Philadelphus, on a small island in the Nile's mouth, near Alexandria, in Egypt, and is said to have cost that King 800 talents; it is recorded to have been built square, upon four pillars of glass, resembling crabs, 200 cubits high, on which a fire was nightly burnt, to warn approaching pilots of those dangerous coasts, and by this means direct them to shun the risks they were exposed to: but though this was justly celebrated both for its use and magnificence, it was equalled, if not exceeded in fame, by the renowned Colossus, of Rhodes, which served for the same purpose; this inanimate monster was a brazen statue of Apollo, set up at the entrance of that island's harbour, with its feet resting on the two shores, it was about 42 yards high, and its stride so great that the largest ships sailed into the port between its legs: This gigantick figure was dedicated to the sun, and its prodigious size may be ascertained by the dimensions of its little finger, which it is said, few men were able to embrace: It was the work of Chares, a disciple of the celebrated sculptor Lysippe, who was 12 years in perfecting it, and is reported to have cost £44,000 sterling, though this is supposed to be far short of its value, as when broken to pieces it loaded 900 camels; it remained erect for the space of 1300 years, and was then thrown down by an earthquake, in which prostration it continued for a long time, till the Saracens became masters of the isle, and sold it to a Jew, who quickly destroyed the master-piece of art, to accommodate his removing it by means of the aformentioned animals.

If an attention to property does not awaken us to a sense of our duty, the distresses of the sailor, and the calls of humanity should certainly be attended to. Every vessel would cheerfully pay any reasonable duty which is demanded to maintain a light, but if we neglect those things, small as they may appear, our sister states will contemn us, the world will deride us, and we shall become insignificant to ourselves.

NAUTICUS.