No: it was impossible. In the Downs we passed several
Indiamen, and 150 sail there that could not move down the
channel: and at the back of Dungeness we passed 120 more.
Question. At the time you performed that voyage, with the weather
you have described, from the Downs to Milford, if that weather
had continued twelve months, would any square-rigged vessel have
performed it?
Answer. They would have been a long time about it: probably,
would have been weeks instead of days. A sailing vessel would not
have beat up to Milford, as we did, in twelve months.
61. The process of printing on the silver paper, which is
necessary for bank-notes, is attended with some inconvenience,
from the necessity of damping the paper previously to taking the
impression. It was difficult to do this uniformly and in the old
process of dipping a parcel of several sheets together into a
vessel of water, the outside sheets becoming much more wet than
the others, were very apt to be torn. A method has been adopted
at the Bank of Ireland which obviates this inconvenience. The
whole quantity of paper to be damped is placed in a close vessel
from which the air is exhausted; water is then admitted, and
every leaf is completely wetted; the paper is then removed to a
press, and all the superfluous moisture is squeezed out.
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