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Captain de Starck, the gallant and worthy officer whose services, &c. have been recorded at p. 178, et seq. of Supplement Part I., is the inventor of an “Applicative Compass for taking Bearings on a Chart,” of which the following mention is made in “Nicholson’s Philosophical Journal,” vol. xii. p. 224:



 a branch of one of the oldest and most respectable families in England. His ancestor came over with William the Conqueror; and the Clavells have enjoyed property in Dorsetshire ever since that era.

This officer was a midshipman of Lord Hood’s flag-ship, at the occupation of Toulon, in Aug. 1793; and he served in the land-batteries, during the siege of that place by the French republican forces. After the retreat from thence he was lent to l’Eclair sloop; in the jolly-boat of which vessel, with only six men under his command, he captured two of the enemy’s transports, each carrying twelve men, and both deeply laden with gunpowder for the garrison of Bastia, then closely blockaded. During the subsequent operations in