Part 1

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THE WRECK OF THE "ROYAL CHARTER."

Compiled from Authentic Sources, with Some Original Matter.

by

FRANK FOWLER,

Late of Her Majesty's Civil Service, New South Wales. Author of "Southern Lights and Shadows," "Dottings of a Lounger," etc.

London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 47 Ludgate Hill. 1859.

London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.

CONTENTS.

PAGE NOTE INTRODUCTORY 3

THE WRECK OF THE "ROYAL CHARTER" 5

THE PRESS ON THE CATASTROPHE 43

ADDENDA 58

LIST OF STEERAGE PASSENGERS 58

DR. SCORESBY ON THE 'ROYAL CHARTER' 59

THE REV. CHARLES VERE HODGE 64

THE ADJOURNED INQUEST 65

THE VERDICT 78

LATEST DETAILS FROM MOLFRA 78

POSTSCRIPT 80

NOTE INTRODUCTORY.

THIS little book is prepared under the conditions of saving the Mail which leaves England on the 12th, and of being a complete narrative of the Wreck. The one condition is adverse to the other; but I have endeavoured to meet them both.

F. _London, November the Eighth, 1859._

"Forth from the polar caverns of the snows, Dripping with winter, leapt a northern storm, And shook himself, and she lay buried white.... Oh! and we were homeward bound!"

_Balder._

THE WRECK OF THE "ROYAL CHARTER."

THE prints of Tuesday, the 25th of October, contained this brief telegram:--

'QUEENSTOWN.--The "Royal Charter," from Melbourne, fifty-eight days out, is off this port. She expects to be at Liverpool tomorrow night.'

In the _Times_ of Thursday, the 27th, appeared the following:--

'A telegraphic despatch has reached us as we are going to press, announcing the loss, on her way from Queenstown to Liverpool, of the "Royal Charter," with over four hundred passengers on board, of which number only about twenty are saved.'

The last news was so overwhelming--so unexpected and improbable after the early telegram--that at first it was received with some amount of incredulity. No other paper of that morning but the _Times_ contained the intelligence; and from behind this fact there came a gleam of hope. At about eleven o'clock, however, the journals issued as usual their second editions, and then it was the statement in the _Times_ was confirmed, and that the mournfullest piece of news in connection with marine disaster which ever reached this country was generally accepted. The 'Royal Charter' was lost! Men passed the news from one to another in whispers, shook their heads, and moved on to the newspaper and telegraph offices for later items bearing upon the calamity. The announcement in the first edition of the _Times_ was sad enough. Such details, however, as that journal was enabled to give in its second edition far more than confirmed the early telegram. Instead of only four hundred persons being on board, it appeared there were close upon five hundred, while the proportion of saved was not in the slightest increased. Some of the circumstances grouped around the wreck, too, were now supplied us. The vessel had, after a terrible battle with the storm, in which masts were cut down and much noble life was spent, struck upon the rocky coast of Wales, parted amidships, and gone down not twenty yards from shore, and scarcely four hours' sail from Liverpool.

I was in Sydney when the 'Dunbar' was lost. I remember, with painful distinctness, the gloom cast upon the colony by that catastrophe. The same cold sense of horror seemed on Thursday last to take possession of the metropolis. At Lloyd's, at the Jerusalem, at the Baltic, men moved silently about with white faces and knitted brows. As each new telegram arrived and was posted in the rooms, groups would crowd anxiously around it, and amongst them--thrust forward with a most touching anxiousness--the face of many an old colonist could be seen. There was an element of uncertainty in the disaster which added to its painful and prostrating effect upon the public mind. The ship had brought eleven days' later news; there was no list of its passengers to be had in England; and who could tell but that his friends or kinsmen were on board? We all knew here the splendid qualities of the vessel: we all knew how high her colours stood in the colony. _I_ knew I had travelled the six hundred miles of dangerous sea between Sydney and Melbourne to make my journey home in her. Who then that had a relative or connection in the colony could--or _can_ to this hour--help the bleak conviction that in this vessel, which the cruel rocks have battered, and the remorseless waves have beaten to fragments, he or she was making a visit to the mother country? There were many of course that Thursday morning at Lloyd's, and the colonial coffee-houses, who by the last mail had received letters from friends intimating their intention of coming home by the 'Charter.' To them the intelligence of the wreck had terrible interest. Hour after hour they hung about the City, and when, just before closing, a 'List of the Saved' was received at Lloyd's, it was with difficulty the clerk was enabled to keep them from tearing the document from his hands and post it upon the walls. One gentleman, white-headed and bent with age, who, I subsequently found, had a son on board, swooned the moment he saw the list. _His boy was saved._

I endeavour to be brief in these introductory remarks; but somehow the atmosphere of dejection which has rested upon us all since the evil tidings first met us, reproduces itself as I write, and I find myself calling up with mournful minuteness the earlier passages in the History I have been requested to prepare. To that task let me now compel myself.

While the news of the wreck was still being bandied from mouth to mouth, I, who knew the ill-fated craft, and thought, without taking upon myself to suggest a reason for the disaster, I could yet set down many things which might enable others to do so, wrote the following article for one of the newspapers:--

'The finest ship that ever left the port of Liverpool has gone down with five hundred lives on board. I knew the ship--unhappily I knew some of those who have perished. I purpose to tell my impressions of the vessel, of the captain--everything I know that is likely to be read with interest by the dread light of the calamity.

'Nearly this time two years I left Melbourne for Liverpool in the vessel. She had--and, in most particulars, deserved it--the reputation of being the finest ship that ever came to Hobson's Bay. The "Great Britain," belonging to the same line, was of larger burden, and of much higher steam capacity; but among her splendid performances there was no record of a passage from England to Australia in fifty-nine days. This extraordinary run the "Royal Charter" had made, and a reputation had in consequence attached to her which always filled her cabins with home-bound colonists within ten days or a fortnight of her arrival at Melbourne. As I am writing this I am in utter ignorance of the details connected with the loss of the vessel; and it would be a mere impertinence were I to suggest a cause for the catastrophe. This I must say, however--I feel bound to say it, for the sake of all those who go down to the sea in ships--that if the "Royal Charter" had not made such rapid passages, lives lost on board _before_ this final casualty would certainly not have been sacrificed. Let me, before proceeding further, explain what I mean. It is a practice with more than one large shipping firm, like that to which the "Charter" belonged, to give very heavy rewards to those captains who are enabled to make "the voyage"--that is, the passage out and home--within a specially limited time; let us say five months. Captain Taylor, of the "Royal Charter," told me himself that his owners had promised him five hundred pounds whenever he made the journey from Liverpool to Melbourne and back in one hundred and fifty days. The consequence of this arrangement was, that _speed_ rather than _safety_ became the characteristic of Captain Taylor's command. It would be cruel to make this statement if I were not prepared to prove it; but when I add that the "Charter" never made a voyage without an accident of some kind or other occurring--that when I came from Melbourne in her, her gear was so defective that a yard-arm fell, killing one man and wounding others, the very day we left Hobson's Bay, and that throughout the passage her rudder was so faulty that we had to slacken sail whenever the ship attained a speed of twelve knots,--the veracity (or taste) of my assertion cannot be questioned. Everything was sacrificed to speed: a quick passage seemed to be the sole aim of the captain--_was_, in fact, the sole aim, as, to conclude these prefatory remarks, one little circumstance will show. When I came home in the ship, she happened, from a stress of foul winds, to make an extraordinarily long run. Well, a month before we arrived in port, we were placed on short allowance of food. Rapidity was so relied on that only sixty or seventy days' provisions (instead of, as the Shipping Act provides, one hundred and twenty) had been put on board when we left Melbourne!

'But, with all, she was a noble vessel; and the captain was a noble sailor. If he was a little reckless, the "Liverpool System" is rather to blame than he. He had risen, I believe, from before the mast, and was a man of a certain rough amiability, of seafaring energy, and dogged determination. A slight anecdote fits in here as an illustration. Once he was commanding a ship which had sprung a leak, and a number of the sailors, for some reason or other, refused to work. Captain Taylor ordered all the refractory men in irons, and then, fitting up a windmill, pumped out the vessel without any manual assistance whatever.

'The "Royal Charter" was a magnificent specimen of shipbuilding. She was some thirty feet longer than the "Great Britain;" could, without her "auxiliary screw," sail eighteen knots an hour; and was, in matters of internal appointment, more like a West-end hotel than a ship which had to brave the seas and storms of Cape Horn. Her principal saloon was one hundred feet long, was fitted up with stained glass, rich hangings, velvet couches, candelabra, bookcases, piano, and all the other elegancies which have of late been made so much of in the reporters' descriptions of the "Great Eastern." There were about forty cabins at the sides of the saloons, beside some twenty or thirty first-class berths on the deck immediately under. The "intermediate" and "steerage" accommodation was very large--capable, I should say, of receiving from four hundred and fifty to five hundred passengers--while in the forecastle and "cock-pit" there were, when I came from Australia, about one hundred men, consisting of officers, pursers, midshipmen, crew, etc., etc. Along the main-deck there was a row of shops--a wine-store, a grocery-store, a meat-store, and a bakery, together with two or three kitchens. (I may add here that the ship carried a score of stewards and cooks.) In the centre of the vessel a large space was devoted to the engine and engineers' apartments, and just on one side were the cow and sheep pens. Altogether a noble craft--_so_ noble that I never looked at it without thinking, "Great God! will this vessel ever be swallowed by the waters!"

'Why was this Thought always uppermost as I walked about the ship? I can scarcely tell. I used to think it arose from the gloomy influence of the accident which occurred as we left Hobson's Bay; but then for weeks after I arrived in England I seldom went to sleep without dreaming I was perishing in a wreck, and that that wreck was the "Royal Charter." There are those who will be inclined to smile at this portion of my communication; but as I hope never to meet with such a fate as that which has befallen those poor souls whose bodies now lie rotting on the coast of Wales, I solemnly declare that, from the hour I placed my foot on board the vessel until the moment when the news reached me that she had gone to pieces, I had a presentiment some dire calamity would overtake her. Some of those who were on board with me will, doubtless, recognize the hand that pens this memoir. Henceforward, the most stolidly sceptical of these must admit that _feeling_ is sometimes higher than _reason_, and that there are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our material philosophy. I should not waste space to chronicle these presentiments--which the majority of readers will, I am aware, regard, and perhaps naturally so, as idle--had they not arisen with me in a manner so utterly unaccountable, and been fulfilled in a manner so utterly disastrous.

'And at this point, as bearing somewhat upon these forebodings, I may as well state that, from first to last--from her birth to her death, as it were--the "Royal Charter" was, except in the all but uniform swiftness of her voyages, an unfortunate vessel. _Imprimis_, she was originally built as a sister boat to the unfortunate "John Tayleur." It will be in the recollection of the reader that, some years ago, this "John Tayleur" was wrecked not very far distant from the spot where the "Charter" went ashore, and with about as many passengers as the "Charter" had on board. There was a great deal written and said at the time about the negligence of the captain, but on inquiry he urged that the wreck had been occasioned through a deviation--the ship was of iron--in the compasses. This explanation was accepted; but it had so much weight with the owners of the "Tayleur" that they at once sold the iron hull of the sister ship they were engaged in building, determining never to have anything more to do with other than wooden vessels. This hull was bought by Messrs. Gibb and Brights, and, as it was originally intended merely for a second-class ship of a thousand or eleven hundred tons, it was, I was told, _lengthened amidships_ by the new owners until it was thirty feet longer than the "Great Britain," or nearly one-half the length of the "Great Eastern." It is unnecessary to add that while this extension of the craft from stem to stern was going on, her beam could never be increased. She was, in fact, more like a long iron arrow than a ship. Her extreme length, coupled with her extraordinary narrowness, rendered her a splendid sailer; but it is a grave question with me whether her peculiarity of build may not have had something to do with the accident. In a heavy sea she rolled tremendously, and _would only "wear" on one tack_. But to continue my record of her calamitous career, the very first time the sister ship of the unfortunate "Tayleur" went to sea (and, let us note, a year had been spent in trying to launch her) she had to put in at Plymouth owing to bad weather, and--I think--some slight injury to her machinery. On arriving at Melbourne, an accident happened on board, and several men were killed. On returning to Liverpool, she ran foul of a vessel just leaving that port, took away her anchor in her bows (fortunately above water-mark), and carried it with her into dock. On the next passage out to Melbourne, the unfortunate ship, soon after crossing the line, was found to be on fire, and it was with great difficulty the conflagration was extinguished. It was on the same run, too, that her rudder was first discovered to be faulty in its working--that is, it shook the vessel to such an extent that sleepers were sometimes thrown from their bunks at night. On her return to England, the yard-arm fell, and--as I have already mentioned--one man was killed, and several were injured. On this passage it was that the ship found itself short of food; moreover, the coal had run out long before we had reached the tropics. In consequence of the last fact, the journey home occupied ninety-seven days; and I was subsequently told great was the anxiety throughout the country for the safety of the vessel. And, apart from the long passage, there was special cause, although unsuspected on shore, for this anxiety. For three days before we made Cork, we had been unable to get a sight of the sun, and, consequently, no observations had been taken. On the eve of the last day a stiffish gale was blowing, and a thick fog floated on the water. At about midnight the gale increased, and the captain, not knowing exactly where we were, ordered the ship to be laid to. Next morning we found we were about twelve miles from the coast. Another hour's run overnight, and we should all have been landed in eternity.

'My narrative is now brought down to about eighteen months ago. I know little of the "Royal Charter" since then. She made, it seems, her last run out to Australia in fifty-nine days, and in a Melbourne paper I received by the last mail, I saw it stated that "an able band of musicians had been engaged to proceed with the vessel home!" Ah! jollity enough was there on board, I doubt not, as the barque neared port! Fifty-eight days from Melbourne to Cork! Splendid winds must she have had all the way home; high must have been the spirits of captain, crew, and passengers! Where is the merry company now? It is a sad, sad story. Women must wring their hands, and strong men must weep, as they read that after a haven had been actually reached--after some of the passengers had even landed in Ireland, and set the telegraph in motion to tell their friends in distant places that they were safe on British soil--the ship should have been dashed to pieces by the merciless sea-spume, and that of the five hundred souls on board, four hundred and seventy should have perished!

'I could write more. I knew so many of the brave officers and crew who have perished. I knew the bluff, honest, daring captain. But of what avail is it to speak of them now? They have all gone. May they rest in peace until that day when even the sea shall render up its dead!'

That was written on Thursday afternoon. The evening papers of that day contained nothing very new. On the Friday morning, however, there was sufficient in the daily journals to show me that I had--without presuming to expressly state--rightly indicated the cause of the ship's destruction. _Not a life need have been lost if the "Charter" had not broken her back._ What a strange light that sentence sheds upon what I have written concerning the build of the ship--of her scant beam and startling length.... Of the setting aside, in fact, of the normal conditions of the Thing!

How the vessel came upon the coast is a question running parallel with the foregoing, and the character of the captain, as set forth in that newspaper communication of mine, comes in here with answer. That answer, we all desire, should carry due amount of weight with other commanders of ships with precious freight of human souls on board. There are a few iron plates, rolled up like shrivelled parchment, on the rocks of Molfre Bay. They are all that is left to us of the wreck of the "Royal Charter," auxiliary screw, thousands of tons burthen, fire-proof bullion-room, patent reefing topsails, and the rest. What precious warning in those crumpled iron plates! Will sea-captains read of them and still go steaming up channel on nights piteously dark with fog and mist? Unhappily, experience says they will.

If shrivelled iron plates fail, as perhaps they may, to carry caution, then let our sea-captains read deeply of the narratives of the saved, which I must now, assuming my proper duty as compiler, proceed to set forth. And at the onset, the bitterest narrative lies in the fact that of near five hundred souls--passengers and crew--on board the vessel, the following mournfully scant catalogue contains the name of every survivor[A]:--

_Saloon Passengers._

W. H. Morse. F. Grundy. H. C. Taylor.

_Saloon Passengers landed at Queenstown._

Mr. Gardner. Mr. M'Evoy. Mrs. Nahmur and child.

_Third-Class Passengers (including those landed at Queenstown)._

C. M'Phiel. John Judge. W. J. Ferris. James M'Clappon. W. Russell. J. Bradbury. Samuel Granfell. Carl Bertal. N. Hegan. John Loome. S. E. Gapper. W. Bowden.

_Crew._

William Foster. John O'Brien. Thomas Griffiths. William M'Arthur. George Irisher. George Suaicar. E. Wilson. Thomas Tims. Henry Evans. John Richards. James Rogers. David Stroman. William Hughes. Thomas Ellis. George M'Givrin. Owen Williams. William Draper. Thomas Cormick. John Stannard.

[A] A list of the riggers who were saved will be found at p. 32.

We are anxiously awaiting the next mail, in order to learn the names of those who are lost. At present the lists that have been published are limited, contradictory, and hypothetical. Each survivor has supplied the newspaper reporters with the names of just as many of his lost fellow-passengers as he could remember. You in the colony, however, will be able, with your files of papers, to complete this section of the story of the Lost Ship.[B]

[B] The following is from the _Times_ of November 1st. It is only a sample of a class of advertisements that are daily appearing in the papers:--

TO the SURVIVING PASSENGERS of the ROYAL CHARTER.--Could any one inform the under-mentioned whether among the saloon passengers of that ill-fated vessel there was one named HENRY LAFARGUE, age 26? They would greatly relieve the anxious minds of that gentleman's relatives. There appeared in the Times of Thursday, in the list of the lost, the name of La Fargur; in Friday's, M. La Forgue; and in Saturday's, La Fargol, which might all have been intended for Lafargue. Address, Miss Lafargue, No. 2 Clarges-street, Piccadilly, W.

The narrative which is at once the completest and most touching is that of Mr. Russell, which takes the following historical form:--