The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-08-28 00:00:00

THE LOSS OF THE "AMERICAN."

Lloyd's agents at St. Vincent, Cape Verd, tele-
graphing under date of August 21, states that the
missing boat, with seven men and five bags of mails,
of the Union Comrany's Royal Mail steamer
American, which foundered April 23 last, was picked
up by the Portuguese brig Tartijo, and landed at
Loanda on the 21st of July.

The 'Union Company's steamer American foundered
near the Equator as far back as the 23rd of last
April, after breaking her screw. Three of her
boats were picked up by the steamer Congo, and
the 54 persons on board were landed at Madeira on
May 8. Three more of her boats were picked up on the
24th and 25th of April by the American barque Emma
F. lierriman. The passengers were transferred to
the steamer Coanza, and then to the Senegal, and in
the last-named vessel were again Wrecked, being finally
taken on board the Teuton and conveyed to Madeira.
Another boat was picked up by the German schooner
.Afoltke, and those on board were landed at Quitta,
whence they were taken to Madeira in the steamer
Cameroon& The remaining boat was the dingy, on
board of which it was stated were the quartermaster
and four seamen, and this, as announced above,
reached Loanda, on the West Coast of Africa, on July
21.

In noticing the above intelligence, the Daily News re-
marks :

"The news of the safety of the passengers and
mails in the last missing boat of the American, com-
pletes a story which is worthy of a place in the
romance of shipwreck. The steamer was making the
most pleasant of all colonial trips, that from
Southampton to the Cape, when near the Equator,
and one hundred and eighty miles from land, the
shaft of the screw broke, and the vessel foundered.
There were eight boats, which were rigged,provisioned,
and manned with the greatest coolness. This was
on the 23rd of April, and on the 25t1 three of the
boats were already in sight of land when the Glasgow
steamer Congo picked them up, and an American
barque saved three more. The passengers in these
last three boats subsequently pursued their journey
in another steamer, and were again wrecked. One of
them, Mr. Paterson, an esteemed public man at
the Cape, in being saved a second time, was
thrown into the water and cut in pieces by the
steamer's screw. A gunboat was then sent in
search of the two missing boats, but mean-
while one had been picked up by a German
schooner and those on board taken to Quetta and
thence to Madeira. One boat, and that the smallest,
which sailors call the dingey, with seven of the crew,
was still missing, and had probably been given up
for lest. But now, four months after the wreck,
news is brought that the dingey and its crew are
safe in the Portuguese settlement of Loanda. They
have been picked up by a Portuguese brig, and were
landed on the African coast on the 21st of July.
How the three months between the wreck and this
late landing were filled up we shall learn in due
time. They have crossed the Gulf of Guinea, and
have probably gone great part of the distance in their
small open boat, for even a Portuguese sailing vessel
could scarcely be three months on the way. The
whole story of these eight boats deserves to be re-
membered when the complaint arises that boats are
always useless when they are wanted. The sailors of
the American were regularly drilled in the launching
and equipment of the boats; and when the pressure
came everything was ready. The result is that, so
far as this accident to the American is concerned not
a life was lost."