The Express.
London, England, 1862-08-28 00:00:00

"To W. Abbott, Pap." (Sigma) "W. V ALvIRT.

lostructioas were therein= seat to Mr. Caveat to obtain
certain documents in support of a claim for s total lass
against the underwriters. The answer received was this :

" Dardasellea, Sept. 23, 1861.
" Yours of the 12th inst. reached me is due °puree of
poet. 1 received at the same time the swiped letter hem

Major, of which you sent me • press copy. I reply to him
to-day that I will, when an opportunity offers, communi-
cate to the shipper of the oil all that is requisite for him to
do in order to recover the insurance, should the Poeaidbon
have been lost in the manner I have surmised. On the
other hand, you are no doubt aware that it is my duty. as
acting on behalf of Lloyd's, to obtain whatever information
I call collect on the subject, but rather with • view of
protecting the underwriters than gadding others to recover
money from them. I have on several occasion acted
very efficaciously on their behalf in this wafioraddmad
only very lately, at the instance of Messrs.
and Dixey, insurance brokers, of Cannon-street, I
was the means of saving several thousands of pounds
to the underwriters of a French steamer, called the
St. Folio, by means of the information I collected, and re-
ceived 1444 for my trouble, or 2 per cent. on the, sum origi-
nally insured. in the same way, if Major, is reply to my
letter, authorises me to incur expense in collecting informa-
tion' I will set to work in good earnest, and will leave it to
the underwriters to tit the amount of my personal remune-
ration according as I may eventually prove to have been of
more or lees scrvice to them. Turks are sometimes very
curious fellows to deal with ; bat in all my dealings with
there—and they have been, as you knew, to • considerable
extent—l have always found that if they ono. trust • payee
thergenerallyplaceso alinoetwaboundeddegree of *madame
in hka. I fancy it is the same uses with Human Age, who
will oo doubt, before long, give a good account of himself.
What a great pity it will be if the oil be, after all, Ice! in
such an unsatisfactory way, when the rameets for its sale
are ermay timmuablid
now maims me hope
fore opening i
_t a is to La.

noneos the noexpeeieil arrival el the Poseldhon in England,
boat I ere losing hope *very day. I have sent Major ari
extract of my report for Lloyd's, mat to Mr. Black on Vect
Aprithist. (Signed) " W. CALTErr.
" To W. Abbott, Fag."
The followieg is n letter of Mr. Caved, maticirod la the
last :

"Dardanelles, Sept. 25, 1851.
"I will not fail, u soon as I have an opportunity, to in-
form the shipper of the oil perWassidlion of the proof which it
will be necessary for bins to furnish, in order to substantiate
his claim on the underwriters, should it unfortunately turn
out that my surmise respecting this vessel may prone to be
but too true.

"I shall endeavour, also, on my
of part, to collect any in-
formation cm the subject which may be interest to your
underwriters; but, previous to incurring any expense, it
would be desirable that I should have your authority to do
so, if requisite, for account of your friends, whose interests,
I seed not say, will be well looked after.
• •• • • •

"On referring to my reports for Lld's I find that on
the 23rd April last I wrote, (through Mr. Black, as fol-
lows I—' An Ottoman bombard, which arrived on the coast
of Troy last week, reports having met with a vessel on fire,
about 40 miles south of Lemnos, on the night of Monday,
the Bth Mat., but it was blowing a heavy gale at the time
from the north, so that no boat could live in the sea, and it
is to be feared that all bands must have perished, as the
ship was completely destroyed.'
" To Major, req." (Signed) " W. CALVIIIT.

" Darasasilea, Oct. 10. 1861.

" I me still without any news to 'give you of the Pos-
sidhon. I can learn nothing of her from Lemnos ; but ano-
ther circumstance has lately tended to make me believe
still more in the possibility of the burning vessel haying
been identical with her, and this is that a band of pirates
have been infesting the Archipelago for some months
past, and have been cruising between Bipedal*, Te-
Dodos, Lemnos, Imbrue, Seniothrace, dm. I see
by the papers that a Turkish government steamer is
cruising after them, but has not yet succeeded in catching
them. They are commanded by an lonian. Now, it is very
passible that they may hove bonded the Posaidhou in the
comparatively light winds and calms which existed about the
time when she sailed, and. after plundering her of what they
could carry away, set fire to her to destroy all traces of their
misdeeds. Some of her crew may even have joined the band,
so that if they are caught I shall be on the look-out, and en-
deavour to be present at their examination. But this is,
after all, only a presumption on my part. If the under-
writer authorise me to go to soy expense to obtain informs-
tioe, I dare may I shall be able to arrive at some positive in-
formation on the subject; but, as it is very probable that
such information might be solely beneficial to Hussein Aga,
one can scarcely expect them to incur additional expense.
You might, thereto:l4 I think, guarantee to them a return
of suchiexpemse., should the result be to establish Hussein
Ames claim. About 201. or 30/. would, I think, cover actual
disbursements. (Sigoed)s " W. Crasser.
" To W. Abbott, Fag."
- -

" Dardanelles, Ott. 23, 1861.

"Yours of the 10th and Major's of the ith Mat. both
came to band only today, the French packet having been
kept five days behind her time by the &gaseliers bed wea-
ther. We have, in fact, constantly had • succession of
severe gales from the N.E. for the last 10 days, which is
very trying weather for those who, like myself, are so much
out of doors. You will ass, by enclosed copy of my reply
to Major's last letter, that I have satisfactorily explained
the motive which led me to ask him to guarantors any ex-
perces which might be incurred in getting the information
required in order to enable you to recover the insurance
lon Possidhon's cargo. I never suspected the possibility of
' any foul practice on the part of any one concerned in this
I unfortunate affair, until the tenor of your letters led me
to think about the matter, and then only it was the
possibility of the crew having acted in complicity with pirates,
and having destroyed the vessel after plundering her.
But even if such a contingency may have occurred,
although I would, as in duty bound, use my utmost
I endeavours to cause the offenders to be punished with the
utmost rigour of the law, and also to recover any of the
I stole') property I could lay hands on for the benefit of the
underwriters, this fact would by no means invalidate your
claim for insurance, so you seal not be under any apprehen-
sion on that some, although I shall certainly do all I possibly
can, by means of the expenditure you have sanctioned, to
arrive at the real facts connected with the loss of the Par
sidhoo. To the beet of my knowledge the bull of the vessel
was not insured at all, for the captain wanted to have her
register& and classed in England for that purpose, but did
not like the idea, with the hard times for shipping which
then ruled, to incur the heavy expense of in-
suring her for the voyage, whilst, as be remarked,
he would be on board to take can of her. This fact is
sufficient to preclude the idea of anything wrong on his
part, but will render it impossible to comply with one of
Idajor's requisitions. It will be very difficult, also, to get
a declaration from the captain of the vessel who met the
burning ship. None was made here, as it would only have
entailed unprofitable expenses on the captain to do so, and
might possibly have given him much trouble with the
quarantine people here, who are always but too reedy to find
pretexts to put vessels into quarantine. It was principally
on this account that I thought some expenses would have to
be incurred to find the whereabouts of the said captaioand get
his declaration. It would. moreover, have been s most difficult
matter to accomplish, and have entailed much loss of time, so
I em glad to have fallen on a eine which will enable me to ob-
tale this information from another quarter. I therefore trait
before long to be able to collect sufficient evidence on the sub-
ject of the unfortunate Possidhon to satisfy all parties con-
cerned. I need not say that I never had the slightest sue-
niche) of anything wrong on the part of Hussein Aga, who
could have had no possible motive for behaving otherwise
than uprightly and honestly. The fact, moreover, that be
strongly remonstrated with me at having bad to pay a
heavy insurance premium, which, like most Turks, he
thought a perfectly superfluous item of expenditure, is also
another voucher for his perfect good faith. lam glad to
find that, in one respect, the consignment of the Possidhon's
cargo has been of service to you, for I began to fear that all
the annoyance and trouble it seemed to bs giving might have
made you regret that you had ever acted upon my recom-
mendation, though it was given entirely with a view to
benefit yourself. (Signed) " W. CALVERT.
"To W. Abbott, Esq."

"Dardanelles, Nov. 21, 1861.

" I have sent you to-day, in • separate letter, official
size, four documents relating to the Possidhon, together
with my comments thereon, to which I refer you. I may
here add, for your private information, that it appears that
several vessels fell in with part of the wreck of the burnt
vessel ; but although I may be able to find the captains by
dint of perseverance, I must doubt whether any of them
would voluntarily make any statement on the subject, for
no doubt but that most, if not all of them, will have picked
up whatever they could lay hold of, and will not willingly
say anything which might possibly give rise to claims being
preferred against them, or at any rate. get them into a
scrape with the quarantine people for having, no matter
how long ago, had communication with the re-
mains of a vessel which was not positively ascer-
tained to have had a clean bill of health. If this had
been known at We time, each vessel that had had any-
thing to do with the wreck would undoubtedly have been
subjected to 10 days' quarantine—a moat ridiculous regu-
lation certainly, but which is nevertheless enforced here
with the utmost rigour. This will serve to ninke you under-
stand why so little has been beard of the burnt ship, until
I have_ gradually ferretted out such information as I have
been able to get. I have every reason to believe that the
Possidhon's longboat bas been found on the Island of
Lemnos, bat communications with that island are so few
and so uncertain, and it is so difficult to arrive at the real
troth of anything of the sort, that I am sot at all certain of
being able to make rum of the facts. However, lam still doing
all lan to collect further information, in can that the
documents which I send you an not sufficient to establish
the tact of the loss of the Possidhon, which I can scarcely
imagine will be the case : and so, if .on find that more do-
cuments are wanted, you had better, to save time, inform
me thereof at once by telegraph,
(Signed) " W. CALVERT.
" To W. Abbott, Esq."
" Dardanelles, Nov. 21, 1861.
- -

•
•
" I forward to you herewith enclosed tie following docu-
ments, which can leave no further doubt se to the fate of
the unfortunate Poasidl2on and her crew :
.

" No. 1. A o-Oriiliodo&M-14711a;;;u:mastor of Tooorks,