The Express.
London, England, 1858-12-07 00:00:00

CU exPreoo.

TO 001111111WONDINTS.
vivertisamssis hassii Ow dr *Tie Ilignie," Landes
swoilai paw, mom be 26 the Ms% 10, Boanairstrest,
by Two cieWt ce the day al pailmnifos.

Ike ti:

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Tiro Tullius. PHI @TOOTS TO COSQUIII.
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s or WILLOW PIT IT •T 55555 W
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LONDON, 777317 DAY. MC. 7.

Tee

published yealarday of the
arrival in Plymouth Sound of this relasing transport
clip Bomb will have removed a very general
mares of public solicitude, and allayed the long-
protracted anguish of !piny an almost desponding
heart. The liqmibay sailed from Gravesend as far
back as the 9th of November last, with 300 troops
OR board for India. Her ultimate destination was
Hurracbss t but she was ander immediate orders
to touch at Cork, whirrs she was to take on

board 190 additional men. She w•e an old ship,
haring been 'Boat just half • oentury. For-
t•astely her hull, which was teak-built, wu

thoroughly steno& and strong. Had thin not been
so, nothing but her floating timbers scattered over
the Atlantic would have remained to tell the
stay of her catastrophe. Her rigging, as the man

say, and as the ergot seems to have proved, w•e by
no mesas in the same seaworthy state as the hull.
It is described as having been hastily met up, and
not strong. Her registered burden was 1,27 U
tone. In addition to the baggage and
monitions of the troops shipped at Graves-
end, she carried stone and provisions for
GOO men, and had on board, besides the full
meant of her usual ballast, no lees than 300 tons of
railway iron, which was laid lengthways in the
hold. It is stated, and seems probable, that this was
a bad mode of stowage, tending greatly to increase
the labouring of the ship in a heavy sea.
The ship, thus heavily laden and sinuosity stowed.
nailed from Gravesend for Cork, there to t►ke on
board the 190 additional troops who were waiting
bee arrival. To the plain judgment of ordinary
common sense it certainly seems the most prepos-
terous thing in the world that the Bombay should
bare been sent out of her coarse to pick up these
troops, instead of having these troops sent over to the
Bombay. Even if there were no Government steamers
in Cork Harbour by which these man could have been
forwarded, the ordinary passage steamers would have
brought them round at a oat of a few shillings per
man. The explanation of the matter is probably to
be found in the terms of the Government contract
with the owners of the vessel. If the fact
be that the ship was hired in the ordinary course at
es much per day, the shipowners would obviously
have a direct interest in protracting, under say
decent pretext, the duration of her voyage. It
would be more profitable to the contractors that the
Bombay should go round to Cork to pick up the
troops, than that the troops should be sent on to
Gravesend, there to embark in the Bombay. What
at first sight looks: like • blunder will in all likeli-
hood turn out to have been only a job.
Whichever of the two it may have been, its con-
sequences were disastrous. The Bombay made a
fair passage to Cork, and on the 10th was NOM
fifteen miles cif the harbour. Why she did
rot put in, as intended, does not clearly ap-
pear by any entry in the log-book or any
other description of evidence that is yet before us.
On the 11th commenced that long succession of
north-easterly'gales whose inclemency and violence
even landsmen still hold in shivering remembrance.
The icy tempest which on shore sowed broadcast the
seeds of disease, and struck down age and infancy
with the sudden chill of death, made wilder and
more turbulent havoc on the ocean. The heavily
laden Bombay, with her 300 troops on board, and
with a mixed crew, the bulk of which was made up
of a motley assemblage of Greeks, Italians, Spaniards.
Dutch, and Germans, was soon struck by the " over
taking wings" of the blast. The defects of her
stowage and rigging were at once found out. On the
11th (the first day of the gale) she is described in
the log-book as " labouring most violently." That
same night her maintopsail was split into ribbon.
and bee main royal mast was carried away. The
fury of the gale came to a climax on the 113th. Oa
that day, according to the log, there was " a perhst
" hurricane with a tremendous sea running." In the
afternoon, the Chief Mite and 16 men—the flower et
the crew—went aloft on the desperate service of en-
deavouring to furl the split main topsail. While
engaged •in this hand-to•hand grapple with the fall
stress of the tempest—
While the strained lowa wee lelverlag Has a recd,
And the nut mane, enturieg, strewed the gas—

a heavier sea than usual struck the heavily labour-
ing ship; with one fearful lurch abe serried sway'
both main and misers masts by the board," throwing
" every one aloft, into the sea, and smashing sad
"rendering perfectly useless three of the boats:
Of the seventeen hardy fellows thus flung oat to tbe
ocean in its fury, only six were, with the extremist
dilllculty, rescued. The men thee ea-waked were el
English, being probably the only part of the crew
who could be induced to undertake a mancesirre se
hasardona.

And now the Bombay went driving before the
gale with only her foremast standing. In this
plight she was men on the 18th by the
Swims the first vessel that brought any
tidings of her " wiling W.S.W. before the
"ewe," far out on the broad Atlantic. But worse
via in store for her. On the 23rd, when she had bean
seven days in this plight, " the ship, rolling tie-
' ineedously, pent the foremast over the side, taking
" topmast nnd foreyard with it." She was now a

kw hull, her three mum gone by the board, welter- I
fag helplessly at the mercy of the waves. Those'
who remember that grand vision of the "Abandoned
" Ship," which the genius of CLAeIsOS erAsnm.D
has perpetuated on canvas, may form some notion of
what the Bombay looked hie when, on the 27th,
the Amazon caught a hurried sight of her,
athwart the white waste of those desolate waters.
There was one thing in the reality which was want-
fug in the picture. CLoaxson's ship is a deserted
ball: the Bombay was crowded with a living
freight. Three hundred brave fellows, whose hearts
sever quailed and whose discipline never faltered,
were being borne along with her to what they must
have regarded as momently impending death. The
vessels that brought tidings of her, without having
been able to furnish assistance, saw " many people'
crowded on her rolling and sea-swept deck. Nothing
sass have been better than the conduct of the troops,
or of their senior officer, Capt. STEEL : their order,their
exact discipline, their prompt and seelona aid, no doubt
contributed greatly to the ultimate safety of all on
board. It was not till the 3rd of December, after
more than three weeks of this protracted and
harassing suspense, that the means of safety was
supplied to them. On that' day her MAJEBTT'S
steamer Atreus, which had been sent out by the
Admiralty for their relief, hove in sight ; a hawser,
after considerable difficulty, was passed from one
vessel to the other ; and finally the Bombay was
• towed into Plymouth Sound on the morning of Sun-
day last.

Thin narrative furnishes • fresh testimony to the
admirable conduct of British troop* under that
form of peril which is of all others most trying
to the enduring constancy of landsmen, and least
favourable to the preservation of that exact discipline,
the habits of which have been formed under circum-
stances so widely different from those in which they
ere thus called forth. But the story suggests other
eensideratioos of • very different kind. The defec-
tive state of the spars and rigging ; the clumsy
and dangerous stowage of the railway gear; the
excessive and unreasonable addition thus made to
the lading of the ship, are all points that demand
investigation. The conveyance across the ocean of
the brave fellows who are to maintain our supremacy
In India is not to be imperilled by the negligence of
officials or the cupidity of contractors. These things
must be inquired into. The absurdity of sending the
vessel heavily loaded as she was, round to Cork,
speaks for itself; but the motives which led to the
perpetration of this absurdity ought to be laid bare.
Was there no survey of the Bombay, before the lives
of our soldiers were committed to her commander ?
Were the 600 tone of iron placed in her hold with the
knowledge of the proper authorities? If the nature
of these transport charters be such as to make it more
lucrative to serve the public ill than well, that is a
matter eminently deserving of the best attention of
Parliament. The thing cannot rest where it is. Three
hundred brave lives have been providentially saved,
but how if they had been lost ? It is no light
matter to have had so much that is invaluable to this
einntry placed in such fearful jeopardy by a blander
deliberately perpetrated as the most convenient means
of carrying out a job.

;t* court.

WINDOM Di.. 6.

The Queen cod Prince Consort, with Primes
Alias, Piton Arthur, Frisco Leopold, Primate@ Beher,
Prima Leaks, end Princess Beatebe, left Windsor Clads
M eve Wear peel es• o'clock this morning for Oeborm,
attendee by the Dues et Athol', the Hon. Flora Mao-
dowild, lledor-Gmemd lao Hon. C. Grey, Colonel the Hon.
A. N. Hood, Captain da l'ht, and the Master of the
ilemehold.

A Good of Mom of the Onoadisr Guards with the
bawl at the ragloolt was at the railway station what her
Majesty quitted Windsor.
Tbe Dees of Christchurch took hla departure for Oxbd.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday at the
official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
in Downing-street. The Ministers present were:
—The Earl of Derby, the Right lion. B. Disraeli, the
Lord Chancellor, the Marquis of Salisbury, the Earl
of Hardwick., Mr. Secretary Walpole, the Earl of
Malmesbury, Sir E. Balwer Lytton, General Peel,
Lord Stanley, Sir John Pekington, the Right Hon.
J. W. Henley, and Lord John Manners.

The Earl of Mayo bad au lutmeriew with the Earl of
Derby yesterday at Ma oflialsi resideaos Downing-street.
The Judicial °mealtime at the Privy Council eat yester-
day. An appeal from Bagel, " Zany' Reasein v. Ahmed
Bela" (pees hard), was rearamed.
Deszeachas ware reasived at the Coloaial-onice yesierday
from the Lord MO Cammisicaser of the loci= Wanda
aad the Cloyeraeas of Chrylma, the Mauritius, sad Malta.