The Express.
London, England, 1861-11-26 00:00:00

TO TEI TOMOS OF rat rxrusa.

Sia,—On Saturday, the Tud inst., I embarked at
Quebec on board the steamer North Briton, owned by the
Mottreal Oman Steamship Company, bound for Liverpool,
and carrying the Canadian mails, 34 cabin, and about 90 ,
steerage passengers. This veuel, advertised as one of a line I
of first-clam passenger ships, was very heavily laden with I,
freight, of which circumstance we were disagreeably re-
minded,
within twelve hours of the commencement of our i
voyage, by our grounding in the Hirer St. IDIMIDCO. The
neat tide having, however, brought us off safely, we dis-
charged the pilot at Father Point, and continued our voyage.
Strong easterly winds, with thick, rainy weather impeded
or• progress, and prevented any observation being taken.
Between 1 and 2 a.m. of the sth inst., being, &cowslips tones
reckoning, in mid-channel, between Anticosti and the La-
brador coast, the ship struck violently, and immediately
,ommenoed plunging forward on the rocks with • motion
perfectly indescribable. The managers, aroused from
sleep by the uoweloome sound of the striking vessel, made
their way on deck, very scantily clad, and ill prepared to
have the rigours of the stormy night, bun all naturally
turning to the boats as the oaly chance of Serape from a
ntard shit which, rolling and striking without eseation, threat-
e to rolling
go to gems at every moment. The Luta, secured
on . and stowed in the approved manner, so as to offer
every possible impediment to safe launching, required more
than an hour to be got into the sea, before which tins*
the water had risen to a depth of three feet in
the sleeping rabies. During the whole of this trying
iaterral, the coodoct of moat of the weenier, was
beyond all praise ; a very proper spirit of cool determine-
floe, and • freedom alike from despondeacy as from
bravado, having been manifested by needy every one in
presence of what seemed to all an inevitable fate. With
some difficulty the women and children were lowered into
two boa* which were ordered by the (again to lie under
the lee of the ship till daylight. Pregnancies were being
mole to embark the male passengers in the remaining four
boats, when, to the oonsteruatioo of those on board, it was
discovered that they had all severed their communication
with the ship, and in a short space of time no trace of any
of them could be discovered. Nothing now remained
but to await the break of day ; if the vessel, which
still continued heavily pounding on the rocks, and of
which the falling MAIM and bursting decks seemed to indi•
rite the approaching catastrophe, should so long hold to-
peer. Miserably passed thaws long home of darkness to
all in the Ul-fated vessel ; doubly so to three whose wives
and families, contending in small boats with the stormy
waves of an unknown sea, seemed &Wood to • death per-
hap snore ten Able than the speedy fate with which those
still upon the ship were menaced. It was about (eerie the
cumin when, the violence of the motion sensibly abet*,
man began to whisper a faint hope that the North Bel-
ton was firmly impacted in the rocks; and that if laud were
near and some of our deserting boats should return, it
ins even yet possible that all might be saved. At
dawn we found or-selves lying (at low tide) In shoal water,
within two hundred yards of • fiat, low, desolate island of
about a mile in circumference, covered only with a rank
hegbsge, and evidencing, by the drift-wood plentifully
strum over every part, that the sea, in stormy weather,
swept keratin surface. Higher land wee virile at some
&dance to the N. and W. Of all our boats we could oily
diseern three, buffeting with she now happily subsiding
sea, of which one, filled with women and children, was
making for the low island, The other two boa* at Ind
arriving at the ship, succeeded in disernbarichg the passen-
gers and those of the crew still remaining oa beard. Oa
land* we dhoovered that, after a miserable night spent
eroachial in the bottom d the boat up to their waists in water,
the moms and Mares it untamed had all arrived
mile and unisjimad, beyond a few bruises ; and otnesives, so
rairdfally presereed, we ventured to hops that ear whin
ftimpsokm adiglit have been carried by the eeriest to the
land we perceived in the distance, which the brightsaier
day now revealed to us ea a group of islands, backed by a
long line of amt. A calm day afforded us an opportunity
of arranging a tent made of one of the ship's sails, and of
getting elf from the wreck enough provisions to enable us
(with the help of • pond of fresh water, which was forte-
nately discovered; to pass some days fres from the danger
of starvation. It was then, that the peril of our lives being
removed, the passengers began to observe with con-
siderable apprehension that, while very little of their
baggage had been brought ashore, every sailor had
succeeded in saving his bag, swollen to moat apoplectic
dimensions. Towards evening, a schooner was observed,
apparently making for our island, and a boat was sent off
to ioteroept her. After a miserable night, pared partly in
the tent and partly round camp fires, which were lighted
all over the island, every one who had anything on board
which he wished to preserve, proceeded at daylight to the
wreck, where a scene of plunder was discovered very illus-
trative of the versatile genius of the British tar. Some
trunks and boxes had been opened, and their contents dis-
gorged by • simple Gemmel operation ; while, in other in-
stance., the playful fellows had forted the locks, and
after abstracting dime valuables which had taken
their fancy, had replaced covers and straps with
scrupulous exactness ; and in the ease of desks,
dressing-cases, and such like articles, all attempts at
forcing strung binges and patent locks having failed, a
very energetic system of cracking had extracted the kernel
from its shell. The baggage which still remained, having
been removed by those of the passengers who consented to
pay the crew fur their sereicea, was put into the ship's
boats, a great deal of it undamaged, the baggage-room
having bden in the fore part of the vessel, which, being
higher on the rooks than the after part, was still dry. On
returning to the island, we heard to our great delight that
the missing boat which motioned the women and children
had been picked up by the schooner we had seen on the pre-
vious evening. I may as well remark here, that of the
other two boats, containing thirty-five souls, no tidings
whatever have been received. We also found that two
other fishing amacks had arrived from Mingan, a station of
the Hudson's Bay Company, on the Labrador coast, about
eight miles distant from the scene of our disaster, and
forty miles from the spot on which or• reckoning had
placed us) and embarked on board these vessels for the
port. Our misfortunes, however, were not yet at an
end, for a severe gale wrecked one of our schooners. happily
without loss of life, but to the utter destruction of all the
baggage yet left to us. Conversing, on hoard the schooner
which brought me to land, with its master—an old sailor of
forty years' experience on that coast—he told me that the
northern passage between Anticosti and the main, always
taken by the steamers of the Montreal Ocean Steamship
Company, was (Leprous in the extreme, even to those well
acquainted with the place ; that the shores, strongly im-
pregnated with iron ore, deranged compasses to an incon-
ceivable extent ; that the continually-changing currents
diverted ships from their cow.. in a manner that the
soundings failed to indicate ; sod that in foggy
weather to attempt to navigate the passage was
little short of insanity. To bring the story cf our
disasters to a close (for I fear I have already tres-
passed too much upon your space), we were hospitably
entertained to the best of their ability by the inhabitants of
the barren coast on which we bad found refuge, and on the
11th instant we had the satisfaction of seeing the Anglo
Saxon steamer, which took us on board We were grieved
to find that this vessel was still more encumbered with
freight than the North Briton, bags of grain filling even the
unoccupied state rooms. After a most comfortless voyage,
during which we were only saved by the skill of our rum-
inauder from experiencing a similar disaster to that which
betel our former vessel, and in the course of which we
passed through one of the most furious gales which I have '
ever encountered, we have arrived safely at our damn-
nation.

I should not have troubled you with so detailed an aooount
of the sufferings of myself and my fellow-travellers
had I not wished to point • moral, which may
be of service to the public. The Montreal
Ocean Steam Ship Company receives from the
Canadian government an •ooual subsidy of one hundred sad
four thousand pounds for the ccavryance of a weekly mail
between Liverpool and Quebec. For this munificent sum,
the provincial government naturally ',equine that the ser-
vice shall be performed with punctuality and despatch. To
fulfil these co•ditioua, the managers of the company, instead
of employing vessels of great steam-power, prefer risking
the lives of their passengers and the safety of the mails by