Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-17 00:00:00

DESTRUCTION OF A BRITISH SHIP BY INDIANS

MASSACRE OF A PORTION OF THE CREW.

Intelligence has been received at Lloyd's, under date
Kingston, Jamaica, August 27, of the capture of the British
ship Endeavour by Indians, on the South American coast,
and the murder of the captain, cook, and steward.
The following account of this frightful tragedy is from
the Kingston (Jamaica) Colonial Standard :
" The Endeavour left Kingston on Tuesday, the 16 h of
June having cleared out for Maracaibo. A few days after
she experienced heavy weather, carrying away her jibstay
and topsails. She put into Cape La Vela on the Main,
where her injuries were rep sired. Captain Anthony Durant
had three Indians on board, whom he had brought to Ja-
maica with him on his last return from the Main, and every
attention was shown them by the captain, who, in fact, was
always kind towards them, even while in Kingston. The
vessel arrived off the Indian coast on the evening of the
Bth July, and came to anchor at Bay Honda, to which
place the Indiana on board belonged The Indians were
immediately landed, and about seven o'clock the next
morning, a boat loaded with Indians, to the number of 15
boarded the schooner, and lined the gang way. The captain,
not imagining any danger from their presence, was wholly
unprepared for an attack, and was speaking near by to
one of the seamen, when suddenly, some seven of the
Indians simultaneously drew their knives (which were hid
in their girdles), and commenced to assassinate the
captain ; they inflicted numerous stabs all over his
body, which soon brought him to the ground in a
senseless state; the blood coarsing along his body in
a profuse manner. He made several ineffectual at-
tempts at resistance, The cook, who was in the
galley preparing breakfast, was also attacked by them
and killed, wi h scarcely any chance of resistance;
meanwhile the mate, Mr. Madero, was personally engaged
with two of the Indians, who dealt him a severe blow over
the head ; bat almost with an unexampled degree of
strength, he held each by the throat with his hands, and
bringing himself on his knees, he throttled them in such a
manner as when he let go his hold they staggered. The
panic on board among the seamen was intense; and no one
being prepared for such an encounter, the confusion and
horror which prevailed at the time may better be imagined
than described. A white sailor, seeing the helpless state of
the crew, immediately jumped overboard, followed by a
young boy who was on board, and they took to the boat
which was alongside ; another young man, named Lewis La-
coste, of this city, who ha I been taking a sea voyage far the
benefit of his health, was the third person who left the
vessel He jumped overboard, and not being able to swim,
sank and rose no more. An -Mier seaman from the vessel
succeeded in getting into the boat. The mate, after the
wrestling with the two Indians, and seeing no other
chance for his life, made one dcspera' e leap from the ship,
and was soon in the boat. He cut the painter which
held the Indians' boat alongside the vessel, and the four
parties set to work with the paddles. The Endeavour's
boat was ashore, with three of her hands in her; and
these, perceiving what was going on, shoved off, and
met the Indian boat (a whaling boat belonging
to the brig Radiant, stranded some time ago off
the same coast, which ccntained the four who
had left the ship) and joined her—sending the
Endeavour's boat adrift. Meanwhile the steward, who was
in the hold of the vessel when this sanguinary proceeding
commenced, was set upon by those bloodthristy assassins,
and soon fell a corpse, frcm the thursts of the Indian
knives. The Indians sacked the vessel, and plundered all
the stores and provisions, and, as was subsequently ascer-
tained, run the vessel ashore.
" The boat with the seven souls which survived this sad
tragedy, after pulling against the wind some sixty miles,
fell in with some vessels, and got refreshed, and some
canva's having been provided them they set sail the next
morning and reached Rio de la Hardha in safety, where
they co nrann:cated with the Consul, They remained there
for fully three weeks, amd took pa3sage for Santa Martha,
thence to Carthagena, and from that place they went on to
St. Thomas, and arrived at Kingston on Saturday in the
R. M S. Conway.
" Captain Durant was a trader to the Spanish Main for
upwards of thirty years, and had endeared himself to
many of the natives. He failed on this melancholy
occasion to observe the necessary precaution of not
allowing more than a certain number to come on board at
one time, and this fatal error on his part has led to the
sacrifice both of valuable lives and of property to some
amount. The captain, however, was too confident of the
g eod feeling of the natives towards him, so much so that
he forgot to arm himself to repel their attack. The
steward was a native of this city, and the cook a French-
man. _ _

"The Endeavour was owned by S. M. Samuels, Esq.,
of this city."

Exclasively for CLOTHING BOYS fr.,m Six to Twenty Years
LEWIS & COMPANY, Runelagn-street.

The Daily News is informed that the Marquis of Lans-
downe has declined the dukedom which was placed within
his reach.

A despatch from Jag y, received at Vienna, on We Ines
day, states that nine-tenths of the landed proprietors, and
clergy, have taken part in the Moldavian elections, and
that the majority have voted in a sense favourable to the
Union.

The Australian mail steamer Columbian, which has been
telegraphed as having arrived at Suez, has brought £300,000
in gold. This will reach England by the steamer Tamar,
expected at Southampton about the sth of October.
RECRUITS FOR INDlA.—Nearly 100 recruits were approved
of in the York district during last week, for the various
regiments in India, and upwards of 150 in the Liverpool
district. These numbers might be doubled, or even tripled,
if the standard was an inch lower and an additional bounty
offered.

CABINET COUNCIL.—The members present at the Cabi-
net Council yesterday (Wednesday), were —Viscount
Palmerston, the Lord Chancellor, Marquis of Lansdowne,
Earl of Earrowby, Sir G. Grey, Mr. Labouchere, Lord
Panmure, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Vernon
Smith, and Mr. Baines.
DoN'T 13,1 ALARMED.—NO man, bemse, or institution will
break in the present fitancial crisis but those that ought
teo beak. Don't be ala-med. It is merely a summer
thunder storm t) eool the weather and clear the com-
mercial sky. That's all. The country is rick beyond all
former tuxes.—New York Herald.

Mr. Glaisher states, in the Journal of the Royal
Agrzcultural Society, that the price of potatoes in the
secosci quarter of the present year was 60 per csnt. higher
in London than in the spring quarter of 1856. What
will the price be next spring ? It is too soon to offer any
decided opinion up in this important question, but it is not
too soon to say that the disease is already making progress in
all directions. Reports reach us (Gardener's Chronic'e)
from so many places, and are so consistent with our
personal knowledge, that we begin to fear something like
a retiun of 1816.
THE EDITORSHIP IF TIIE "COMMONWEALTII."—We
understand that Peter Bayne, Esq., who entered upon his
duties as editor of the Menem a few weeks ago, is to be
succeeded in the editorship of the Commonwealth by Patrick
Edward Dove, Esq rmthor of '• The Theory of Human
Progression." " The Elements of P.litical Science," " The
Logic of the Christian Feith," and other well-known
works. Me Dove's great abilities as a writer will have au
ample and congeni-al field in the columns of our c dernpa-
rary, for whom we predict b iris profit and honour from the
cornection.—Edinburgh Daily Express.
CLAHEND3N'S LAST —Th s is'ute Foreign Secretary has
thrown a sop to the Times Cerberus. That jeurnal hes ad-
hered to the government with unb'ushing effrontery—and
now is to have its rewar I. Government telegraphs are
henceforth to go to the Times office—that paper supplying
its less fortunate ertemporaries "et its own Meet Will."
A more cottenaptible transaction cou'd not be. My
Lord Clarendon is k weak and timid man in a position of
authority. He has no natural capacity for government;
nor as be any imitative tack. He substitutes irjustine for
resclutior —and calls des?icable acts of int.: rference "strong
measures." Wad he be:n a schoolmaster, he would have
achieved unenviable notoriety by mercilessly thrashing the
small laws aed perpetually toadying the big ones. We
need hardly refer to his dealings with Birch in Ireland, or
to his threatening to dismiss from the Foreign Office a
clerk who had writ.en in Punch, for prof of our position.
Of course, these proceedings are not without Lord
Palrnerstoa's sancien. The Premier winks at the eccen-
tricities of his subalterns, if they do what he commands ;
and is, besides, not averse from objcc:ionable tampering
with the press, as his conecxion with the Chevalier Wrkoff
shows. The it justice of giving the Times any further
advantage over its cotemporarlee is clear enough. It is
wholly in lefensible on any principle whatever. Let
Government start a paper of its own—let it buy the Times
(in the he nest sense of the " buy ") if it likes, and can—
and no ate then will object to its publishing its own
telegraphs. But the Times is a private speculation, swollen
to a morbid ecormity by favouring accidents' and doing
great it.jery to the conntry by its venality and falseness—
and to give it this additional advantage is just as disrepu-
table as it would be for Government to send a favoured
stockjobber the fiat news of any event likely to e fleet the
funds. If Lord Clarendon will do one be will do the
other—wherefore we advise our friends in the city 'o look
sharp. Was it not John Mitchell who used to indite
letters to a certain Lord Lieutenant, which he was wont
to subscribe, " Yours, with the profoundest contempt ?"
Does Lord Clarendon wish the subscription Perpetuated
and rendered universal.—Court Circular.