Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-10 00:00:00

MR. HUMPHREY BROWN'S CAREER.

FOUNDERING OF THE JOHN CALVIN.

The brig Mary Young, arrived at Greenock on Satur-
day, from Trinidad, had on board seventeen seamen,
composing the whole of the officers and crew of the ship
John Calvin, who were picked off the sinking vessel early
on the morning of Tuesday, the 2nd inst. The particulars
of the loss of the ship are briefly as follows ;—The John
Calvin, Captain Duncan, sailed from Greenock to Quebec
on Friday, the 15th of May last, with a cargo of coals,
iron, and iron metal pots. She experienced moderate
weather; but the ship was leaky, and required pretty
frequent pumping. On the 24th, after being nine days at
sea, a breeze of wind springing up, she sprung a leak aft.
By dint of great exertion, the leak gut at and stopped.
On the morning of Monday, the Ist instant, a second leak
sprung aft about the stern post or the after peak, and as
the ship worked the leak seemed to be a dangerous
one, which it was impossible to get at so as to stop.
The pumps were kept continually going, and still the
water was gaining and was making at the rate of 5} feet
per hour. When the crew left the pumps for ten minutes,
during Monday, to take some refreshment. the water had
gained on them two feet during that short period. It
became inevitable that the ship could not be saved from
sinking, with all the efforts of the crew, and two of the
boats were got over the side and swung astern, and there
kept in tow, and the long beat was also got on the tackles
ready to drop, in
ship
h asida ktion g e°le.o to fatnhde boats,
thrownhowaderviefre.
Providentially,go t
emergency of thaensdhs
ta°rnlng, about two o clock,
the Mary Young was sighted, and lights were exhibited,
s wam e d: on Tuesday
and other signals made to arrest attention, and the
ship bore up on them, an I took the whole crew on board.
The vessels were then in latitude 55.33, longitude
10.24. The two boats, of the John Calvin were also
taken on board. The snip was abandoned about eight
o'clock in the morning by which time she had eight
feet water in the hold, and was fast settling down.
Two valuable hounds were on board, and tho w
saved, together with the clothing of the crew and some other property. All efforts to take off a large favourite
cat failed, poor puss being wild, and frightened to venture
on deek. The John Calvin was built at Dumbarton about
seventeen years ago, and her late connection with the
coolie traffic rendered her somewhat notorious. It is said
that some
Lou ooh r six years ago she was freighted by her
ownersto proceed to California, with a cargo
to ship's account; that arriving there the captain sold
and appropriated to his own use a large portion of her
cargo; the mate ran off with the be.larice and the ship to
Australia, where he disposed of both. The ship was then
sent to Hong Kong, where she was sold, and was for
some time hi the opium trade, and then in the coolie
trade, and she eventually arrived in Greenock in the
fall of last year, with a cargo of molasses from
Cuba. She was since advertised for sale, butt it is
said that her whereabouts becoming known to her
former owners in London, steps were taken to reclaim her,
and in the meantime, while the subject was under con-
sideration in the law courts, arrangements had been come
to by all concerned to send the ship on a voyage to sea.
This may all seem incredible enough, but we believe it to
be nevertheless not altogether without foundation. When
the John Calvin came to Greenock last, she was said to
be infested with vermin, and as she lay in the harbour
inside of where the Liverpool steamers are berthed, rats
of a very large and peculiarly ugly description were often
seen in the dark making their way on shore by the warps
and other means of communication with the quay, to feed
on the oatmeal, grain, and other produce, which is always
lying at the quay, where it is landed from Irish steamers.
Sailors are superstitious to a proverb; and in conversing
with one of the crew of the foundered ship he protested
that although the usual practice of smoking the ship with
brimstone had not been resorted to to destroy the vermin,
before she left to go on her last voyage the rats had cont_
pletely deserted her, and that he ought to have profited
by the circumstance and not gone to sea in an unlucky
ship—for when rats desert a vessel the circumstance is
taken as an omen that a disaster is to happen her. If the
story of the desertion of the rats at the quay be true, we
are disposed to attribute the desertion more to the
natural and intuitive love of good feeding which the Irish
produce was apt to excite than to that instinctive and
mysterious prescience which is so credulously believed
among " those who go down to the sea in ships.,

Ex:lusively for CLOTHING BOYS from 6 to 20 Years.

LEWIS & COMPANY streeL,

INCENDIARISM AT BRADFJUD.—We soma time ago
noticed that an extensive and disastrous fire had occurred
On the premises of Mr. Thomas Mill, cabinet mAter and
upholsterer, Market-street, B:adrord. Since then, there
is every reason to believe that some person or PersAns have
attempted to damage or destroy the portion of the premises
left by the fire. One night last weA the engine-house
door had been opened, and a square of glass broken in the
window, and when the engine-ter:ter examined the fly.
wheel, before turning it on, he discovered a thick bar of
iron placed across the eccentric, which, had it not been
seen, mast have damaged the engine
ma-
chinery. Again, on Saturday, engine-tenterth:a
fire from under the boiler, put it n(irni
fd
therew the
out with a plentiful sup.
ply of cold water, and cleaned all up about half-past
three o'clock. Abow; half-pastd r e elevensse r,
adjoining,elr the evening, Mr.:Blackburn, hai
in the engine house,
that a fire had broken out ' '
and a few other which
discoveredhicshaalh ee
persons succeeded in subduing before
much damage w9—.,3
-one Mr. Graham, superintendent of
the fire brigade, .
made a thorough examination of the
premises, but
found, and neclue. to the origin of the fire could be
grave suspicions are entertained that it was
the work of incendiaries.

The Mr. Humphrey Brown, against whom a warrant
has at length been issued, is in many respects as remark-
able an adventurer as the present century has produced.
His father was a large barge-owner-on the river Severn,
carrying on an extensive trade, and was esteemed a pions,
industrious, and respectable man. His residence was at
Tewkesbury, where his eldest son Humphrey was born. •
He had also another son and a large family of daughters,
who are all comfortably married. From early youth nal
Humphrey evinced a taste for speculation, which grew
with his growth and strengthened with his strength until eriT
he has now become the victim of this accursed Moloch. z At
On his father's death he was left in possession of a large ;em
and lucrative trade as carrier, which, however, in his Issess
hands was so unduly extended as speedily to collapse, and „uie,./ in a few years he became a bankrupt. Then we find him
going into business as a cement manufacturer in Birming-
ham, and supplying the country far and wide with a patent
article in this way which was to supersede all other dee
scriptions by its low price and good quality. Here again his 'l2'3- views were too extensive for his pocket, and the cement •sateull manufactory was soon closed. Afterwards he embarked •"vs hli
in a variety of speculations, was clerk in a merchant's
office, turning to other temporary shifts, living in the 'if-
sfi
most precarious manner until the railway mania of 1846, -crt of
which formed the foundation of his fleeting fortunes. At
this time, the traffic of the Birmingham and Gloucester ift
Railway was at a low ebb, and Humphrey Brown, who
was then at Tewkesbury, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for
4olg
something "to turn up, was recommended by somebody
as a shrewd sort of fellow, who would find some means of
diverting traffic to the line. He knew the localities, was
a man of shifts and resources, and just the official for the e.(ime
place. Well, he was to attend a meeting of the board at
Birmingham, and it is a well authenticated fact that he
had not the means of paying his fare there, no one would
lend it to him, and ho walked the whole distance, and was
appointed traffic manager of the line. It is quite certain
that he did vastly
froimprove the prospects of the railway, ja
tag
bring on traffic m far and near ; and, taking advane ;:,
of his position, being, as it were, behind the scenes, he dabbled in shares, was one of the lucky men of the mania, so„.
and returned to Tewkesbury in two years with £70,000, 9'll
while he had left it with a solitary half-a-crown. Now ' etTn
he might have settled down comfortably, but his old
err
demon of speculation still lurked within his breast. He
bought a handsome residence in the borough, turned the
theatre into a silk factory, purchased landed property in
the vicinity, and was returned member to the House of . see
Commons by an enormous majority. Those who would
not lend him the means to pay his fare but a short time
back, were now the most vehement in his praise. Brown
and Tewkesbury were henceforth identified with each
other. His portrait was lithographed, and hung in every
body's parlour; his name was blazoned in handbills as
chairman of every meeting, whether for religious, local, or
political purposes. He was looked upon as the most
"independent" member of the House of Commons, of
fabulous wealth, enterprising spirit, and unbounded
liberality. It was true he was no orator, made fearful
orthographical blunders in composition, and aspirated
with astounding energy on the hustings. He had plenty
of money and spent it profusely, which was an ample
passport to the sweet voices of the multitude. His parlia-
mentary duties called him to London, and here, falling in
with kindred spirits, he embarked on that sea of specula-
tion on which he has so often buffeted with its billows,
or sailed into the harbour of fortune with a
favouring breeze. A mere catalogue of the schemes
with which he was mixed up world fill an ample
volume, but they embrace such enterprising undertakings
as opening up new slate quarries in Merionethshire,
working prolific gold mines in California, extending
railway communication throughout Ireland, with a host
of: other gigantic proposals, any one of which should
suffice to absorb the energies of any man; and all this
time he was freighting vessels to Calcutta, Melbourne,
merica, and other parts of the world. He built a
splendid pile of warehouses at Gloucester, was importing
alike into Liverpool, London, and Cardiff; and with all
this accumulation of private and parliamentary duties, he
must, forsooth, be a director of the Royal British Bank,
and manager of their Glamorganshire works into the
bargain. Hercules himself could not have satisfactorily
disposed of the multifarious labours taken in hand by
this man, who, now a fugitive from justice, is spoken of
with scorn even in his native town of Tewkesbury, where
but yesterday he was presented with a piece of plate, and
if not brought to the bar of the Old Bailey, will end his
career as an outlawed exile, and a melancholy example of
the sin of inirdin its speculation.