The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-09 00:00:00

Irdinary Frauds--Scuttling of the
Peruvian Barque Maria.

(From the Shipping and Afereantide Gazette.)
We have before us the full particulars of a series of extra-
. ordinary trends, connected with the alleged scuttling and
abandoning of the Peruvian barque Maria, from Bahia for
London. The case has excited considerable interest, not
only in the City, but at Hamburg, Bremen, and Paris,where
insurances had been effected to a very large extent.
The Maria was an American built barque of 355 tons.
She was owned by her master, Captain Matthias Albers, a
German, native of Osnaburg, who had been trading on the
coast of Peru. He bought the Maria in Boston for 6,000 dls.,
and proceeded to Rio, where he obtained a classified certificate
of her seaworthiness, then made one voyage from Bahia to
Hamburg and back, when a well known firm, Messrs. Souza
and Reizenberger, merchants of Bahia, and who had hitherto
held a high position in that port—became the charterers of
the ship fur a voyage to London for £B6O. On Nov. 4 last the
Maria took her departure for England. The charterers,
Messrs. Souza and Reizenberger, advised several merchants
in London, Paris, Bremen, and Hamburg, of the ship's de-
parture, consigning the cargo to them, representing it to
consist, among other articles, of 3,2'22 bags of coffee and a
large amount of diamonds. They forwarded the bills of
lading, and stated that they, Messrs Souza and Reizenber, -
ger, had taken the liberty of drawing bills upon them to a
large amount, The merchants in question, on the receipt
of the consignments, effected insurances on them, those in
London on the various marine insurance companies to the
extent of £16,000, while thc se at Paris, Bremen, and Ham-
burg did the same, the whole amount of insurances on the
Ship and cargo amounting to nearly £40,000. The consign-
ment of the diamonds, however, on the receipt of the bills
of lading excited some surprise, inasmuch that the course
pursued of sending them by a sailing vessel and a strange
master, was irregular to the general practice, diamonds be-
ing always forwarded from the Brazils by the Royal Mail
steamers. The merchants to whom the consignment was
made refused to honour the drafts made upon them by
Messrs, Souza and Reizenberger, but effected insurance on
the diamonds in one of the offices for £3,500. About the
12th January a telegram reached that the Maria, from
Bahia, had foundered at sea on Dec 19, off the Azores, and
the crew saved. Subsequent accounts stated that the cap-
tain and crew had landed in two boats, on the 20th and 21st,
at St. Michael's, where the protest of the ship's loss had
been made before the Spanish Consul. It coming to the
ears of the Royal Exchange Insurance Company, on whom
the insurance of £3,500 had been effected on the diamonds,
that the captain and the crew had saved the whole of their
effects, instructed a gentlemen at Lloyd's to inquire about
the diamonds, which were represented in the bills of
lading to be contained in two small tin boxes. The crew
had already left St Michael's, and considerable difficulty
was experienced in tracing out their whereabouts ; however,
eventually they were found, when it was elicited that the
diamonds werelost, having, it was alleged,been dropped over-
board by the captain in getting into the boat when he aban-
doned the ship. The circumstances, however, were so remark.
able that an inquiry was prosecuted into the abandonment
of the ship, for about this time the underwriters had their
suspicions awakened by other ugly features connected with
the bills of lading in the possession of the four merchants in
London, bearing the signatures of Capt. Albers, which set
forth that there had been a greater amount of property
shipped on board the Maria than they had reason to believe,
for the Bahia Custom-house bill of entry of November gave
the following as the cargo of the Maria for the voyage :-155
dozen pieces of rosewood, weighing 320 tons; 222 bags of
coffee, weighing 121 tons; 156 bags of cocoa, 111 tons;
11,000 double bundles of piassava wood (for brush brooms),
126 tons, and ballast; and 10 bundles of whalebone, weigh •
ing 100 tons—making a tots! of 570 tons. But the other
bills of lading previously alluded to represent the bags of
coffee shipped on board was 3,222, instead of 222 bags ; two
boxes of diamonds of the value of £3,900, some copper
valued at £4OO, and other articles of considerable extent.
For the ends of justice, the first proceedings taken were
the depositions a the Maria's crew before a notary public in
the City. They are of so voluminous a character as to pre-
elude their publication in our columns, on account of their
great length, but the subjoined will be found to contain the
whole of the leading facts :
The Maria's crew numbered 12 hands. The most of
them are foreigners—some had been shipped at Hamburg,
and others at Bahia. On the ship being taken up by
Mesars,Sonza and Reizenberger,the charterers, for a voyage
to London, they first took on board 100 tons of stone ballast,
and then commenced shipping the 320 tons of rosewood,
when the captain called the men aft, and told them that
they might go on shore for two days,or longer if they chose,
as he intended to employ negroes to load the ship—a course
most unusual, unless some of the crew were left behind.
Each of the men received a sum of money from the cap-
tain that they might enjoy themselves. They did as they
were told, and stopped two days and two nights on shore,
when the captain came to them and told them to return to
the ship, as she was loaded, and that the negroes had worked
well. On getting on board they saw that the lower hold was
filled up with the rosewood, and the 11,000 bundles of brush
(brooms), the latter filling up the 'tween decks extending
right forward to the mainmast. The 222 bags of coffee, with
the 13 bundles of whalebone, were stowed aft, but they state
positively there was no copper. They knew the quantity of
coffee shipped by having seen it alongside the ship in
lighters, and saw the remainder of the cargo go to the vessel
in lighters from the shore, The ship left on 4th Novem-
ber, and the voyage proceeded favourably, having fine
weather and smooth sea all the time. The vessel was
pumped out every night, and did not make any more water
than she did while in harbour. She was not over laden.
When they had been out a short time the captain treated
the men with liquor, and was frequently intoxicated. He
offered the mate drink, but it was declined. The first thing
that oocurred on board to attract their notice was the paint-
ing out of the ship's name on the stern, and also the re-
moval of the quarter-boards where the name was on. These
were supposed to have been thrown overboard. The boats
were also looked after once or twice, and supplied with
masts and sails, two new sets of oars had been bought for
them at Bahia. On the 18th of December, at 4 a.m., the
ship was pumped out dry, as usual, but on sounding the
well at eight o'clock by the captain's orders, three feet of
water was found in the hold. The weather was fine, there
was very little wind, and there was nothing to account for
the sudden leak. The pumps were set going, and were
continued at intervals during the day. Land was then
in sight, but a long way off. At six in the evening the men
were told to knock off pumping and go to their teas. The
ship was steering her course. The captain then told them
to get their clothes ready, as the ship was making water
fast. One of the crew named Rtmel had previously heard the
mate say that the captain had offered him £5O to assist in
making away with the ship. When the ship commenced
to leak, some of the hands went forward to the forepeak to
look for the leak, but could net find it. While the pumping
was going on the captain went into the cabin and told the
cabin-boy to assist in putting his best clothes into a bag,
and he gave him some loose silver for his trouble. The
boatswain dined with the captain in the cabin that day ;
the boatswain got intoxicated. The same afternoon the
cabin-boy saw a quantity of gold in the mate's bed, and he
asked the mate if he knew he had left it there. The mate
replied 6' Yes." He said the old man had given it to him,
meaning the captain. The gold was large pieces—doubloons.
The captain carried a large quantity of money in his chest,
and the cabin-boy believes that when he assisted the captain
to pat his clothes into a bag he also put in the money. It
was tied up in a shirt sleeve. The boy heard the captain
tell the mate one day in the cabin that the cargo was insured
in two places. Three or four hoars after the men had been
pumping on the 18th the captain told them it was no use of
their pumping, and that they had letter look after their
clothes. The captain was drunk. The mate told the men
to continue pumping. They understood then that the ship
was not far off the Western Islands. They could only work
one pump—the other one was useless. It had been out of
order before leaving Bahia. On the morning of Dec. 19
the captain came on deck sober. After breakfast the long
boat was got out, and water, provisions, and their clothes put
in it. The mainsail had been hauled up, and the ship was
then under the two topsails, main topgallan tsail, foresail, jib,
and for6toPmast staysail. Before lowering down the quer-
terboat, the captain's clothes-bag, chronometer, quadrant,
barometer, and some charts were put in, and also the logbook.
Atter she was lowered from the davits the boatswain's
clothes,
were hanandedd do aasfshiheelaOythermen,
o'clock when teci. The weather was fine, and they
with the provisions,
alongside. It was about 11
had no fear forhis'occurr the loss of their lives or their clothes. The
captain was dressed and wore
n
gold watch in his waistcoat pocket aoidheiraocial citd. chilaienhoand. lie
told the men to take to the boats,
then a little
the
astern, and waited orders. The captain
port quarter, where the quarterboat, lay. He hetr ato
roll writing paper in his right hand, and in his left he held oaf
small paper package. It was not a box of any kind. The
package was tied along lengthways, apparently with cotton
twine, such as they had used for the repairing and making of
the ship's sails; and the package had large red wax marks
at each end of it. The captain then put his foot over the
ship's side to get into the beat, and shifted the package end
parcel into one hand, and, as he was descending, both parcels
fell overboard. The package sank immediately. The roll
DE' paper was picked up the moment they fell into the water.
The captain called all the men by name, and said, " You see
I have lost that small package." The captain then aban-
doned the vessel. They did not see the ship founder. W hen
they left her some one said she had 10 feet of water in her
hold, but none of them knew for certain. They lost sight of
the ship about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. As long as they
could see her she was up and off in the wind. At 8 o'clock
the boats were close together, but after that they parted
comPanY.
The mate's boat was picked up the next after-
noon by a vessel called the King of Tyrle, which conveyed
them to St. Michael's, where they landed at 5 o'clock in the
evening of the 21st. On the 23d the mate took his boat's
crew to the Spanish Consul, where he made a protest of the
ship's loss, and they signed it. The mate described the cargo
sc
as about 3uo or 400 bags of coffee, rosewood, c. Nothing
Wei said in it about the small package falling overboard.
The other boat, containing the captain, boatswain, and
Mi-
chael's rest
St. of the crew, reached the west end of the island of
on the 23d, and on the following morning they em-
barked in a large fishing boat, which took them round to
St. Michael's, where they landed, taking with them the
captain's clothes, chronometer, and the rest of his pro-