The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-06 00:00:00

rHE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 6, lEEE.

The Wreck of the Duncan Dunbar.

SOUTHAMPTON, Saturday Morning.

The passengers and crew of the Duncan Dunbar
have reached this port, on board the Brazil mail
steamer Oneida, which arrived here at midnight.
The following is a list of the names of the passen-
gem :—Mr. and Mrs. Robson, Mr. and Mrs. Jones,
child, and servant ; Mrs. Moet and family ; Mrs.
and Miss Hudson ; Mr. and Mrs. Davis, infant,
and female servant ; Mrs. Davis, Mr. and Mrs.
Thornton, son, and daughter ; Miss Young, Mr.
and Mrs. Wm. Christian, Mr. and Mrs. E.
Christian, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. and Miss Beet,
Mrs. Dudgeon, Mrs. Haigh, Mrs. Parbury, Mr.
Galloway, Mr. Tomkins, Mr. Crase, Mr. Dowling,
Mr. Hudson, Mr. Sandilands, Mr. Geddes, 13
second-class passengers, and the officers and crew
(59 in number.)
We have been favoured with the following inte-
resting narrative of the wreck, prepared by some of
the persons who were on board the ill-fated vessel :

" The Duncan Dunbar, of London, Capt. Swan-
son, master, which left London on Aug. 28 and Ply-
mouth on Sept. 2, with passengers and cargo for
Sydney, was, on Oct. 7, wrecked on the reef Las
Roccas, lying in long. 33.45 W., and lat. 3.52 S. She
struck on the reef at about half-past 8 in the evening.
As soon as the alarm of ' breakers ahead' was given the
helm was instantly put to port, with a view of clear-
ing the danger. The vessel, however, struck upon an
outlying portion of the reef as she was answering
her helm. Every effort was made to get the ship
off, but in vain, as she went on at high tide, and, on
its falling, became firmly fixed on a bed of rock.
Cargo was thrown overboard with a view of lighten-
ing the vessel. The foretopgallant mast was cut
away for the purpose of easing the vessel, which was
rolling heavily from side to side as the tide fell and
the sea struck her. The pumps were diligently
worked, and kept the water under until the rudder
was lifted and the sternposts broken away, when
the water poured heavily into the hold and pumping
became useless.

" Soon after the vessel struck, the captain had
gone in one of the boats to take soundings round
her, and see if there was any part of the reef on
which a landing might be effected. He fancied,
but could not be at all sure, that there was some
part on which we might land. As the boats could
not carry all on the wreck, the captain determined
to await daylight, and then land us if there was
any available spot ; and, if there was not one, to
take all from the wreck in the boats and on a raft.

" Most anxiously did we look for the first streak
of dawn. It is impossible to describe the state of
mind in which we passed the hours of that most
awful and trying night. The vessel was rolling from
side to side and striking most violently at each roll
in a way which seemed to threaten her instant de-
struction. There were the unceasing roar and the
white expanse of the remorseless breakers ; above the
din resounded the shrill and mocking cries of myriads
of birds, and around us rolled the dark waters, in
which it seemed that we must soon be engulfed.
" It is impossible to speak too highly of the con-
duct of the ladies at the time the vessel struck, and
during the whole of that most fearful night. Not a
scream was heard, and with perfect resignation and
quietness they awaited the termination of that try-
ing state of things, whether they should result in
their preservation or their being swept into the dark
and horrid waters around us.

" As day dawned every glass was used in the hope
of discovering some place uncovered by water, on
which shelter, if only temporarily, might be taken.
The captain again went in a boat, and succeeded
in getting through the breaker to a landing place on
one of the two banks or islets of sand which rise
about 7ft. above the ordinary high-water mark.
Preparations were at once made for landing. The
passengers were lowered in a chair over the stern into
the lifeboats, it being impossible to get the boats
alongside the rolling vessel. By 7we were all landed.
On landing we found that the little islet of sand was
covered with pigweed, but there were no signs of
water. During this day the captain directed the land-
ing of water and provisions. Unfortunately, four out
of the five water puncheons got at were lost, being
stove in by debris of wreck, or having drifted away;
and our anxiety was lest we should fail in procuring
a supply of water for the party on the reef, consist-
ing in all of 117 souls. For the first two days we
had only half a pint of water a piece, although
toiling, in a severe and unaccustomed manner under
a broiling sun, the thermometer being at 112. On
the day of our landing a tent was erected near some
heavy pieces of wood, which were evidently part of
what is given in the chart as the Syren Beacon,
which appears to have fallen some time since. The
island seemed quite covered with birds, which, from
their very wildness, took no more notice of us than
to move a few feet out of our way as we walked
among them. The ground swarmed with a large
species of earwig, and was in many places honey-
combed by the holes of land crabs. Our meal on
that first day consisted of a small piece of nearly
raw meat and a morsel of ship's biscuit. The ladies
slept that night under the tent, and the men in the
open air—at least slept so far as it was possible to
sleep in the unceasing din of the screeching birds,
and under the attacks of the crabs and vermin.
" On Sunday afternoon the foremast and mizen-
mast were cut away, and on Monday the mainmast
was also cut away. Again we worked hard at getting
water and provisions ashore. On Tuesday an empty
400-gallon iron tank was landed, and in it we put
our water as soon as it was landed in small vessels.

" On the morning of Wednesday the 11th, Capt.
Swanson, with one of the passengers, Mr. Galloway,
and six seamen, started in one of the lifeboats, for
which mast, sails, and rigging had been made and
fitted on the reef, intending to try and reach Per-
nambuco, and there procure aid for us. Every day
we worked at getting ashore as much provisions
and water as possible, as we knew that at the first
high or heavy sea the vessel must go to pieces.
Most mercifully, the weather was throughout
fine. We ultimately succeeded in getting four
iron tanks ashore and a more encouraging
supply of water. All the water and provisions
landed were placed in a separate tent, which we
denominated our store,' and most strict watch and
guard was kept over them, as on their preservation
depended our sustenance until we should be rescued.
We managed to get ashore some wine and barrels
of beer,which were most acceptable to keep up our
strength.
" Five vessels were seen by us passing the island;
but our signals failed to attract them. At midday
on Tuesday, the 17th, a steamer was seen approach-
ing the island. It was distinguished to be one of
the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's vessels,
and proved to be the Oneida, Captain Woolcott.
Our hearts swelled with thanksgiving and joy as
we observed the vessel making for the reef.
" It turned out that Capt. Swanson had, after
having encountered heavy weather, been taken into
Pernambuco by a vessel which be fell in with, and
had, under the advice of Captain Doyle, her Bri-
tannic Majesty's Consul at that port, sought the
aid for us of Capt Woolcott, the Oneida being
then on her homward voyage to Southampton, with
the Brazil mails. Captain Woolcott, with the con-
sent and approbation of Lieutenant Rainier, R.N.,
the naval agent in charge of the mails, readily agreed
to go to our aid.
" By 2 o'clock the Oneida was off our landing-
place on the reef, and at once we started for her.
Most of us had lost all our baggage, having with us
very little beyond the suit of clothes in which we
landed on the reef. The Oneida had arrived at Las
Roccas in 21 hours after leaving Pernambuco, a dis-
tance of 269 miles. By 6 o'clock the Oneida was
again under way on her homeward voyage.
Our a
bs ul
ef f. e r ihngasd,
wmental a
iannedd bb oudt i
ay ,
vhe ar
yd
" Our preservation and rescue were most provi-
bdeeenn indes
tial.
short time longer on the reef a serious and desolat-
ing sickness would have broken out, as already there
were serious signs of its commencement, which con-
tinued to develope themselves even after we had
reached the Oneida. Not a life, however, waslost, and
not a limb was broken, and it really seemed a special
mercy that we should have been saved and pre-
served as we were.

" In the chart of this reef a beacon, called there
the Syren Beacon, is marked as being on the bank
or islet on which we landed, and 30 feet above high

water mark, and seven cocoanut trees as being on
the other islet or bank. This beacon is no longer
in existence, having fallen, and the seven cocoanut
trees have disappeared, there being only three very
young, growing cocoanut trees, about four feet high.
It is possible that at high spring tides, with a
northerly or north westerly wind, the water would
rise to the level of the islet on which we took refuge,
if not somewhat above it."

The Bermondsey Guardians at Home,

The Lancet publishes this week the report of its
Commissioners on the Bermondsey Infirmary. It oc-
cupies an entirely improper site, and is often flooded.
The classification is described as incomplete, and
there is no separation of " foul" cases. The sick
wards generally are good, although deficient in
cubic space. The wards for the infirm present a
marked contrast with them : they are excessively
bad, two of them especially, which are called Lazarus
and Aaron respectively, are very dirty, and deficient
in both light and air. The occupants were herding
together in a miserable manner in the midst of con-
ditions which must render any medical treatment
of their chronic diseases of little avail. The closet
and urinal, abutting on the dead-house, stunk so
offensively as to poison the whole atmosphere of their
airing court, and are considered to have had a share
in the epidemics from which the establishment has suf-
fered. The arrangements for the:troops are charac-
terised as " altogether brutal." Although as many as
40 or 50 persons have been known to apply in a
night, accommodation is provided for 24 persons:
it coniista of bunks, or long orange-boxes, with a
wooden log for a pillow, a blanket and rug, and not
even a bit of straw to lie on. The guardians of Ber-
mondsey are believed to be singular in their mode
of lodging the houseless poor. The nursing is com-
mitted to unpaid pauper nurses. The amount of
nourishment for the inmates, and especially the in-
firm, is altogether insufficient. The medical officer
is overworked and underpaid, and has to find drugs
out of his pitiful stipend. The workhouse has been
visited by cholera severely twice ; and in a new epi-
demic similar visitation might be anticipated. The
workhouse, however, is unfit to receive such cases
with safety, and is now in a state to footer epidemic
diseases generally.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMM—If we are rightly informed, the recon-
struction of the Ministry has not proceeded so suc-
cessfully or so easily as those who regard the new
Premier with an idolatrous worship would have the
public believe. On the contrary, there have been,
and there are still, great difficulties in the way of
that reconstruction, difficulties which every sober
Liberal ought to have foreseen, and which arose out
of the very nature of the case. Though the blind
supporters of Earl Russell have not been able to see
the danger or to feel the force of the censure which
we passed upon a policy which professed to be con-
tent with an arrangement which should leave only
one available Secretary of State in the Lower House,
yet Earl Russell himself, and still more his col-
leagues, have seen the force of our denunciation of
such a course, and the result is that, in all proba-
bility, one or more of the Secretaryships of State
now filled by peers will be vacated, and the offices
given to members of the Lower House. It would be
premature to enter fully into this delicate question.
It is enough for us to know that such changes are
contemplated, but we believe we are justified in
stating that the Duke of Somerset has placed his
resignation in the hands of Earl Russell in order
that the process of " reconstruction" may be ren-
dered at once more easy, and, we may add,
more constitutional. We are glad that our ob-
servations have awakened such a manifestation
of genuine English spirit. It is our habit and the
secret of our strength to speak freely of our rulers.
We scatter praise and blame roughly but honestly ;
we admonish and we reprove ; and we do so not
only for the correction of those who are the hum e-
mediate subjects of criticism, but also for the public
good. As as we adhere to truth and justice we may
leave the consequences to take care of themselves.
A vulgar proverb tells us who is ashamed when the
truth is spoken, and we have no ambition to.consult
his feelings. It seems strange that it should be found
at all necessary to recall these elementary principles
of action. We had looked upon it as an axiom that
it was at all times not only right but expedient to
look our political situation fairly in the face, and to
tell the whole truth about it. We have been to some
extent undeceived. There are observers among us
who appear to believe that ugly facts can be got rid of
by covering them with comfortable words, and who,
consistently with their belief, are shocked when the
nakedness of the land is exposed. They would cry-
" Peace" when there is no peace, and prophesy pro-
sperity even though the Government were on the
brink of destruction. We reject a policy which in
its timidity and dissimulation is alien to the English
character. It cannot be denied that the death of
Lord Palmerston left us in a situation of no small
embarrassment, and that the arrangements which
have been since made give us little security for the
future. The late Prime Ministerhad a considerable
majority in the House of Commons, but the Liberal
party must always embrace a wide diversity of sen-
timents, and some of its sections professed a doubt-
ful allegiance to their nominal chief. On some
points Lord Palmerson was protected by his politi-
cal opponents against the excesses of his supporters.
This was occasionally urged to his discredit, but in
fact it was an instance of his greatness. No party
has a monopoly of truth, and our best statesmen
have enjoyed the confidence of both sides of the
House of Commons, and have abandoned them-
selves to neither. Peel, in his greatest days, was
neither Whig nor Tory, and it has been said with
some justice of Pitt thathis political principles were
those which his opponents professed and his sup-
porters detested. But the situation of Lord Pal-
merston above party has heightened the difficulties
of his successor. Where can we find the man of
impertubable good temper, broad common sense,
with an intellect at once flexible and retentive,
equally careful to keep what is good in the old
and to seize what is good in the new, loyal to
his early friends, but eager to enrol rising talent
in his service—in a word, free from the prejudices
of education, the thraldom of formulas, and the
influence of cliques ? All these qualities go to
make a great leader, and these qualities Lord
Palmerston had, but who can say they are found
in his successor ? The last Administration which
Earl Russell headed perished as if by atrophy
through a want of vigour and freshness on the
part of its chief ; and the experience of later years
has not increased our confidence in the noble Lord's
power to inspire a party. On the other hand,
if Mr. Gladstone has energy and genius, it
remains to be seen whether the responsibility of
leadership can give his temperament the ballast
in which it has been hitherto painfully deficient.
To have to choose between a lifeless adherence
to worn-out cries and a dwindling coterie on the
one side, and the erratic movements of undisci-
plined talent on the other, is discouraging, but
something may be made of the latter, while
the first must issue in nothing. The difficulty
of the choice was complicated by the dispro-
portionate distribution of power between the two
Houses, already sufficiently alarming, but then
about to be increased. It is true that no addition
would have been made to the members of the
Cabinet sitting in the Upper House, but there
would have been a notable loss in the House of
Commons. Every one saw last summer with what
difficulty the House of Commons was guided when
Lord Palmerston was absent, and in the coining
Session, unless the evil be remedied, what was then
a temporary inconvenience will be a permanent
arrangement. This unequal distribution of office
between the two Houses, and the desirability of
reinforcing Mr. Gladstone in debate, both point to
a pressing necessity of introducing new blood into
the Administration. There are no doubt difficulties
in the way of accomplishing this end. It is not
altogether untrue that the House of Lords has got
the greater share of power because it happens to
possess a greater number of men of official training,
if not of statesmanlike ability. The Government
may have the liveliest desire to increase its weight
in the Lower House, but it can only use the mate-
rials which arefat hand. Nor will it be sufficient to
snatch a young man from below the gangway and
turn him into an Under Secretary or Civil Lord. A
trustworthy vote may be got by such a process, but
nothing more can possibly be secured. If fresh
men of ability are to be brought in so as to have
some influence on the house, they must have places
of real importance, if not places of the first rank.
It would almost seem as if there must be an inter-
val of partial disorganisation, after which the Cabi-
net will go on with renewed strength or will fall to
pieces. The issue depends upon themselves—upon
the boldness and wisdom of their policy, and upon
their aptitude in assimilating to themselves the
forces which lie about them. The fact, however,
that their fate lies in their own hands makes it all
the more necessary that the dangers of their posi-
tion should be insisted upon. The Administration
cannot be suffered to drift upon a reef of rocks
without warning. It is true that Whigs grow
robust in the bracing air of Opposition, and the
fact may console us for their exit, but if they are
wise they will learn to be strong without undergoing
so painful an ordeal.
HERALD.—To turn scoffiing into reverence, curses
into blessings., and to conquer the good opinion of
the world, in despite almost of itself, is a work not
given to many men. There are a few grand examples
in history, and but a few. Therefore, when we find
a ruler whose elevation seemed to presage a reign of
terror, and whose antecedents pointed him out rather
as an avenger than a healer of social disorder, win-
ning his way in the world's esteem by clemency, the
spectacle makes a deep impression on our minds,
and calls for remark not more generous than just.
President Andrew Johnson has agreeably disap-
pointed at least one half of the world by a wise and
statesmanlike policy that will give him a high place in
the Pantheon of American worthies. He is the De-
formed Transformed, the giant who does not use his
strength like a giant; but, with a bruised and bleed-
ing country at his feet, lays down the iron rod for
the olive branch, and bids America rise again and
forget her sorrows and her disagreements. And it is
Andrew Johnson who does this ! the supposed Re-
publican fanatic, the man who, of all others, was
thought to be the least placable, the least humane,
and the most disposed towards severe measures of re-
prisal. Never was a man better abused than the suc-
cessor of Abraham Lincoln. Rightly or wrongly,
he was credited with a most indecent want of self-
control on the very day of his elevation to the Pre-
sident's chair. We need not repeat the scandal, but
it was rife enough at the time. Rightly or wrongly,
he was said to hold the harshest and themost blood-
thirsty tenets of political justice. He was to be the
Strafford of the North, with a programme as
thorough" as that which once crushed Ireland and
helped its author to the block. " Blood for blood ;"
that, we were told, was his motto ; and he was
" Johnson the Avenger," in the eyes net only of
his political friends, hut in those of the unhappy
and defeated South. In the brief agony that
afflicted America after the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln this evil augury of the new President's
career had an air of fulfilment. There were cruel
imprisonments and terrible executions, and for a
time the King of the Reign of Terror seemed to sit
at Washington. The populace cried, " Whom shall
we hang ?" and the President did not interfere
with the course of such justice as Northern tri-
bunals dealt out. The lower ranks of Repub-
licanism were delighted with him. He was the
man for the time ; and when he allowed the
wretched woman Mrs. Surratt to meet a death
as awful as it was indecent, it was thought he
was the one man of all the country who would
satisfy the demands of ruthless and wholesale poli-
tical revenge. In this the viler element of North
American society was doomed to be mistaken.
Andrew Johnson stayed his hand when to the
manes of Abraham Lincoln there had been a suffl-

cient sacrifice. Criminals, or supposed criminals,
convicted by the law of the land, he was content to
leave to the hangman ; but between crimes univer-
sally abhorred and political offences that may be
condoned he drew a distinct line. He did not par-
don at once ; he waited till the ferocity of his people
had cooled down. In short, he was wise in his
generation. By this judicious reserve he has saved
the life of Jefferson Davis. The vulgar cry was for
the sacrifice of the Southern President. To " hang
Jeff. Davis" was the desire of the mob, and, no
doubt, had the unfortunate man who so long defied
the North been tried soon after his capture and in-
carceration he would have been ruthlessly hanged,
though the deed must have been one of the foulest
blots in American annals. Perhaps we did not
understand this here. At any rate, we asked
over and over again why Jefferson Davis was
kept so long a prisoner without trial ; and we hold
it to be a grave scandal that he should languish in
prison, and grow half-blind and infirm in the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. Let us now confess that
President Johnson was wiser than we were. An
Englishman's innate sense of justice disposes him to
ask for a speedy decision whether a man be innocent
or guilty ; he sees cruelty in delay ; and a political
offender, in danger of his life, and awaiting his trial
for many months, arouses the indignation of a peo-
ple who would stand aghast at the suppression of the
writ of habeas corpus. This must be our excuse—
and it is a very good one—for holding the long im-
prisonment of Jefferson Davis to be a piece of cruel
revenge. We thought it was torture. It now turns
out to be that form of cruelty which is real kindness.
For what are the facts ? A correspondent of the
New York Daily News, writing from Washington,
tells us that Jefferson Davis is to be pardoned !
President Johnson has, we are informed, " deter-
mined" to pardon the great adversary of the North ;
and though it is just possible that the Southern
President may be put upon his trial, it will only be
form's sake, and as a mild concession to legality and
public opinion. If found guilty he will beereleased,
and so one of the larger wounds of the iountry will
be healed up.
THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES" ON THE CON-
FEDERATE PAWNBROKERS.—Pawnbroking is consi-
dered, we believe, not only a very respectable,
but a very profitable business. In this country,
indeed, pa wnbroking has become a science ;
and woe to that pawnbroker who fails to con-
form to the infallible rules which science has laid
down for the guidance of his craft. These rules are
—first, that the article pledged shall be worth the
money advanced on it ; and, second, that the pledged
article shall remain in the custody of the pawnbro-
ker as security for the loan. Given the observance
of these rules, and the pawnbroker is safe ; other-
wise, he is extremely likely to come to grief.
It is a pity that those distinguished English gen-
tlemen who advanced two millions sterling to the
late Confederate Government, on the security of
sundry bales of cotton, did not remember these rules.
They were, evidently, new hands in the pawnbrok-
irg business. Their security consisted—first, in the
promise of the Confederate Government to repay
the loan ; and, second, in the hypothecation of a
quantity of cotton, reckoned at sixpence per pound,
sufficient to cover the sum advanced. So far, all
was well; but unfortunately these gentlemen did
not receive the cotton into their own hands. They
left it with the Confederates, who engaged to set it
aside as security for the loan and the means of ulti-
mate payment. This they doubtless did in good
faith, and yet the lenders are nowhere. The Con-
federate Government has ceased to exist. The men
who advanced money to the Confederate Government
must therefore look to their security, and sell the
pledged cotton. But here comes the difficulty. As
they never had the cotton in their possession, their
security proves to be no security at all ; and so
these pawnbrokers find themselves minus their
money and minus their cotton, and the only com-
modities they have obtained in exchange for their
money are a small amount of experience and a
plentiful stock of ridicule. We commiserate them
in their misfortunes ; but really, if they thus vio-
late the principles of their trade, and lend their
money without adequate security, they have no-
body but themselves to blame for their losses.