The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TISIES.—A catastrophe unparalleled for horror
and fatality has been reported from Calcutta by the
last mail. The chronicles, indeed, of such disasters,
copious and appalling as they are, might be searched
in vain for any such story as is now related. We
hardly know how to designate the occurrence. It
would have been a shipwreck if it had happened at
sea or on a stormy coast without a chance of help,

but the circumstances were not of that character.

The scene rather resembled those executions during

the French Reign of Terror when a number of vic-
tims were floated down the Loire in a vessel built to
sink at a given moment with all on board. How-
ever, the public shall be made acquainted with the
facts, and judge for itself. Two months ago a
cargo of Coolies, that is to say, natives of India,
was consigned from Calcutta to Demerara, so that
the labour-market of the West Indies might be
stocked by importations from the East. The trade
is a regular trade, and not only recognised, but
placed under certain restrictions to prevent abuses
which might otherwise prevail. On this occasion
the ship▪ Eagle Speed embarked at Port Canning no
fewer than 497 of these emigrants, of whom 300
were men, 93 women, 65 little children, and 39 in-
fants actually in arms. We must beg the reader's
attention to the classification of the passengers, and
to the proportion of poor creatures--almost two-
fifths of the whole—who would be utterly helpless
in an hour of peril. The ship was commanded by
a Captain Brinsden, and she had a crew of 26 offi-
cers and men, exclusive of cooks and cabin boys.
Captain Hoskins, the port-master, went on board
himself to see her out of the estuary, and aCalcutta
steamer called the Lady Elgin, under the command
of a Captain Heath, was ordered to tow her down
the river. On this voyage she started on Sunday,
the 20th of August last, one of the regular pilots,
named Vardy, having been placed in charge of her.
The first day of the voyage saw her as far as Hal-
liday's Island, where she anchored for the night.
On Monday morning she proceeded on her way, but
the wind was high and the sea rough, and at length,
at 4 o'clock in the afternoon the towing rope broke,
and the ship and steamer parted. This accident
occurred within about a mile of the Mutlah Sands,
and before a fresh rope could be passed from the
steamer the ship drifted towards these sands, and
there struck. In about half an hour, however, she
got off, but she had sprung a leak on the sands, and
had nearly two feet of water in her hold. A little
later that evening the steamer's engines got out of
order, and so about 9'oclock p.m. on the second day
of the voyage, the ship anchored again. Before day
broke op Tuesday it was found that the water was
gaining on her, and though the Coolies had been
kept at the pumps from the first the water gained
still, till at length she signalled the steamer that she
was sinking. At this time the steamer was close by.
It was dark, but daylight was not far off ; a couple
o f hours at the utmostwould have sufficed for pass-
ing ropes from one vessel to the other, and by 10
o'clock at latest the ship and its living cargo might
have been back again at Halliday's Island. For an
hour, however, the steamer did nothing. During
this ti▪
me the ship had launched three of her own
boats, one under Captain Hoskins, another under
the second officer, and the third under the pilot.
Captain Hoskins made five trips with his boat, and
ceased only when disabled by sun-stroke. The
second officer's boat was soon stove in, and so was
the pilot's. Still there was yet one fine boat on board
the ship and three on board the steamer, and about
4 o'clock in the morning the steamer did put one of
these down, though the utmost difficulty was found
in getting the rescued crew of the ship to man it.
The pilot actually refused to return to the ship at all,
though he understood the language of the Coolies,
and could have given directions and orders. In
the meantime, the scene on board the emigrant ship
was terrible. There was nobody there who could
speak to the Coolies or give them any instructions
or encouragement. The spirit-room had been
broken open, and the brandy broached. All the
Europeans were taken off safely, but it is asserted
that the last who left endeavoured to set the ship
on fire. At length, about half-past 12, when 169
Coolies only had been saved, the steamer actually
put her head about and returned to Port Canning,
leaving upwards of 300 of these poor creatures to
their fate. It was a slow and shocking one. The
ship lived all through the night,. i
and up to 7 o'clock
on Wednesday morning, settling down ▪ n the water
by degrees. Some of the Coolies threw themselves
off on hencoops or spars, and floated to the islands,
where they became the prey of tigers. • One little
boy survived to tell how he was drifted to the
!tingle with another about as big as himself, and
how he saw him in the jaws of an enormous tiger a
minute afterwards. The stronger Coolies clambered
up the rigging and postponed their fate a few hours,
but at last death overtook them all, and when
steamers at length returned to the rescue three boys
clinging to the top of a mast were all that could be
seen of the ship and her crew. Others were picked
up subsequently on the water or in the jungle, but
when the tale was made up it was found that of the
497 Coolies 265 had perished, while only 232 had
been saved. Of course, a sacrifice so frightful has
provoked an inquiry, and we are rejoiced to see that
public opinion in Calcutta has been shocked as
severely as it will be in England. There appears to
have been something wrong at almost every point.
The ship's crew were never mustered before start-
ing, or it would have been found that, out of the
twenty-six, twenty, either from sickness or intoxi-
cation, were unfit for duty. The second officer was
drunk, the boatswain was drunk, and several of the
crew were drunk, and continued drunk all through
the night to the next day. The first officer was ill
and off duty, and the captain, though on duty,' was
ailing too. In fact, he alleged as a reason for get-
ting to sea that he wished his mento get right again
, after their debauches on shore. Then the vessel,
it is said, must have been unfit for the voyage,
or she would never have sprung a leak on the
Mutlah Sands. As to the behaviour of the people
concerned, there is a chorus of indignation and
censure. Captain Hoskins, who did his duty better
than any man there, declares that the ship might
have been saved with every soul on board, and this
is proved to be a sound opinion by the fact that,
after the steamer had left, the Coolies, aided by one
European, did launch theremaining ship's boat, and
actually take this boat safe to port. The excuse
made by the captain of the steamer is that he had
only one day's coal on board, but this supply would,
surely, have enabled him to take the ship back to
Halliday's Island ; and, at any rate, on the first
discovery of the danger all the steamer's boats
might have been launched, each trip of which, we
are told, might have saved 50 lives. As to the
crew, their conduct seems to have been what might
have been expected from their character and con-
dition. It was only by bribery that they were at
last induced to go and bring off their captain from
the sinking vessel. Thus, in the light of day, in
weather not dangerous, in a mere river channel,
within four hours' sail of a good anchorage, and
with a steamtug actually on the spot and in com-
pany, nearly 300 miserable creatures were left to
drown. The wonder is, indeed, that even so many
were rescued, for the steamer herself when she
abandoned the wreck took away but 160, and the
rest were picked up floating on the water . or
stranded among the tigers in the jungle. More lives
have been occasionally sacrificed by overwhelming
and insurmountable calamities, but never before, we
suppose, was there a.loss at once so heavy and so
avoidable. The weight of responsib•
ility will be
apportioned by judicial decision but enough has
been acknowledged to show that accident has
pilfered less, and misconduct far more, than is
usually the case into this deplorable history of
disaster.

HERALD.—The Government of the United States
must have the best reason just at present for wish-
ing to remain at peace with the world outside it.
Considering the immense difficulty of the task
which lies before it, that it is called upon to stanch
the wounds of a nation still bleeding and sore from
the results of a conflict unprecedented in modern
times for its fierceness ; to calm the still seething
elements of discord, which threaten, on the one
hand, to prevent the reconstruction of a state so
violently dislocated and rent asunder ; on the other
hand, to substitute for the war of sections a more
furious war of race, which will heap up horror upon
horror ; considering, too, that the resources of the
country have been already to all appearance taxed
to their uttermost, so that their only chance of re-
covery seems to lie in long years of peace, we can
Well understand that Mr. Johnson and his advisers
are prepared to set their faces most firmly against
any suggestions of fresh war with foreign nations.
We can believe that they are prepared to discoun-
tenance any absurd raid into Canada, or descent
on Ireland by the crazy men called Fenians, or any
crusade in Mexico in behalf of a lost cause. It has
needed all their strength to get the better, in four
years' war, of a minority of their citizens arrayed
in arms against their Government ; to challenge
just now, with any chance of success, the power of
a first-class Government, such as that of France or
England, would be impossible. It is to their inte-
rest to live not only at peace but on good terms
with these countries. The European Powers, on
their side, are willing, as far as in them lies, to give
every opportunity to America to carry out her des-
tinies in the way that pleases her best, to leave her
undisturbed to the development of a restored polity
which may seem to them but a poor reward in itself
for the immense sacrifices that have been made in
its assertion by arms. This being so, we think it
is much to be regretted that any remnant of ill-
feeling should be still kept up between the English
and American Governments 1:1 the prolongation

of such a correspondence as that on the subject
of the Alabama and her Consorts. This correspon-
dence is needlessly irritating, and can lead to no
good result. Every American statesman of educa-
tion must know perfectly well that no English
Minister could listen to a claim so ill-founded, we
might say so insulting, as that of compensation to
be paid by this country for the depredations of these
cruisers. The thing is simply out of the question.
All the batteries of Mr. Adams might be pointed
against the Foreign Office for years without any
prospect of forcing it to a surrender on such a chal-
lenge. We had hoped that the whole of this tedious
business was done with ; that when Federals and
Confederates had agreed to bury the hatchet even
Lord Russell and Mr. Adams might have smoked
the pipe of peace together. We were sadly dis-
appointed by the issue of last night's Gazelle. A
correspondence of a truly formidable nature was
before us. Not content, it seems, with despatches
of the ordinary dimensions, the rival diplomatists
have been pelting one another with treatises. Lord
Russell, whatever may be his faults, cannot fairly
be accused of wasting his autumn leisure. In his
last letter he positively gives us a new edition of
Vattel, a resume of the views on international law
of Kent and Story, Wheaton and Lord Stowell, a
summary of the history of the American revolu-
tionary war, with a second volume on the revolt of
the South American provinces ; a third on the
long-winded discussion between the United States
and Portugal regarding the manner in which the
former regarded their duty as neutrals. It would
be asking too much of the patience of our readers
were we to attempt to follow our indefatigable
Foreign Minister through the tremendous letter
which he indited on August 30 as an answer to
one sent him by Mr. Adams on May 20 of this
year. As it seems to have taken him three
months' hard work to compose it we should
do it scant justice were we to epitomise it in as
many minutes. " The time," he says, "is favour-
able to a calm examination of the facts and
principles involved in such cases." This calm
examination, accordingly, he proceeds to make after
his own fashion, which is not deficient in dearness
nor in point, but is certainly open to blame on the
general ground implied in the old proverb— Qui
s'excuse s'accuse. He strives to show that in their
early recognition of the belligerency of the South,
Her Majesty's Government correctly interpreted the
law of nations, and that with regard to the armed
cruisers they did all that they were justified in doing
to prevent them from sailing. On the first head,
Vattel comes in as a matter of course, and his dic-
tum is very clearly pronounced on the question of
belligerent rights in civil war. That America
should claim to exercise the rights of a belligerent,
while Great Britain was not allowed to claim those
of neutrals, was a position which Great Britain
could never permit. America herself had acted
over and over again in the same way as England,
and France in a similar civil war had sided with
our enemies. Lord Russell goes extensively into
the history of the civil war between the South
American States and the mother countries of Spain
and Portugal between 1810 and 1823. He dives
into the angry correspondence between the Portu-
guese and United States Governments on the sub-
ject of aid afforded by the citizens of the latter to
the Brazilian insurgents. Mr. Adams, the then
President of the United States, replied to the com-
plaint of Portugal by offering legal redress in the
American courts, adding—" But you cannot make
the Government of the United States responsible
for the acts of men on the high seas, over whom
the United States exercise no jurisdiciton." The
destruction of the commerce of Portugal was at this
time a regular trade in the ports of the North.
They had 40 or 50 armed cruisers on the sea,
manned by Americans, but flying the flag of Brazil.
In our case there have been but three or four,
which our Government certainly did its best to
seize before they could hoist the Confederate
colours. When, among his other argumentß
Lord Russell observes that the British Govern'
ment cannot be held responsible for the acts of men
who are beyond its jurisdiction, he reminds us of
the French general, who being asked by his King to
bombard a certain town, gave, in reply, a hundred
reasons why he could not do it, the first being that,
he had no artillery. Why, this simple fact shoal
a
dispose of the whole subject. " Supposing," sa9_,ll
Lord Russell, " that a merchant or passenger vesse;
belonging to the United States were to go to the
coast of Madagascar, and were to meet a ship from
Boston with cannon and muskets, and the merchant
ship being then armed were to take part against
Brazil in the war between Brazil and Paraguar:,
let me ask, I say, whether your Government wool,
think themselves bound to afford reparation to Brad.
for all the captures made by that ship ? Yet suci,
is the case of the Shenandoah." We cannot but
think that it would have been far more dignified
our Foreign Secretary to have briefly stated the
impossibility of acceding to such demands, than to
have gone into so lengthened and wearisome at
effort to rebut them, only to wind up with so wee:,
and humiliating a conclusion as that " her Majesty
Government are willing to consent to the appoint-
ment of a commission" to consider and determine
upon the claims arising between the two Govern'
ments during the civil war. We cannot conceive
that any good could arise from the labours of such,
a commission. It is to be hoped that the United
States Government will not avail itself of the tempt'
ing opportunity to reopen the hundred vexed queS'
tions which it were to be wished on all hands might
now be suffered to sleep. Mr. Adams has male
known the proposition, and awaits instructions
We, too, await his news with much apprehension;
We dare not say what effect upon the temper 01
this country, what disastrous disturbance of 01
present friendly relations between England all?
America, may not result from the deliberate 81'..
tempt to appraise the losses caused by the Confe:
derate cruisers and exact payment for them at on:.
hands. This, however, is the contingency for whiem.
Lord Russell has been preparing us.