The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-22 00:00:00

DREADFUL HURRICANE ON THE

EAST COAST OF SCOTLAND.

ABERDEEN, SATURDAY EVENING. - Last night about
1,000 boats, each manned by five fishermen, left the various
ports of the coast of Scotland, betwixt Stonehaven and
Fraserburgh, for the herring fishery. When at the offing, at
about an average distance of 10 miles, and the nets down,
the wind, which had continued during the day at south
and south-west, suddenly chopped out to the south-east with
rain. About 12 o'clock it blew a gale, the rain falling in
torrents, and the night was so dark that none of the land
lights could be seen. As soon as the gale came some of the
fishermen began to haul their nets, but the sea ran so high
that most of the fleet had to run for the shore to save life.
At Fraserburgh, the boats being to leeward of Kinnaird's-
head, which forms the entrance to the Murray-frith, were
less exposed than the boats to the southward, and managed
to get a landing without loss of life ; but at Peterhead, which
is the eastermost point of the coast, and altogether exposed to
an easterly gale, 70 out of the 400 boats that were fishing
there are missing, and there is too much reason to fear that
most if not all of them are wrecked or sunk. At daybreak
this morning the scene that presented itself along the shore
between the Buchanness lighthouse and the entrance to the
south harbour, was of the most appalling description. The
whole coast for a mile and a half was strewed with wrecks
and the dead bodies of fishermen. Twenty-three corpses
were carried into Peterhead before nine o'clock, and at the
time the latest accounts left others were being constantly
thrown ashore among the wreck on the sands or the rocks.
Forty beats were wrecked within the circuit of half a mile,
and so sudden and awful was the catastrophe that no means
of succouring or saving the distressed and perishirg
fishermen could be devised. How many boats may have
foundered at sea or gone to pieces among the precipitous
cliffs of Buchan no one at present can tell. One thing
appears certain, that the lowest estimate of the loss of
life and property by this gale exceeds that produced by
any other hurricane hitherto recorded in the annals of the
east coast of Scotland. It is calculated that along the
coast not fewer than 100 lives are lost, and when it is consi-
dered that for the most part the deceased fishermen have left
wives and families, it will be felt that the widowhood and
orphanage of our seaport towns have received in one short
night an unparalleled augmentation.
n recording these melancholy facts the inquiry presents
itself, " How does it happen that the boats engaged in the
fisheries on the east coast of Scotland are constantly exposed
to such terrible calamities, while the boats engaged on the
east coast of England generally weather the storm?" The
answer is simply this—the boats on the English coast are
decked, while those on the Scotch coast are open. The
former are in every respect fitted out for the deep sea
fishery, and admirably adapted to withstand a gale ; the
latter, although mantled by hardy and most adventurous
fishermen, are adapted only fJr fair weather, constructed
solely with the view of prosecuting one object—the herring
fishery ; and while this system prevails here such terrible
calamities as those we have just recorded may be expected to
recur.

HER MAJESTY'S ANNUAL MARINE EXCURSION.—
On Wednesday last we noticed the revival of a report which
had reached us to the effect that the annual marine excur-
sion of her Majesty and Prince Albert would extend to Scot-
land. We have now reason to believe that the report is cor-
rect, and that the Queen will embark in the Royal yacht
Victoria and Albert, either the last day of the present or the
first of the next month, and will proceed to Dundee en route
to the newly-acquired. Royal Highland domain. It is not
expected that her Majesty will return to Osborne after the
prorogation of Parliament, but that the royal yacht will come
to Woolwich, and will embark the Queen, the Prince, aad
Royal Family at that port..—Herald.

THE VANCOUVER JOB.
(From the Chronicle.)
Notwithstanding the promised modifications in the ,-,rant
to the Hudson's Bay Company, we fear we must regard it as
a fixed thing that there is to be no British colony in Van-
conver's Island. For eleven years certain, and for so long
afterwards as we may find it inconvenient to discharge a bill
of costs that is run up against us in the meanwhile by an '
irresponsible corporation, this Britain of the North Pacific,
with its harbours, its coal-fields, its timber, its fertile soil,
and its genial climate, is to remain hermetically sealed
against colonizing enterprise. Two years ago we were ready
to go to war for our Vancouver's Island ; and now when the
time appears to have almost arrived for our doing something
really useful with it—when its mineral treasures, in • parti-
cular, offer the most natural source of supply to the new
steam navigation between Panama and the Columbia River
—our rulers tell us they can think of nothing better than
to cede it, in fee simple, to a sort of corporate Nim-
rod, whose only known qualifications for the boon are, a ve-
hement antipathy to colonies and colonization, a very in-
different general repute, and a pending Government inquiry
with respect to certain grave specific accusations. Apart from
those special circumstancPs in the present position of the Ilud-
son's Bay Company which give this transaction a peculiar
character of shameless precipitancy. we cannot but pro-
nounce it one of the most unwarrantable proceedings which
even the Colonial Office has been guilty of within our recol-
lection. We can most unaffectedly say, that we impute no
unworthy motive in the matter to Earl Grey: for it passes
our ingenuity to imagine any motive, good or bad, which
can have prompted his Lordship to take this extraordinary
freedom with public property: and certainly, the distress-
ingly feeble apologetic attempts of Mr. Hawes and Mr.
Charles Buller, on Friday night last, do not afford us a par-
ticle of real explanation. We only look at the fact; and we
say, without reserve, that the Colonial Secretary, by this
monstrous cession, has put a noble island under lock and key,
and effectually interdicted Englishmen from colonizing an
English territory. There will never be a colony, worth call-
ing a colony, in Vancouver's Island, so long as the Hudson's
Bay Company have the ownership of it. After Mr. Glad-
stone's powerful and crushing exposure of the character and
history of these fur-trading monopolists, we defy the most
sanguine of human beings to believe in the possibility of the
island ever being colonized while they are the lords of its soil.
Of course they will take care, between now and this day
five years, to found some sort of factory or settlement,
which shall be just enough to save their grant from for-
feiture. There will be no difficulty in getting together a
little squad of company's servants, or retired servants,
company's creatures, company's debtors, company's grantees
and lessees, buying everything at the company s prices,
holding everything on the company's terms, and liable to in-
stant loss of everything for breach of covenant; and with
a free constitution, and an " extended suffrage," the whole
thing will be as respectable-looking a sham as ever made a
show on paper. But there will be no British colony. The
youngest man alive will never live to see that grow up under
the shadow of a gigantic and tyrannous monopolist corpora-
tion. Trading companies have never colonized well—this
company will never colonize at all. A fur-trading corpora-
tion, simply because it is a fur-trading corporation
is intrinsically anti-colonizing, in all its interests and
ideas. A desert territory, inhabited only by scattered tribes
of nomadic and unreclaimed barbarians, with just enough of
civilization to be capable of feeling those wants which
prompt men to encounter toil and hardship for the sake of
luxuries and stimulants—such is the beau ideal of a
fur country. Precisely in proportion as a land be•
comes peopled, and cultivated, and civilized, does it
become unfit for the fur-trader's uses. Spinning-
ennies and feudalism, railways and Colonel Sib-
thorp, high farming andgaine-preserving (which last, by
the way, is exactly what our Hudson's Bay Company live
by) are not more irreconcilably antagonistical than coloniza-
tion and fur-trading. The history of the Hudson's Bay Com•
pany completely bears us out in this. It is just what one
might expect would be the history of an association deriving
immense profits from a well-protected traffic in the skins of
wild animals. During the century and a half, or there-
abouts, that these traders have held a virtually uncontrolled
sway over a territory as large as the whole of Europe, they
have never founded a colony. The only seeming exception
is the Red River settlement, with its population of five thou-
sand—English, Indians, and half-breeds. Strictly speaking,
however, the Red River settlement was not founded by the
company at all, but ty an enterprising nobleman (Lord Sel-
kirk) who had bought an over-ruling proprietary influence
in the company, at a time when its stock was at an un-
usually low price, and who had, consequently, a dominating
voice in its councils. It was founded in direct opposi-
tion to the protest of all the independent shareholders,
who memorialized the Government of the day (in 1811)
to the effect that " it has been found that colonization is at
all times unfavourable to the interests of the fur trade."
This Red River settlement has, in fact, ever been an object of
the Company's jealousy and dislike; and, at this moment,
there are gentlemen in England, entrusted by the settlers
with a petition to the Queen, signed by about a thousand
names—nearly the whole adult population of the place—in
which the Company are accused of gross and systematic op-
pression—fiscal, commercial, and judicial. Why, the very
tenure on which these unhappy Red River settlers hold their
lands—every grant including, as it does, a covenant to sub-
mit, under pain of forfeiture, to all the exclusive trading pri-
vileges of the Company, and to all its rules, regulations, and
taxes, both in ease and in posse—is enough to show us what
sort of colonies and colonization may be looked for from Lord
Grey's new friends. There is really no need, however,
of arguing the question of the colonizing dispositions
and purposes of the new proprietors of Vancouver's
Island. It is quite sufficient to hear Mr. Hawes
and Mr. Charles Buller. These gentlemen inform us, as
plainly as men can speak, that it is a mere make-believe co-
lony that the company are now expected to found. Mr.
Buller, in particular, is, we observe, entirely of our opinion
on this point. We said, a month ago, that the intended
grant was equivalent to " condemning the island to remain
unpeopled for the next century ;" and we gather from the
explanation given by the enlightened and eloquent advocate
of " systematic colonization," that this is precisely what the
Government contemplate. It is a " great error," we are
told, to "consider Vancouver's Island a noble field for colo-
nization ;" and, for his own part, Mr. Buller "does not wish
to see such an experiment as the settlement of a large body
of Englishmen in that island." He cannot even imagine
" what a great colony could do there ;" and in his judgment
people will do well to " consider whether they must not
make up their minds that Vancouver's Island will
remain with comparatively few inhabitants for the
next fifty years." A few minutes afterwards, we find
the " fifty years" grown into "fifty or a hundred years"—
which was exactly our computation. We need not point
out to the sagacious reader that all this is simply telling the
company before hand to take it easily, since next to nothing
is either expected or desired from them. Could there possibly
buting parties ti
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has been huddled up, at a moment when charges of the most
serious character--charges which the Government pro-
fess to deem deserving of deliberate investigation—are
pending against the favoured company. Mr. Hawes's tone
on this subject cannot but be most offensive to honest and
right-minded men. Rarely, we may add, has the commonsense
of the public been insulted by such a hodge-podge of contra-
dictions as that amid which the Hon. Gentleman went floun-
dering on, when he came to this disgraceful topic. He tells
us, almost in one and the same breath, that " he is of opinion
that the defence already made on behalf of the company is a
satisfactory one," and that " nevertheless he is willing to ad-
mit that it is desirable the whole matter should be carefully
character"
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to sophisticate and boggle in this style. Altogether, this is a
deeply-painful subject. One of the very few opportunities—
perhaps, literally, the last opportunity—which, in the nature
of things, England can now have of founding a colony tho-
roughly worthy of herself, is about to be worse than frit-
tered away. " Here is a small beginning," as Mr. Gladstone
impressively suggests, "which may lead to great results ;"
and the Government have determined that it shall be a bad
beginning. Once let that anti-colonizing, anti-commercial,
and most un-English corporation lay its hands on Vancou-
ver's Island, and the colony is spoiled for colonizing pur-
poses. The colony will take a wrong set in its infancy, and
will never grow straight again in our time.

THE AUTHOR OF THE RAILWAY
SYSTEM (?)
TO THE EDITOR ON
THE SUN.
Stu,—Your Exeter correspondent, in a somewat perem p .
tory tone, claims for Thomas Gray the title of h " Author of
the Railway System," which I, in a work published two
years ago, applied to George Stephenson. The death of the
distinguished subject of my eulogium no doubt induced you
to quote the passage in which I attempted to do justice to
the first of our Railway Engineers. That I have done no
more than justice to George Stephenson, I shall have no diffi-
culty in proving.
The merits of Thomas Gray are undoubtedly great. It 18
much to be regretted, for the credit of the nation, that they
have not been acknowledged in a suitable manner, either by
Government or the wealthier members of the railway public.
Thomas Gray was the author of a great idea, but George
Stephenson was not only the author of a great idea, but he
turned that idea into a great fact.
He planned and constructed the Stockton and Darlington,
the first public railway. the Act for which was obtained
in 1821. He planned and constructed the Liverpool and
Manchester, which came from his hands a perfect work—up
to the present hour it remains a pattern railway. lie applied
mechanical powers of the very first order to the locomotive
engine, and taking it up where Trevethic left it, turned what
had previously been scarcely more than an ingenious experi-
ment into a practically useful machine, more economical than
horse power. He did more, while constructing the. Liverpool
and Manchester Railway—he founded the modern school of
railway engineers. Almost all the most remarkable railway
works in the world have been constructed by his pupils.
These facts are matters of history, well known to all
acquainted with the progress of our railway system. With
such facts before my eyes, I think the great body of your
readers will admit that,so tar from exaggerating,l simply did
justice in terming George Stephenson the author of our rail.
way system.—l am, &c.
Westminster, Aug. 22, 1848.

S. SIDNEY.

THE WEATHER.—LIYEEPOOL, MONDAY, HALF"
PAST FOUR P.M.—Early this morning a gale commenced
blowing from the south-east., accompanied with heavy showers
of rain. Towards noon it shifted round to the north-west,
and has gradually increased to a hurricane. We are happy
to state that as yet we have no disasters to record, the
landing stage, to which large iron bridges have lately been
added, although presenting an immense surface to the wind,
outstanding the hurricane nobly.
PRAYERS FOR FINE WEATHER.—It was publicly
notified from the pulpits of the various Roman Catholic
churches and chapels in the metropolitan district, on Sunday
morning, that it was the desire of the bishop that each mem-
ber of the community should offer his individual prayers for
more favourable weather for the harvest than has hitherto
been experienced during the present season.
STORM IN THE NORTH.—On Friday night, and
till four o'clock on Saturday morning last, the counties of
Cumberland and Westmoreland, especially the latter, were
visited by a tremendous storm of wind and rain, which has
done a great deal of dam age. Numbers of large forest trees
were torn up by the roots; the stooks of corn in the harvest
fields were scattered far and wide, and considerably damaged ;
and hundreds of bushels of apples and other fruit, which are
not ripe, were scattered from the trees, many of which were
blown down, while ethers were much shattered. All the
rivers were much swollen.