The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-13 00:00:00

CORRECTED LIST OF THE OFFICERS
LOST.

The following is a corrected list of the officers,
from the last return received at the Admiralty, who
are supposed to have been on board her Majesty's
ship Captain :
Captain.—Hugh T. Burgoyne, V.C.
Commander.—Richard Sheepshanks.
Lieutenants.—Charles Giffard, Francis 13. Renshaw,
Richard P. Pardon, Robert F. Castle, and Edward W. E.
Boxer.

Second Captain, R.M.A.—Richard A. Gorges.
Lieutenant Marine.—John A A. Eckford.
Chaplain and Naval Instruct or.—Rev. Edmund S.
Powles.
Staff Commander. Robert J. C. Grant.
Paymaster.—Julian A. Messum.
Assistant Paymasters.—Richard Cornish and Arnold
West.

Chief Engineer.—George Rock.
Staff-Surgeon.—Matthew Burton, M.D.
Surgeon.—Robert Purves.
Assistant Surgeon.—John Ryan.
Sub-Lieutenants.—Edward P. Hume, Lord Lewis
Gordon, Herbert F. Murray, Douglas E. D. Curry,
W. W. Glanville, James D. Kirkness, Arthur 0. R. 13.
Ternan, and Charles E. Goldsmith.

Navigating Sub-Lieutenant.—Arthur E. Tregaskis.
Engineers.—William C. Moreton, Peter Baldwin
Frederick Pursell, George H. Barnes, and John H.

Willis,

Midshipmen.—Gerald W. Trevor, Leonard G. E.
Childers, Alfred Ripley, Allan C. T. Manci, Hon. Arthur
T. N. Baring, Henry W. Gordon, Alfred A. Ashington,
Hon. William R. Herbert, Edmund F. Goodfellow, and
Edmund D. Ryder.
Assistant Engineers, Ist Class—George P. Gardiner,
Frederick J. Baron, and Thomas W. Curtis.
Assistant Engineers, 2d Class.—Alfred Parkis and Geo.
Harding.
Gunner, 2d Class.—* James May.
Boatswain.—Robert Davie.
Carpenter.—Charles Dyer.
Assistant Clerk.—William V. R. Hugh.
* James May, gunner 241 class, is the warrant officer
who is reported to have been saved.

The Evening Standard has been favoured with the follow-
ing private letter from an officer on board the Incon-
stant :—" H.M.S. Inconstant, at sea, off Cape Finisterre,
Bth September, 1870. "My dear Father,—We have
been, one might say, witnesses of the most terrible
tragedy in naval records. The Captain must
have foundered in a gale we had the night
before last in the very middle of the fleet. Everyone has
" perished—in number more than 600 and over a third of
them, in all human probability, were drowned in their
hammocks. As nothing was seen of her yesterday morn-
ing, and as the fleet all day yesterday, and again this
morning, have been employed in picking up her boats,
fragments of spars, upper works, and what is more
' ominous still, bits of polished mahogany that formed part
of her fittings between decks, nobody permits himself to
hope. We were the nearest ship to her, and the last
that saw her before the height of the gale. A terror
and awe indescribable are over everyone on board. Nobody
could have believed that we should have come with but littl e
damage out of weather that would produce such a catas-
trophe to a ship like the Captain. She was the famous
exponent of Captain Cowper Coles's turret and low free-
board theory, and the poor man was on board
her himself to observe her performances. Mr.
Childer's son is one of the victims. One very
ominous sign about the debris we have been picking
up is that we passed over the same. spots
where this morning we have been picking up spars, &c.
Yesterday I saw nothing tending to the belief that every-
thing was drawn down in the vortex and is taking some
time to detach from the wreck. We have been ordered to
get up steam at full speed, and to make the best of our
way to Plymouth to report to the Admiralty. Ido not
think the commander-in-chief wouid give orders tending
to terrify people in England if he thought that there still
existed any chance for the poor fellows ; in fact, the
admiral has made a general signal to the feet expressive ,
of his deep sorrow at the terrible loss. The general theory
is that she was taken'aback, her stern port either open or
burst in by the waves, and that she filled, and went down
by the stern. If such be the case she would not have
taken more than a quarter of an hour to settle, and the
weather was such that no boats could live. No bodies
have yet been found, or will be for some time probably;
but we picked up to-day a portion of the bowsprit,
with some roor fellow's black handkerchief tied
to it. He had evidently attempted to make
himself fast. All hope is now given up
(about eleven a.m., September, 1870). We have
started on our way home with the dread news. A terrible
accident occurred on board within the last ten minutes,
as though the last two days had not been sufficiently
pregnant in horrors. A gun, at exercise, fetched away,
and passed over a man,liilling him instantaneously, and
wounding two other men. It is wonderful (though under
the circumstances natural enough) to see the whole ship's
company completely awe-struck as they are. We certainly
in the last three days have supped of horror to repletion.
—Your affectionate son."

The Western Morning News says—Some of the officers .
the Inconstant have obliged us with additional facts. All
went well up to the 6th inst., on the afternoon of which
day Admiral Milne and his staff went on board the
Captain to witness from her a trial of sailinc,, in
which she was to take part, with the Monarch', In-
constant, and Bristol. The gallant admiral re-
mained on board the vessel until the evening,
happily declining the invitation of the officers to
remain to dinner, and go on board his own ship the next
morning. When he left the Captain, at about 7 p.m., the
sea was pouring over her upper deck in cataracts, so
much so that the admiral's galley was nearly swamped
whilst alongside. It is reported that when he arrived on
board the Lord Warden, Admiral Milne was heard to
say, " Thank God, he was on board his own ship again."
At 7 o'clock the Captain communicated with the fleet by
signal, and this was the last time she ever did so, as night
soon after closed in. About this time a gale sprung up
from the S. W., which all the vessels weathered out up
to 1.30 on the morning of the 7th. At that time the
Captain was seen from the Lord Warden steeling NN.W.
under trebled-reefed fore and main-topsails and fore top-
mast staysail. Fourteen minutes after, at 1.44 a.m., a
sudden tremendous squall struck the fleets, the wind
having shifted round to NN. W. Nearly all the vessels
were "taken aback," and a signal was made from the
Lord Warden to " wear ships." The squall lasted for
two hours, causing considerable loss to all the
ships in the topsails, which were split and
blown away. When the day dawned all the vessels of
the fleet were in sight with the exception of the Captain.
It was then presumed that when the wind shifted and the
signal to " wear " was given she had not observed it,
and standing on was now out of sight. Rumour says
that Admiral Milne, when he heard the report
that she was out of sight, said, "then she
went down last night ; I was afraid she would."
Towards the afternoon the Inconstant picked
up a piece of topmast and a launch's mast, and two
or three cutter oars, all in different places, The Warrior
discovered topsails, and the Hercules swinging booms and
a life buoy. The whole of these were observed to be
man-of-war gear ; and in the evening the Pysche,
despatch vessel, joined the squadron from Vigo—the
only port into which the' missing vessel was likely
to have put—and reported that she had observed, besides
much debris of wreck two man-of-war cutters, bottom up,
and a portion of the hurricane deck of a vessel. From the
latter she took the body of a seaman.

The Globe in trying to account for the foundering of the
Captain, says : —The sides of the vessel reached no higher
than the main deck, which, in a calm sea, was " eight
feet only above the water line." The advantage (which
those who saw the spirited picture in the Illustrated
London News a few weeks since will easily realise) of this
mode of construction was, that the water could in stormy
weather wash harmlessly over the main deck under the
upper platform, which would remain dry. The
`model is, however, necessarily subject to two great dis-
advantages. (There is a loss of all lateral pressure, beyond
this eight feet above the water line, to help the ship ' o
resist the wind and keep her upright on her keel; whi .0
directly she keels over, a great portion of her main deck
along the whole of one side is submerged, and becomes
for the length of some 300 feet a lever by which
the sea to leeward is enabled powerfully to assist the
force of the gale and waves to windward in their
efforts to upset the vessel. Sir Alexander Milne says that
when frmn &alit 5.3 U p.im" until aunt 1,30 a.m, I
constantly watched the ship, her topsails were either

close reefed or on the cap, her foresail was close up, the
mainsail having been furled at 5.30 p.m., but I could not
see any fore and aft set. She was keeling over a good
deal to starboard, with the wind on her port side." The
topsails, even when close-reefed and lowered down to the oar',
are at least 80 feet above the deck of a ship of this size, and 3
pressure of wind against them would be acting upon the
long arm of a rectangular lever, of which the fulcrum was,
4'
the ship's centre of gravity, and upon the short arm
which same lever (i.e., the submerged portion of the main
deck, when the vessel was keeling over) the water would
be exercising a termendous pressure in the same direction.
When we add to this the suddenness of the squall it is
easy to imagine that the unfortunate vessel must have
been in an. instant upset, past all chance of righting her-
self again.

Lord Lewis Gordon, who was lost, is a brother to the
Marquis of Huntley. Mr. W. Taylor, midshipman, had
exchanged with Mr. Alfred Ripley, midshipman of the
Royal Oak, and it is feared that the latter officer
must
be among those who went down in the Captain.
It was the Duke of Somerset who authorised the build-
ing of a turret ship on Captain Coles's principle. The
deceased officer and the Messrs. Laird were allowed to
construct the vessel unfettered by any *official interference.
One part of the programme to be carried out during the
present cruise is for the Monarch, Captain, and Hercules,
to test the relative quickness and accuracy of fire of their
heavy guns when discharging while running past a rock or
mark at the rate of four miles an hour, at a thousand
yards distance. It is said that in the first trial the
Hercules ffred 15 shots within five minutes the Monarch 8,
and the Captain 6. The second day the Hercules fired 17/
the Monarch 12, and the Captain 7 within the prescribe
time of five minutes. The Hercules fired from the four
other 18-ton guns on the one side of her battery, but did
not use either the four 18-ton guns on the other side, or
her two 12-ton guns. The Monarch and Captain used the
whole four of their heavy guns. The projectiles fired by
the Hercules were 400 lbs. in weight ; those of the
Monarch and Captain 6001bs. One of the 400 lb. chilled
projectiles, fired from the Hercules, broke up close to the
ship. There will, be further trials, which may skew 3
different ultimate result as to quickness.- The relative
accuracy of fire is as yet only known to the judges.—Wes'
tern Morning News. •