The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-24 00:00:00

THE LATE CAPTAIN HARRISON.

If we had been told that the Great Eastern had
gone down in the recent gales off the Irish coast the
loss would have been greater—the surprise and
regret scarcely less than that which the death of
Capt. Harrison will occasion. So completely had
this gentleman been identified in public opinion
with the vessel he so lately commanded that with
his disappearance from the scene the great experi-
ment seems to have prayed a failure, and that of the
Great Ship and of all the anxieties about her there
is an end. Of course this is not so. This is the
mere sentiment of the matter. The solution of the
great problem upon which we have been so long
engaged does not hang upon the life of any one
man. He is gone, and another will take his place.
Had he perished in the midst of his recent struggles
with the elements we should have been the better
reconciled to his loss, and it would have seemed
natural that some one who had acted as his second
in the conflict should have taken the command in
chief. As the affair has actually gone the triumph
remained with Captain Harrison alone, and it is
natural that we should associate his name alone
with the result, and presume that no other man
could have achieved the like success. From first to
last Captain Harrison had directed the operations
of the Great Eastern. He was to be seen at Milwall
scrambling about her framework when she was a
mere chaos of iron plates ; he went through all the
agonies of her launch, when the question was how
the Great Eastern was to be transferred from dry
land to the element where she was to find her more
permanent home; he took her down the river, and
to take her down the river was a task that many
persons had pronounced to be impracticable.
Through the sandbanks at the mouth of the Thames
and off the southern coast of England he conveyed
her in safety to the Isle of Portland, and the trial
was complete. Whatever may come of it in after
times, the first trial trip of the Great Eastern de-
monstrated that an enormous fabric such as this
could float in safety upon the watery element ; it
is for those who come after us to profit by the
experiment which has been made at so enormous a
cost. As far as mechanics and the science of navi-
gation are concerned the question has been set at
rest for ever. Whether it be advisable and profit-
able to adhere to the old system of smaller ships, or
whether the preferable course would be to go to sea
in these huge Leviathans, is one thing; whether
it can be done is another. It is now cleirly ascer-
tained that as far as speed and safety are concerned
the great ships will answer the purposes of their
projectors. With imperfect rnaehinery, under all
the disadvantages of a first experiment, with an un-
trained crew, and with the elemental powers doing
their worst against him, poor Captain Harrison
proved that the thing was to be done, and that great
ships are as seaworthy as small ones, and equally
under human control.

We have nothing to add, as far as definite infor-
mation is concerned, to the particulars of this sad
accident, with which our readers are fully ac-
quainted. Captain Harrison, the man who had been
placed in command of the most magnificent fabric
which the wit and hand of man had ever devised to
float upon the surface of the waters—of the Great
Ship which was worthy of the waves of the Atlan-
tic against which she was destined to struggle, has
been drowned in a puddle. lie went down in a few
feet of water, within a few yards of the shore, where
hundreds of persons were standing eager to render
him assistance. It is scarcely possible to read the
details of the story with common patience. A rough
day in a liver, a lightly built gig, a puff ot wind,
and a hitch in a rope's run—such seem to be the
chief elements of this lamentable tale. As the matter
was discussed in London on the afternoon of Satur-

ay and Sunday, there seemed to be a doubt whe-

ther Captain garrison's death was I', a'ly attribut-
able.' to drowning of to a fit of apoplexy. It is not,
however, of much consequence whether death was
caused by absolute suncation by water, or by a sud-
den fit, the result of the immersion at so inclement
a season and of the general shock. All that we
are concerned with is to ascertain that the by-
standers and spectators rendered all the assist-
ance in their power, and that medical skill was
instantly forthcoming to fan once more into ac-
tivity the spark of life, had it not been hope-
lessly and for ever extinguished. Upon both these
points we have ample satisfaction. It seems to
have been quite impossible that more could have
been done to carry help to the drowning men,
for the officer of the watch on board the-Indus,
close to which vessel the accident occurred, seems
to have foreseen it before it happened, and mea-
sures for a rescue were taken while the ill-fated
boat was still holding on her course. Again, no
sooner had the body of the unfortunate gentleman
been recovered than every appliance which medical
skill could suggest was at hand to call him back
to life. If sailors could have helped poor Captain
Harrison they were there to pluck him from the
angry sea. If medical skill had been of any
avail, his insensible form, as soon as it was con-
veyed ashore, was surrounded by men able and
eager to preserve so valuable a life to his family,
to his friends, and to the world.
We have, then, nothing to add to the particu-
lars given with reference to this sad accident
in our impression of yesterday. The gig of the
Great Eastern was upset in a puff of wind a few
yards from the entrance of the Southampton
Docks, and poor Captain Harrison, who had con-
ducted so many vessels in safety so many times
across the Atlantic, went down with her. All
that we can do for him now is to offer over his
untimely grave the expressions of our regret, with
which we are very confident the whole country
will sympathise. It is a great thing for a man to
have attained that point—that in this busy country
his death is felt as a national loss. Why should not'
honour be paid to such a man ? Even before his
name was connected with the experiment of the Great
Ship he was the very type of the bold and skilful
seaman who gives to England her sovereign posi-
tion among the nations of the world. No doubt s
kind of romantic feeling has attached itself to his
name in consequence of his connection with the
vessel around which the expectations of the nation
had so thickly clustered; but, independently of
this, the premature destruction of so valuable a life
would have been a loss to the country. There can
be no doubt that the Great Eastern has been got
ready for sea under untoward auspices. First,
Brunel, the great engineer who planned the fabric,
has been called away before his course was fairly
run ; then, when she was once afloat, the unfortu-
nate accident which occurred off the Sussex coast
cast a gloom over her first cruise ; then came the
gale off Holyhead—a rough welcome to the huge
stranger and of evil omen for the future to all who
read the future by the past. And now Capt. Har-
rison, the man who struggled so subeessfully against
so much that was adverse in the early days of the
Great Eastern, has been swept away in the fulness
of his strength and in the prime of his useful life.
We are far indeed from saying that fortuitous cir-
cumstances such as these should be allowed to have
any influence over the future action of those more
immediately interested in the result of the fortunes
of the Great Eastern. The truest way to show
honour to the memory of Capt. Harrison is to meet
this last calamity with the courage and fortitude
with which he himself encountered all previous
difficulties, and to esteem this last heavy blow but
as an additional incentive to exertion.—Tintes.