The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-28 00:00:00

The Loss of the London.

We have received the Report of the formal in-
vestigation by the Board of Trade respecting the
loss of the London. This report contains, no doubt,
all the information the public can ever receive as to
the cause of that terrible disaster. It occasioned
at first some natural feeling of dissatisfaction that
the representatives of those who were lost in the
sulp_were Acit ad q.etted to erossAanlin6- the wit-
nesses. Such .a:permission, however; would, it ap-
pears, be impossible under tre Ael'of Parliament
which directs these investigations; .7 and the report'
justly represents that .;sifeh a practice is at -once

unnecessary for. the4iirpose. of.ahE inquiry; and
might render -it %impracticable. The persons ap-
pointed by the Board of Trade :haveipower to call
any witnesses they, may think..neceSsary, including
the- passengers anti their representatives, and to
cross-examine them as they -'please: t.' Tliese're-
sponsible and eipe;rieneed. Assessors are- not likely
to ndglec't ;any point of uncertainty in.-the Ovi;
deuce ;': while if the: representatives :of.'all. the pas,
sengers whp wqro lost in such a ship as theiLondon
were allowed...to
,cross7examine, the witnesses at
pleasure, the, investigatlon might ,
,be 4, indefinitely
prolonged. The Court of Inquiry have 'examined no
less than 24 -witnesses,- who all 'Mil either a personal
knowledge eff the condition of the ship 'or were 'ex-
perienced in shipbuilding, and the most minute par:
ticulars afffethy theseaworthiness of the,vessel have
been inqui#d into: .r.fbe result, moreover, is on the
whole as sitisfactOry.as could be expected., . It sets
at rest seyral disputed points, and indicates at least
the proxiigate caust of the disaster. . - :"
It appears, inthe first place, that the general
equipmcht of the ship amply sustainedther previous
reputati4. The-Surveyor of Lloyd's and the Emi-
grationf fficers at Gravesend and Plymouth concur
in repong her as in all respects a good vessel.",
The weight of the cargo and its stowage were the
next points of inquiry; and with 'respect to these
also the Report decides that the ship Was in a satis-
factorr cdudition. -'he manner "of the stowage is
pronounced ~:,to..have- ,bee v_ unobjectionable, and
there ',,is ny 4014 that, according to the. standard
adopted
,by Lloyd's ~Surveyors,., and - the ~ practice
of suchshipiin general, the London.waa not Over-
loaded. The Court, indeed, 'adVert to sonic' evi-
dence to' a contrary' purpOrt: ghren by a retired
shipbuilder, of Liverpool,: and-they-appear to think

_ .
that his" opinion is:lot-.to betaltagether disregarded.
They repeat, moreover, the Jecominenclation they
bad a4eady made in the case of the; Amalia, that
the deep load line should be permanently marked
on all vessels carrying passengers and Merchandise.
?Vith*espece to the'Aoyage of
Se coalsq on deck, e 4 the `Shin 'havipi; --:1 ,t, 1- h
iota gear aloft, the Court observe that
she only followed in these particulars the usual
practice of all vessels engaged in the same line of
trade. They censure the practice, however, in de-
cided language. It is impossible to say whether, as
a matter of fact, these circumstances contributed in
any degree to the loss of the ship ; but it may be
hoped, now that attention has been thus forcibly
called to the danger they involve, that they will for
the future be avoided. The only other point relative

to the despatch of the vessel from port was the state
of the weather when she started from Plymouth. As
this is a point upon which Captain Martin has been
severely blamed, it is satisfactory to be assured that
there is no foundation for such a censure. Captain
Stoll, the emigration officer at Plymouth, gave the
readings of the barometer on the sth Jan , the day
the ship sailed, on the 6th, and on the 7th. There
was a rise in those days of about three-eighths of an
inch, and this agrees with the state of the weather
as reported by those on board the ship. Instead,
therefore, of the ship having sailed in the face of
threatening weather, there appears no doubt that
"the weather was very favourable." In fact, for the
first two days after leaving Plymouth, "the weather
was moderate." It was not until Monday, the Bth,
that " it began to blow strong."
We now come to the actual history of the disas-
ter. Here, again, every one will be glad to observe
at the outset that one of the points conclusively
established relieves the captain from another ground
of censure. Severe reflections had been cast upon
him for his supposed imprudence in putting his
ship before the wind. It is agreed upon, how-
ever, "by all the seamen who were examined, that
she was never put before the wind until the fore-
noon on the day she went down," and then only in
order to lower the port cutter in which the survivors
left the ship. This exculpation of the captain on
the points respecting which we have conclusive
evidence, combined with his high professional
character, is justly held by the Court to preclude
any unfavourable judgment respecting doubtful
questions in the subsequent management of the ship.
it is not probable that a man of such experience,
and who behaved so admirably in the moment of
supreme peril, would have committed any serious
errors, and we must believe that the points of
apparent difficulty could have been satisfactorily
explained if any of the officers had survived to give
an account of them. Moreover, the result of this
part of the inquiry is sufficiently definite to render
any such questions of very subordinate importance.
There is no doubt that the proximate cause of the
loss of the ship was the sea getting into the engine-
room and extinguishing the fires. This disaster is
alone sufficient to account for all that followed, and
it only remains, therefore, to inquire by what means
the sea was enabled thus to break into the engine-
room. On this point the Court speak with less cer-
tainty, and appear inclined to think the immense
body of water which poured suddenly into the en-
gine-room could hardly have been admitted if the
ship had not sustained some further injuries beyond
those which were observed. Here, however, one
point is certain, and is
furnish
us
s sky-
light with
a practical result. It is sufficient to
to
engine-roome
was washed away, and that the water poured
into the room immediately afterwards. When we
are informed that the hatchway thus left unpro-
tected presented an opening of 12ft. bin. by 9ft.
Gin., we must conclude that if this accident did not
actually cause the final disaster, it was amply suffi-
cient to cause it. The practical question, therefore,
to which the inquiry is reduced is " how the sky-
light was carried away, whether by any imperfec-
tion in its construction, or by carelessness in not
keeping it properly fastened down." On these points
the evidence leaves us to some extent uncertain.
A portion of the jibboom which had been blown
overboard had been recovered, and was fastened
to one stanchion of the hatchway, and it may
be that this floated with the water on deck, and
contributed to unship the skylight. In other re-
spects the hatchway seems to have been as well
secured from the outside as its construction ad-
mitted. There is no evidence, however, enabling
the Court to say whether " the inside fastenings of
the skylight were the weak points of the ship." As
to the construction of the skylight the report says,
that if properly secured it was a sufficient protection