The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-05 00:00:00

1 The carpenter (Foster) was present at the time.
after taking down Smaca's and Foster's narratives,
- I asked Sniaca whether he had any more to say.
"TA replied that he had heard somebody on the
gay that the captain was drunk, but he said
-,4 as sober as he (Sniaca) was then, and
' like to see the man who said he was
-cards added, " I was running
-, messages from the captain
`lle officers to crew,
-ot drunk." Those
+. it is now de-

beach
that he wt._
that he would
drunk. He aften,
about all night carryinb
to the officers, and from l—
and I can swear that he was h
words I took down in writing, bu.
stroyed. ' yep were
In reply to the Coroner the jury said t ...
perfectly satisfied that the captain was
eviden.6' 011
soi.;9r; and
there was no necessity for further
that point.
At half-past 4 the jury came to the following ver-

dict -
" From the evidence tendered we are unanin otusly
of opinion that the deceased, James Walton' and
others, unfortunately lost their lives on board the
Royal Charter by pure accident ; that Capt. Taylor
was perfectly sober, and had done all in his power
to save the ship and the lives of passengers

Last night one of the divers descendeddown that I
part of the wreck where it is supposed the specie
lies, and brought up a bar of gold weighing 4Th., I
and a cash-box much crushed, containing a photo-
graph bearing the following address :—" James -Haw-
kins,Esq.,Wells -street, High-street, Wells, Somerset-
shire." No bodies were washed asbore either
last night or this morning, except a portion of
the mulilated body of an infant, which was con-
veyed this morning to the church. Persons who
had friends on board still continue to arrive and
seek admission into the church to view the
bodies which remain there to be identified. Every
facility axed attention is shown to them by the Rev.
Mr. Hughes, the rector.

(From the Times.)
It was scarcely to be hoped that the inquest held
on the unfortunate sufferers by the wreck of the
Royal Charter should have added much to our in-
formation upon this sorrowful story. The witnesses
before the Coroner's Jury were pretty much the
same persons who had already given their state-
ments to the world. What they had to tell they
had told. Although some fresh witnesses may have
been examined, it could. scarcely be supposed that
their testimony would contradict, or even modify,
the information at which we had already arrived
on any important particular. It is acknowledged
that Captain Taylor sailed his ship from Melbourne
to the Irish Channel in a most efficient and seaman-
like manner. Although the passengers on board
could not be accepted as very nice or accurate judges
of nautical skill, it appears that he had won golden
opinions from them all. All testimony to his con-
duct until the fatal Tuesday night was laudatory
in the extreme. Nor can it be supposed that even if
the passengers had the inclination they would have
had the opportunity of playing the censors upon
Captain Taylor during the pressure of the hurri-
cane. At 10 o'clock at night the anchors were let
go, and it was not until 2 a.m. the following morn-
ing that the cables parted. Until this moment not
a suspicion of danger appears to have crossed the
mind of any save one man. After the an-
chors were down Captain Adams, who was
a passenger on board the ship, said he should
not be surprised if she went ashore. In all
there were three men on board who had
acted as masters of ships. There was, first, Cap-
tain Taylor, and, as passengers, Captain Withers
and Captain Adams. As soon as the cables had
parted, and when danger presented itself in an open
and imminent form, Captain Taylor held a brief
consultation in the saloon with his two professional
brethren as to the best means of saving the ship.
What passed between them of course we cannot
tell, but we know that as soon as it was. over the
masts were cut away. The Royal Charter took the
sand at about half-past 5 o'clock a.m. It appears
in evidence that Captain Taylor went to where th e
ladies were collected together and said, " Ladies, I
think we are on a sandy beach, but I hope, by the
help of God, we shall get ashore when daylight
comes." So far, then, it seems that, even if Captain
Taylor made any professional mistakes, at least he
was in full possession of his composure and his
senses. He did not dine with the passengers on
Tuesday evening, but went down to the saloon
somewhat later to order some coffee for himself.
All questions put to the witnesses in cross-exami-
nation, suggesting that Captain Taylor was intoxi-
cated, or in any way the worse for liquor, entirely
failed of their object. It must be taken as a fact,
' that Captain Taylor on the fatal night was per-
fectly sober and in a fit state to attend to his
duty. Nor is there any evidence to show that he
was a man of intemperate habits. On the
contrary, Mr. H. Carew Taylor, one of the saloon
passengers, who lost his little child in the
wreck, deposed not only that Captain Taylor
was perfectly sober on the night of the calamity,
but that, in fact; he was a man habitually averse
from drink, as invariably, when offered a glass, he
refused it.
We should :not have laid so much stress upon
this point had we not found questions as to Captain
Taylor's sobriety so often repeated in the course of
the cross-examinations, and as the jury bring the
fact prominently forward in their verdict it is evi-
dent that their attention must have been strongly
directed towards it. Thus much would appear to
follow, that the gentlemen who examined the wit-
nesses were at a loss to suggest any other probable
cause for the loss of the Royal Charter. If the cap-
tain was sober and perfectly competent to the dis-
charge of his duty, was he guilty of any error of
judgment ? And, if not so, why was the ship driven
ashore, and how was it that she broke up so sud-
denly ? In such a case vie must not put ourselves
too much in the position of judges atter the fact.
It may be that when Captain Taylor let go his
anchors at 10 o'clock it would have been more
advisable for him to steam out into mid-channel,
and accept the whole fury of the storm where
plenty of sea-room was to be found. If
the machinery, spars, and rigging of the Royal
Charter had been fit to stand the brunt of that
rough experiment we now know that it would
have been better had it been tried. This, how-
ever, is not the question ;—we have to ascertain
what, in the opinion of the most competent pro-
fessional judges, Captain Taylor ought to have
done at 10 o'clock on Tuesday night, taking into
account the condition of the weather, the lie of the
coast, and the capabilities of his ship. Was he
right, then, in letting go his anchors ? On such a
point it scarcely beseems us to offer an opinion,
but it certainly appears to landsmen that Captain
Taylor, in anchoring so close to such a shore, took
upon himself an awful responsibility if any other
course was open to him. He was trusting the
safety of five hundred lives to the links of two
chains, or to the chance that his anchors would
continue to bold when the hurricane was pouring
its full force on the ship. Immediately the anchors
began to drag there arose the second question, as
to whether or not it ws.s advisable to cut away the
spars, mainly lest th&Arift should interfere with
the action of the screw. Upon this last point, how-
ever, we have it in evidence that the ship only
ceased to use the screw when she was hard and
fast, and therefore a sound discretion was used in
this particular. Surprise has been expressed that
so little effort was made to organise means of
saving the passengers after the vessel had taken
the beach. It should be observed, however, that
at half-past 5 a.m. at this season of the year it is
pitch dark, and we know that as soon as it was
light enough to see a hawser was sent on shore.
If we are to attach credit to the Captain's own
words, as reported by the witnesses, he himself
had no idea but that when daylight came and the
ebb tide had done its work they would all get
easily enough to the shore, from which they were
but 30 yards distant. The sudden breaking up
of the vessel at seven o'clock seems to have been
quite an unexpected event, and the wretched pas-
sengers on board the Royal Charter and her ship's
company were hurried into eternity just at the mo-
ment they began to moke sure of their safety. After
the great crash came all human help was unavail-
ing. The destruction was the work of a few seconds
—of a minute or two at most. _ . .

We now come to another part of the inquiry,
and this is as to the actual condition and seawor-
thiness of the Royal Charter. A correspondent,
whose letter was printed the other day, and than,
whom there could not bea more competent witness_
on the subject on which he was writing, gave it as
his opinion that the ship went to pieces because
the iron of which she was composed was of an in-
ferior quality. In making this statement it was
neither his intention nor his wii3ll to point any charge
against the owners or builders of the Royal Charter.
According to his statement, it is the custom of all
our iron shipbuilders to build ti eir ships with com-
paratively bad iron. Any kind of iron is good
enough for a ship's plate. The result is that when
the vessel is subjected to any enormous strain she
breaks asunder or goes to pieces. The Birkenhead
broke her back, and a few thumps on the rocks
split the Royal Charter into two, end then into
three pieces, almost instantaneously. Now, he
contends, if suitable iron had been used, this
would. not have been so. This is a point that
should bo looked to, for the inspections held
by the Board of Trade upon seagoing iron ships
are but so many solemn farces if the very material
of which the body of the ship is constnieted is to
give way the first time it may be put to the proof,
It has also been stated, since this subject has been
so painfully forced upOn the attention of the public,
that the heads of the rivets by which the plates are
held together in iron ships are apt to get loose, and
tbg thv could be prevented b 7 the emploiment of