The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-04 00:00:00

"THE PRESIDENT SAFE!

" In the midst of the numerous and most ridiculous re-
ports so absurdly circulated, regarding the probable fate of
the President, it is in the highest degree gratifying to us to
be the first newspaper to announce that there is an almost
absolute certainty of her safety, and that she may, ere long,
be expected again to anchor in the qnier waters of the Mer-
sey. By the brig Fortitude, which arrived yesterday morn-
ing, we learn that a steamer, with her machinery disabled,
and exactly answering her description, was seen on Friday
last, near to the Azores Island, under sail, and apparently
steering for Ireland. She was almost in the tract of the
Halifax mail steamers ; and as the Britannia, which has been
due several days, has not come into port, we think it exceed-
ingly probable that she may have the President in tow, and
will bring her up in the course of the day, or give a satis-
factory information that she has left her safely moored in
the harbour of Cork." He concludes by furnishing, as the
ground of his argument, the information above quoted, as
received from Captain Arbuthnot.
We deeply regret that the sanguine expectations of our
contemporary, amounting to" an almost absolute certainty",
have already been wholly and lamentably dissipated. The'
vessel which Captain .Arbuthnot saw (and with whose report
the Mail takes a liberty which it does not warrant, in stating
that it conveyed an exact description of the President), has
since arrived in this port, and turns out to be the London,
from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which had been crippled in her
foremast, and had some timber piled on her decks, that, at the
distance of ten miles might he mistaken for paddle-boxes.
This is placed beyond a doubt by the latitude and longitude
of that vessel on the day and at the hour mentioned precisel)
corresponding with Captain Arbuthnot's account.

The Mail speaks of. " numerous ridicuious reports ab-
surdly circulated" regarding the President, and not con-
tented with very kindly discovering that vessel, and
announcing an " almost absolute certainty of her safety,"
he condescendingly undertakes to have her towed up into the
" quiet waters of the Mersey," or into Cork, by the royal
mail steam-ship Britannia, which he puts it down as exceed-
ingly probable had fallen in with her! Ridiculous as have
been the reports alluded to by the Mail, and all of which he,
too, "absurdly circulated" in this town, no conjecture half
so ridiculous or absurd as that the little Britannia would be
sure to overtake the huge President, and tow her from
the vicinity of the Azores to the Sloyne ! This man-
ner of accounting for the Britannia being a day or
two beyond the usual time is worthy of the ingenuity of the
wiseacres of Liver-court, but it is nevertheless exceedingly
ridiculous and absurd. If the Britannia fell in with the Pre-
sident at all, (which is not very probable,) all she could do—
being a mail boat conveying important dispatches and letters
under a government charter—would be to take off the pas-
sengers and crew, if she were in a very leaky or dangerous
state, and abandon her ; or, if otherwise, but with her ma-
chinery disabled, take off the passengers, and supply the
crew with provisions, or such stores or assistance, as would
enable them to hold out in working her home. This, unless
the weather were stormy, could be accomplised in a few
hours, a delay beyond which no captain of a mail steamer would
care to incur, as it would involve a breach of his instructions.
If she were found in distress in the proximity of a port
that could be reached a fe the Britannia,
it
may be added, might probably have given her a tow.
But even on the supposition that the Britannia had become
a steam-tug for once, by what logic, by what nautical calcu-
lation, according to Moore or Norris, does the Mail make it
out, that both vessels will "be up "at Liverpool on the day he
writes.. He knows nothing of the difficulties and tardiness of
towing a vessel of that size ar.d burthen, otherwise he would
not give " absurd circulation," to " moat ridiculous"
assumptions, which those who are at all conversant with ma-
ritime, affairs cannot 4` hoist in." We shall not be sur-
prised after this to find it announced by the erudite writers
of the Mail, that they have discovered the desiderata of
the longitude, and the squaring of the circle.