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

THE PRESIDENT.

We are still without any intelligence of the long-missing
President. She sailed on the 10th of March, so that eighty-
five days have elapsed since she left New York ; and though
we are reluctant to abandon all hopes of her re-appearance,
it is impossible not to entertain the most serious apprehen-
sions as to her fate. Meantime, however, surmises more
easily formed than shown to be reasonably tenable, continue
to be indulged in by a portion of the press, and whatever
transpires on which the most remote possibility of her safety
can be hinged, is eagerly seized, and with more adroitness
than discretion, magnified into a strong probability, tending
to excite expectations which are unhappily blighted. Did
we consult our own individual feelings we should shrink from
a recurrence, for the present at least, to a subject that can-
not be touched without creating the most painful forebodings.
But as every thing that transpires relative to the ill-fated
vessel is looked for with anxiety by the public at large, we
are reluctantly constrained to the task.
On Wednesday a great sensation was created in the busi-
ness part of the town by the following information, furnished
to the Underwriters and Exchange News Rooms, by Cap-
tain Arbuthnot, of the brig Fortitude, which arrived at this
port that morning from Buenos Ayres :

" A very large steamer, without funnel, crippledforemast,
large paddle-boxes painted a dark colour, with a large square
topsail set on the main topmast ; topgallant sail on the fore
topmast, and with fore and aft sails, was seen by the Forti-
tude about ten miles distant, on the 27th of May, at five
o'clock, a.m. in latitude 47, N. longitude 24 30, W. steering
north-east, and making but slow progress."
This was calculated to cheer the drooping hopes of many
of those who felt an interest in the fate of the President,
though others cautiously abstained from forming hasty con-
clusions, or premises certainly somewhat vague and uncer-
tain, Our contemporary the Mail, with his accustomed
acuteness, came to the aid of the former in his paper of yes-
terday morning, in an article as follows :

"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 quiet 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 be 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 precisely
corresponding with Captain Arbuthnot'a 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 within a few hours, 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 and burthen, otherwise he would
not give " absurd circulation," to " most ridiculous"
assumptions, which those who are at all conversant with ma-
ritime affairs cannot " 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.