The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-04-05

the Atlantic.
We publish to-day the statement of the Cap
tain of the unfortunate steamer Atlantic, made
in an interview with the HERALD correspond
emit at Halifax. Although by no means full or
satisfactory. the story affords, as far as it goes,
still further evidence of the criminal neglect
or incompetency which led to the terrible
catastrophe of last Tuesday morning Cap.
tain Williams pretends that he had q sufficient
supply of coal when he left Liverpool, yet he
admits that ssthree days of heavy weather"
upset all such calculations and left him with
out sufficient coal to enable him to reach New
York without putting into Halifax. The heavy
weather did not, however, delay his vessel, for
he had been but eleven days out, and was
about two days from New York, when his sup
ply was exhausted; so that the facts fatty con-
tradict his assertion and prove that he
could not have had sufficient coal aboard
when he left Liverpool The Captain knows
not how to account for the error in reckoning
the position of the ship. except on the ground
that the current had stronger northeriy set
than he imagined, and 80 carried him out OF
his course. He admits that he was not on
deck, but was Sin the chart ROOM" when the
vessel struck. The lead lines and anchors were
ready, he says, but the leads had not been
used because they were not approaching q
low, sandy shore; besides, he did not think
it necessary, because the night, though over
cast was clear, and he knew that Sambro light
should be seen from fifteen to twenty miles.
So, although he did not see the light, and
although, if his own reckoning had
been correct, he must, at three o'clock
in the morning, have been within
eighteen miles of Sambro Island,
his vessel was kept steaming on at full head
way until she struck the fatal rock. There
lect through which the calamity occurred.
But when we compare other stories with the
Captain statement, when we find that Quar-
termaster Thomas, when he cautioned the
officer in charge Of the deck that he should
not stand in to the land so, as the ship had
run her distance to make Sambro light, was
told that he was not captain or mate, and
should mind his own business; when we
learn that the second officer Intellectually
warned the Proposing" Captain, half on hour
before the vessel struck, that the weather was
getting thick, the carelessness of the COM
mander and the ineficiency Of his subordi-
nate officers appear equal in guilt to wholesale
and deliberate murder. 44 n
The particulars Of this great calamity, now
fully before us in all their ghastliness, teach
some lessons which timely word ought to
impress upon the public mind. 1t is no con-
genial task to pronounce severe judgment
upon those who are officially responsible for
the loss of the Atlantic human freight. Who
ever they may be they must stand self
crushed and doomed to behold visions more
grim and terrible than those of Clarence amid
the remorseful memories Of last Monday
night But the people should and will know
just the circumstances which led to the fatal
blunder of Captain Williams, and just how
tar the responsibility of the calamity rests
upon the managers and owners of the vessel
he commanded.
Captain Williams left Liverpool at the be-
ginning of the equinoctial and stormy season,
when every seaman knows that he has to
deal with the most dangerous and treacherous
weather. The voyage from Liverpool to New
York is, taking the year round, at least one
seventh longer than the return voyage, be-
cause the westward bound mariner must not
only stem the current of the Gulf Stream, but
face the terrific westerly winds which drive
the water current eastward The regular
steamship passage from Liverpool to New
York is fourteen days, and the return twelve
days, and although in propitious gales and
streaks of fine weather it has been now and
then made in nine days, in March and April
it oftener takes more than the average time.
So furious were the gales Of last Winter that
many sailing vessels, arriving at this port
early in April, consumed sixty days from Liv-
erpool-some as high as seventy, and one
took ninety odd days. The early Winter
winds were so strong that the Britannia was
thirty-two days steaming from Glasgow to
New York, and the full-powered Cunard
steamer Algeria, in one westward trip, con-
sumed over twenty days. The wind and
storm charts invariably designate the Atlantic
Ocean in March and April as peculiarly peril
GUS and liable to the most disastrous gales of
the year. 1t SO happened last year that on
the 10th of April, when on her way to New
York, the Adriatic, under Captain Murray,
made the extraordinary run, from observation
to observation, of three hundred and ninety
three miles but he must have been on the
northern side of an Atlantic hurricane, and,
indeed, his log shows that on the 18th of
April he was overtaken by the most furious
northwest gale, which always follows
such a storm. But this was fortnight
longer after the equinox than the late
Atlantic's trip, and Captain Murray's was,
at best, merely accidental run, counter