, 1875-01-23
THE BURNING OF THE CosPATRICK.
From The Daily News.l
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lEAom Ae Oay e"e
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The brief accounts Of the loss Of the Cospa-
trick are unhappily confirmed by later and
more detailed intelligence. Little room re-
mains for any hope that more than three men
have escaped with their lives from the burning
ship and from the proverbially stormy ocean in
the region of the Cape Of Good Hope. These
three men it would appear were in an open boat
with others for ten long days and nights, end
were at last reduced to the horrible extremity
of satisfying their own fearful cravings for food,
by feeding on the flesh and blood of one or
more Of their fellow passengers. Nothing
whatever is yet known with any certainty of
the fate of the great bulk of the emigrants on
board the Inflated ship, but there is too much
reason to believe that all without exception
have found a watory grave.
The Cospatrick left Gravesend on the 18th
of September last, carrying 420 cmigrauts
sent out through the General Agency Of New
Zealand, and bound for Auckland. There were
TT male adults, 1875 women, So boys, So girls,
and 16 infants under twelve months, Her crew
was composed of 43 p~ersons-ofdcers, men, and
boys oil told. There were also on board four
independent passengers, mixing in all o total
of 476 souls.
To all outward seeming the cmigraDts now
quitting their native land to assist IN colonizing
a distant portion Of the globe wero destined to
have afairly agreeable voyage. For many years
the noted house under whose flag they sailed
bad sent ship loads of emigrants over the same
route, always without mishap, except once when
the Surat was run ashore at her journeys end,
and even then all lives wero saved. The Cos
patrick had been officially surveyed and passed
at Gravesend, and was therefore presumably
right and tight, and we'll equipped for her long
voyage. On the 18th September she was off
Deal, and on the l4th was reported off the
Start, all well. The next that was heard of
her w&sthat she was F'spoken" on the 28th Octo-
Der in latitude ii deg. south and 3 deg. west.
Sailing away through the tropics, and carried
along by the trade winds, she seems to have
reached o point about 216 miles southwest of
the Cape of Good Hope, when she was found
TO be on fire, and when her Mortified passengers
must have seen before them no prospect save
that of being burnt to death, or being swallowed
up by the mighty waves which are ever tossing
tempestuously around the Cape Of Storms.
Six full sized boats were carried on board,
two of which were life boats, and it is just with
in the bounds of possibility that some few Of
the passengers may have been more fortunate
than those in the only boat yet heard of,
and may perchance have reached Simon's Bay.
On the other hand, there is but too much rea-
son to fear that all save this one boats load
wore either lost at once, or must have succumb.
cd to those additional, and, if possible, more
dreadful horrors of hunger, thirst, and starga-
ton on the wild wastes Of the open ocean.
All that is yet positively known of the fate of
the Cospatrick, her passengers and crew, is
that on the 9th Of November the iron ship
British Seeptre, 1,436 tons, of Liverpool, Cap
tain Gahuke, on her homeward voyage from
Calcutta to Dundee, when about nine days.
sail from St. Helena, picked up three men
who proved to be the sole survivors of a boat
load of passengers who had escaped from the
burning ship. They were taken on board and
were landed at St. Helena on the 9th Decem-
Der, where the British Sceptre had called for
orders. There they remained until the 9th,
when they were taken on board the Union Com
pany's mail steamer Nyanza from the Cape for
Southampton. On Christmas Day the Nyanza
arrived d Madeira, where she remained until
the following day for the purpose of taking
in coal enough for her FIVE days run to Ply
mouth. Thanks to the re-establishment of
the Eastern Telegraph Company's cables, mes
sages can now be sent from Funehala via Lis
bon and Falmouth, and by this line the brief
intelligence that has yet reached London hos
hsn~a fraASmikked.