Widnes Examiner. — 1884-02-09 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

MUTINY ON TIE 1.11013 SEAS: A TERRIBLE STORY. The Times of India of the 11th ult. contains the following ' telegram from its Calcutta correspondent :—Captain Lewis, of the barque Kaffir, just arrived (January 10th, 10-20 p.m.) makes the following report: On the 24th of November, while on a voyage from Natal to Calcutta, he sighted the Swedish schooner Natal, Captain Enstrom, from Boston fer Brisbane, with a cargo of Yankee "notions." The Natal signalled that she required immediate assistance, that she was shorthanded, and that a mutiny had broken out among her crew. Captain Lewis ran down to the schooner, and saw men on deck with their heads bandaged He armed a boat's crew and went on board. He found the captain and mate suffering from severe wounds. The crew, consisting of three men, were kept at work by fear only. The vessel was then in lat. 37-16 S., long. 74-47 E. The story told by Captain Enstrorn was that the crew originally consisted of to officers and five men of various nationalities. The ringleader of the crew, who hailed from Australia, understood, as he thought, how the cargo of sorts which the vessel carried could be turned to account among the islands of the Pacific. The man had given trouble during the voyage, but nothing overt had occurred till the night of the mutiny, 16th of November. Captain Enstrom on that night was lying asleep in the cabin, when he was attacked by the crew. Two men, armed with axes, attacked the captain, while another man with a revolver attacked the mate, who was also asleep in his berth. The man who assailed the mate fired at him twice; but, whether from the powder being damp or the cartridges old, the shots were not mortal. One took effiect in the hollow between the eyes, and another in the chin. When Captain Lewis saw the mate the bullets were still in the wounds. As the man attacked the captain the axe caught in a low beam of the cabin, but he struck the sleeping man in the jaw, slicing off a portion of the bone and cutting the neck. A second stroke, which had lost its force from the same cause, crossed the first wound.ll The sailor who fired at the mate bolted. When the mate' rushed into the captain's cabin be found him struggling with two men, one of whom stabbed him in the neck with a sheath-knife On the entrance of the mate the two men left the cabin. The mate and captain followed the mutineers, but were assailed with handspikes and driven back. They then bound up their wounds and got their guns. The crew, seeing they were armed, ran forward. Four of them got down into the hold, but the fifth was made a prisoner and secured aft. The hatches were then pat on the hold to keep in the other four prisoners. On looking round after the struggle; the captain discovered blood on the port rail, showing that before making an attack on the cabin the mutineers had murdered the second mate and had thrown his body overboard. The crew were kept in the boll till Tuesday, the 20th November. They refused all terms and remained in a state of mutiny, and as the captain and mate were wounded it was impossible for them to navigate the ship. The captain had no altnernative, after fair warning, , but to proceed to extremities. Two of the mutineers were then shot, when the others submitted and agreed to work ;the vessel. Matters were In this state when the Kaffir spoke ' the schooner. Captain Lewis gave what assistance he could, and being in command of a small vessel himself he could not make prisoners of the mutineers. The leader, the Australian, had been shot. Captain Lewis called for volunteers from his crew and gave Captain Enstrom two men. The Natal being thus strengthened resumed her voyage, the captain expressing his intention to call in at Adelaide.