The Sun. — 1861-12-20 (London, England)

EXLRAORDIN.4:72,I DBLIV_ERAN C.E.  An officer of her Majesty's ship Topaze, writing to a friend resident in Plymouth, under date of September 30, 1861, from Esquimalt Harbour, Vancouver Island, after stating that their ship haxl made a fine passage of 43 days from Callao, arriving at Vancouver Island on the 20th of September, gives the following statement :—" On the morning of the 7th of Sept. a boat under sail was reported to the captain who at once ordered the ship to be hove to, in order to let the boat come alongside, as the wind was blowing from her towards us, when we gave her a tow-rope. There were. only two men in her, ono of whom turned out to be an American and the other an Irishman. The boat was a sloop of about 12 tons, with a deck on her, and at the masthead was flying the Yankee flag upside down. The men on coming on board seemed nearly famished, and they ate greedily the food we gave them, until at length the doctor had to forbid their eating any more. We towed the boat astern for four or five days, but one night, when we were going very fast through the water, she parted the hawser and broke adrift. When the men came round a little—for at first they were quite bewildered —we gathered from them and the log they had kept the following particu. lars :—They were in the employ of an Englishman who has a manufactory of cocoanut oil on an island called Fenning's Island, about four degrees north of the Equator. He sent the sloop with the captain (the Yankee), a cooper, an Irish and two Kaneko. or Sandwich Island lads, to go b Washington Island, distant about 24 hours' sail, for the purpose of procuring staves to make casks for the cocoanut oil. They could not see the island for a fog, and then adverse winds drove them out to sea. They tried to reach Fenning's Island again, but could not on account of strong currents and foul winds. After having been many days out they fell in with a French ship, from which they obtained their latitude and longitude. They could not make out whether the Frenchman said 156 or 166 deg. longitude. However, they worked by one of the two, and found themselves so far to the north that they tried to get to the Sandwich Islands. When they had been between 50 and 60 days out the two Kaneka lads died, one soon after the other. I think it not improbable that the white men murdered them, as they must have been very short of food, having only taken away with them 30 days' provisions, and, besides that,they occasionally caught a shark or some other fish; and they also had some rain, and managed to catch the water, or else I expect they would not have been alive so long. The last shark they caught was with a piece of Kaneko flesh for bait. In the hold of the sloop we found a cask containing pieces of this flesh salted down like pork or beef. When we picked up the two men they had been out 90 days, from June 9to September 7. Poor fellows, they must have had a terrible time of it I How providential it was that we should have came right across their track I The day after they were saved (Sunday) our chaplain returned public thanksgiving to Almighty God for their safe deliverance from the perils and dangers of shipwreck."—Plymouth