In the early days of the gold excitement, the emigrant ships rushed out and home, but in the sixties we find them making short intermediate passages; for instance, the _Sunda_ and _Empress of the Seas_ one year transported thousands of sheep from Australia to New Zealand, each ship making two trips between Port Phillip and Port Chalmers, with several thousands of sheep on board each trip.
=The Gold Rush to Gabriel’s Gully in 1862.=
In 1862 several ships were hurried across with diggers from Melbourne to Port Chalmers for the gold rush to Gabriel’s Gully. Money ran like water in Port Chalmers in those days, and as usual the gold miners were a pretty uproarious crowd. The _Lightning_, which was commanded at that date by Captain Tom Robertson, the marine painter, made a special trip with 900 diggers on board, and they gave Captain Robertson so much trouble that he put into the Bluff and landed a number of them there. The _Blue Jacket_, also, took a load of this troublesome cargo.
After Life and End of the Liverpool Emigrant Clippers.
A favourite round in the latter days of the Liverpool soft-wood clippers was from Melbourne across to Auckland and from there over to the Chincas to load guano. From this the survivors gradually descended to the Quebec timber trade. By the early seventies I find _Marco Polo_, _Red Jacket_, _Ben Nevis_, and other well-known ships already staggering to and fro across the Atlantic between the Mersey and the St. Lawrence, whilst in June, 1874, the _Flying Cloud_ got ashore on the New Brunswick coast, when making for St. John’s, and was so strained that she was compelled to discharge her cargo and go on the slip for repairs. Here misfortune again overcame the grand old ship, for she took fire and was so gutted that she was sold for breaking up.
It is curious how many of the old American-built soft-wood ships were destroyed by fire, their number including the _James Baines_, _Lightning_, _Empress of the Seas No. 1_, _Blue Jacket No. 1_, _Ocean Chief_, _Fiery Star_, and second _Sovereign of the Seas_.
The _Lightning_ was burnt on 31st October, 1869, whilst alongside the pier at Geelong loading wool, and she already had 4000 bales of wool on board when the fire was discovered at 1.30 in the morning in her fore hold. From the first the ship seemed to be doomed, and it was feared that the wharf might catch fire. She had an anchor out ahead, and an attempt was made to heave her clear of the pier, but the flames soon drove the crew from the windlass; however, on the mooring lines being cast off, she drifted clear, and swung to her anchor, the whole fore part of the ship being now in flames. The foremast, which was an iron one, melted in its step owing to the heat and soon went over the side. An attempt was made to scuttle her by the desperate means of bombarding her from two 32-pounders, and to a modern gunner the result was astounding to say the least of it, for at only 300 yards range most of the rounds missed the _Lightning_ altogether, whilst the few that hit her did more harm than good by giving the wind access to the fire and thereby increasing its fury. After burning all day, the famous old ship sank at sundown.