E-text prepared by Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by the National Library of Australia (https://www.nla.gov.au)
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Compiled from Authentic Sources, with Some Original Matter.
Late of Her Majesty's Civil Service, New South Wales. Author of "Southern Lights and Shadows," "Dottings of a Lounger," etc.
London: Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 47 Ludgate Hill. 1859.
London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.
THIS little book is prepared under the conditions of saving the Mail which leaves England on the 12th, and of being a complete narrative of the Wreck. The one condition is adverse to the other; but I have endeavoured to meet them both.
"Forth from the polar caverns of the snows, Dripping with winter, leapt a northern storm, And shook himself, and she lay buried white.... Oh! and we were homeward bound!"
THE prints of Tuesday, the 25th of October, contained this brief telegram:--
'QUEENSTOWN.--The "Royal Charter," from Melbourne, fifty-eight days out, is off this port. She expects to be at Liverpool tomorrow night.'
In the _Times_ of Thursday, the 27th, appeared the following:--
'A telegraphic despatch has reached us as we are going to press, announcing the loss, on her way from Queenstown to Liverpool, of the "Royal Charter," with over four hundred passengers on board, of which number only about twenty are saved.'
The last news was so overwhelming--so unexpected and improbable after the early telegram--that at first it was received with some amount of incredulity. No other paper of that morning but the _Times_ contained the intelligence; and from behind this fact there came a gleam of hope. At about eleven o'clock, however, the journals issued as usual their second editions, and then it was the statement in the _Times_ was confirmed, and that the mournfullest piece of news in connection with marine disaster which ever reached this country was generally accepted. The 'Royal Charter' was lost! Men passed the news from one to another in whispers, shook their heads, and moved on to the newspaper and telegraph offices for later items bearing upon the calamity. The announcement in the first edition of the _Times_ was sad enough. Such details, however, as that journal was enabled to give in its second edition far more than confirmed the early telegram. Instead of only four hundred persons being on board, it appeared there were close upon five hundred, while the proportion of saved was not in the slightest increased. Some of the circumstances grouped around the wreck, too, were now supplied us. The vessel had, after a terrible battle with the storm, in which masts were cut down and much noble life was spent, struck upon the rocky coast of Wales, parted amidships, and gone down not twenty yards from shore, and scarcely four hours' sail from Liverpool.