CAPTAIN CALDER’S TESTIMONIAL.

Evening Star, Issue 4311, 20 December 1876, Page 3

CAPTAIN CALDER’S TESTIMONIAL.

To the. Editor. Sir,— Some of this gentleman’s friends are, by letters in the ‘ Guardian,’ urging thegettmg up of subscriptions for a testimonial to Wm, which they have a perfect right to do. £ut what I and others object to, is the time they have chosen to do it, just following the wreck of a good ship, which, had it taken place it is said but a few yards to the right or left, would have involved great loss of life. If the inquiry as to the cause of this wreck had been made by Captain Payne and Captain Sturt at Melbourne, Captain Calder might have been served as was Captain t ollard of the Sussex, who was committed to the Supreme Court, which in turn committed him to gaol, and his officers went scot free, although it was through his trusting to them that the ship got lost. 1 am not sure if it is quite certain that this case will not he Jreope&ed there, whence Captain

Calder’s certificate issued, as was the case of Captain M ‘Donald, of the Queen of the Thames, who was punished by the Board of Trade long after he "had been acquitted by another easy-going magistrate in South Africa. It would be easy to show from the printed evidence that the master’s position was just as likely to have been four—or even three—miles off Long Point when he left the second mate in charge, as 5f miles, in which Case the given course ought to have taken the ship on to one or other of the next two points of laud. But, assuming the latter to have been absolutely correct (viz., N. by E. true, 5f miles), the given course would have left too small a margin between safety and destruction to be placed in the hands of a careless young man—being much smaller than lie had taken upon himself during the previous fifteen miles with alight in sight, he says, part of the time, even if he bad steered a straight course, which he did not. The best thing Capt. Calder’s friends can do is to leave wefl alone, —I am, &c., Mindoza Rios, Dunedin, December 19.