THE ORPHEUS MEMORIAL.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1991, 12 July 1880, Page 3

THE ORPHEUS MEMORIAL.

It is to be hoped (says the “ Pall Mall Gazette ”) that the project now mooted of erecting a memorial to the officers and men who went down with the Orpheus will meet with adequate support. The Orpheus was lost off the coast of New Zealand in 1863, and nearly all her crew perished ; but with the exception of a tablet in the Mariners’ Ohapel at Hobart Town, no memorial of the event exists. And yet the story of the loss of the Orpheus is one which should not be forgotten. For eight long hours death stared the crew in the face, but all the time the strictest discipline was maintained until, in the words of the inscription on the tablet at Hobart Town, “ the ship breaking up, the crew gave three parting cheers, and the last words uttered by the gallant commodore were, “ The Lord have mercy on us all!” In a despatch to the Duke of Newcastle, Sir George Grey, at the time Governor of New Zealand, says —“ The conduct of Commodore Burnett, his officers, and men was perfectly heroic. I have never heard instances of greater courage, carelessness of self, and efforts to save the ship and others than have been detailed to me. At about 8.30 the mainmast went overboard, the other two masts following in less than twenty minutes afterwards. Those of the crew (and they were a great number) who had not been washed overboard Or killed by spars and ropes were on the masts and rigging, and the poor fellows, as these went, gave th.'ee parting cheers, and then perished. lam told that not a murmur or cry was heard from the wounded or dying ; and yet the manner of some of their deaths was terrible. Altogether it is one of the moat affecting events that I have ever hoard of, and yet one that excites admiration from the courage, self-devotion, and energetic resignation both of the many who perished and the few who were saved.” The effort now being made to provide some fitting memorial of such gallant conduct certainly deserves support.