A SHIP BURNT AT SEA.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2417, 4 January 1882, Page 3

A SHIP BURNT AT SEA.

THE CAPTAIN AND ELEVEN MEN BAYED. A BOAT’S CREW STILL MISSING-. Captain Brown, of the ship Phasis, from Calcutta, reporta picking up Captain Schultz, of the Dutch ahip Alblasserwaard, and eleven of the crew, under the following circumstances : —The ahip Alblasserwaard left Shields on August 11th for .Batavia, with a cargo of coals. She was off Amsterdam Island on November 26th at 6 a.m., when it was discovered that sulphurous gas was escaping from the after hatch, next at the main hatch, and before night from all parts of the ship. The crew were put to work to get at the fire below, but gas came up so fast that they could not reach the seat of the fire. They started to heave the cargo overboard, and continued to do so until the afternoon of the 28th, when the crew gave out exhausted. The ship’s position was 37 S., 81 E., with the wind strong from the N.W. Eluding that the flames below had got uncontrollable possession, they took to the boats, the chief officer and ten men in one, and the master and eleven in the other. Water and provision as much as could be safely taken were put into the boats and the position taken, distant 200 miles eastward of Amsterdam and St, Paul’s Islands. A heavy sea separated the boats the night the ship was abandoned. Captain Shultz steered for Kerguelen’s land to the 8.W., and after seven days of hoping against hope, and of methodical economy, bordering on starvation, his boat fell into company with the Phasis. She had then travelled between 600 and 700 miles. It was on December 4th in the eveniug when, in the trough of such a sea as rendered it impossible for the boat to be seen from the ship, she ran alongside of the Phasis. Captain David Brown was below at tea when the report reached him that a boat with a shipwrecked crew was alongside. It was blowing half a southerly gale, but Captain Brown, for whom the rescued boat’s crew will ever cherish the dearest remembrances, sprang on deck, and it took him just fifteen minutes to entertain his unexpected but heartily welcome guests. The ship’s position Captain Brown reports to have been 29.30 8., 87.30 E, What privations the poor fellows endured, almost hopelessly at sea to leeward of the only land between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, confronted by a hard adverse wind and threatening sea, can better bo imagined than described. The loss of all in the way of worldly possessions counted for nought in the face of what they felt to bo a certain, fearful, languishing, lingering death. Their case is one which well may claim the consideration of the generously disposed public, and as they have arrived here penniless, it is fair to expect that those who have a follow feeling, and a good many who may not have a direct sympathy arising from personal experience, may consider their case one which merits their assistance. Their gratitude to Captain Brown, theis deliverer, is unbounded, Bind the poor fellows wish they were in a position to express their gratitude for bis and his officers’ kindness in a more substantial form. The lost ship was built at Rotterdam six years ago, and was the property of H. H. Von Lindorn. She was built specially for the Batavia trade, and was 1256 tons register, Captain Schultz is afraid that his chief officer, Mr D. Pauls, and his boat’s crew have not been saved, their only hope of rescue being like his own, that of a passing ship. Of course it is within the possibilities that a friendly vessel has fallen in with them and the announcement of such good news will be looked forward to with no small degree of anxiety by the known survivors, and not less no by the public at largo.