GREAT DISASTERS AT SEA.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1535, 5 July 1873, Page 2

GREAT DIS ASTERS AT SE A.

Eeferring to the great loss of life by.lhe >• wreck 1 ot'ehe'steamship Atlantic, the Daily vMews ,Bays it ,is almpstj.withput • a parallel. It . ,is' of .course only, in times that an: •' J Ordinary "vessel has Stained the r magnitude io'f i -„;,;.a floating towni The, ( w.or3t historic calamity of this kind is the,tyreck of the Blanche Nef, .., .off Barfleur/^m'll^ when th ( e childfen of i . ; H enry L ; ,and 363 persons A^ere lp'sjt. . . , So far '.'.;■'. &s,yie are . aware, no .merphJint vessel or ill-. i, -:,. fated; em jgrant ship has everjcarried'sp |many passeiitrers to their waiery graves as ill j ; fated Atlantic. The Royal George TlUeied " over wibH nearly "900 men" oh board on an August day in 'l7B2.'' In the year 18lj,;the' . greatest disaster in our. naval t history took place on the day before Christmas Day, .when the St. George, the , Defence, and the i Hero #ere driven ashore on the coast of Jutland, and Admiral Reynolds and some 2000 sailors ; 'were lost; and of the whole crews of the three vessels only 18 men escaped. Th!e loss of the Captain is fresh in the memories, But all these were vessels of war, and'the men on board went to sea with their lives in their hands. The greatest losses of ordinary vessels do not approach these. The Royal Charter will never be forgotten by those who were kept awake by the fearful gale which, on the night when that unhappy vessel was •wrecked,' broke over the British Isles. -In that terrible calamity, 446 lives were lost, within sight of home. In the previous,year, a worse misfortune had happened • the Australia, an emigrant steamer, had been burned in the middle of the Atlantic, and of 538 ' persons ori board, : only 67 were saved. The loss of the Birkenhsad troopship is among the worst disasters of oar naval annals. In that' brave vessel, 454 brave men'went down; the troops drew up in line of battle to protect their wives and children; and met death as they could have done upon. the neld. The; burning of the Amazon in 1852, and the foundering of the London in 1866, are still '■ fresh in the public recollection. 'In the first, ; 102 person perished, among them Eliot War-: burton; in the second, about 220 people , were drowned. In the. 1850,. the Royal , Adelaide, a passenger steamer from Cork to London, was wrecked on the Tongue Sandy . off Margate, anymore than 400 person were lost. This was/the most serious calamity; which hid .happened in'the Cbarihel fromih^ ■ time when Kempenfeldt •' went down with, twice four hundred men;'* and' it. still re-, remains'' bo, : nbtwithstanding the loss of the . Nbrfchfleet last January: ; ' .