THE LOSS OF THE TROOP SHIP NEGOÆRA AT ST. PAUL'S ISLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1172, 15 November 1871, Page 2

THE LOSS OF THE TROOP SHIP NEGOÆRA AT ST. PAUL'S ISLAND.

[FItOM THE " SYDNEY LOUNGER," fI? THE NEWCASTLE PILOT. I may remark that we hare at length received authentic intelligence of the wreck of the Megsera at St. Paul's Island, afar in the solitudes of the Indian Ocean, and of the providential escape of those on board, doomed (as it would seem) to death, by the disgusting incompetence and wicked incapacity of the British naval authorities. Such a shameful story carries us back to the semi-savage times of the Tudors, or to the gross corruptions of the vaunted reign of William the Third, so vividly yet reluctantly described by the great Whig historian Macaulay. Most peo pie arc astonished, but I confess I am not 1 remember distinctly when the co mm odor*; of this station (Capt. Freemantle) whs sent out from England with orders to visit Fiji in the Juno, and was provided with maps that were between thirty and forty years old— French maps, I think they were—all curiously and outrageously inaccurate. Luckily the gallant captain shewed these precious maps to the Hawaiian Commissioner for Souihern Polynesia (Mr Charles St. Julian) probably with a view to piove to the Sandwich Island official that Britain knew a thing or two about the Pacific. I happened to be present at the time, and was greatly amused. The commissioner was startled out of his diplomatic gravity at the sight of these mysterious charts, and passionately and solemnly warned Freemantle that if he attempted to sail the Juno by them to Fiji, he would most assuredly wreck his ship. The Britisher (v.ho was courtesy itself) smiled his polite incredulity. Gradually, however, it was made to dawn upon his patrician mind that the Tslet of Ban \\as not Viti Levu ; that the Great Round Island of Fiji does not happen to be in the north-east, but in the south-west of the archipelago ; that the island shaped like a shark's head, and 125 miles long, was, and is, "Vanua Le"u, and not Na Viti Levu ; and that the island supposed to be Kaddavu on his old map was just 200 miles out, &c. Freemantie saw and believed ; sailed down to Fiji by Hawaiian charts; and went and returned in safety. More than all —the brave old commodore had the raie honesty and frank manliness to return these Hawaiian charts with a handsome written acknowledgment of the same, requesting leave to borrow them again for a future voyage. This was when Captain Denham was actually engaged in surveying the Fijian group ; and yet, at that time, Commodore Wilkes's maps were stupidly ignored by the British Admiralty. After all that—which I know to be as true as the Gospel—l am astonished at nothing in the British Admiralty. The Megsera business is a very fair sample of their work.