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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 11, 14 January 1868, Page 2

Wellington, Jan. 14, 1 p.m. EXTRAORDINARY SHIPWRECK AND PROVIDENTIAL RESCUE OF THE SURVIVORS. The American ship General Grant, Captain Loughlin, sailed from Melbourne on the 4th May, 1866, for London, with a cargo of wool and six boxes of gold. On the 13th she sighted the Auckland Islands, the weather being thick. It then fell calm, and the ship was found to be -close to the land, with a strong current setting her towards the shore. The next day the ship struck against some perpendicular rocks, higher than her masts, on the western side of the island. At every roll of the vessel large pieces of rock fell on the deck, and then the yards and masts went with a crash. The ship being firmly embedded between the high overhanging headlands, the boats had to be launched over the stern of the vessel. With the daylight the wind and sea increased fearfully, aud as soon as the boats were got out and filled with the passengers aud crew, they disappeared in the boiling surf, and only sixteen out of eighty-three souls succeeded in landing on the island, after being exposed to the elements for three days in open boats. On the 22nd January, 1867, the chiefofficer and three of the crew left the island in an open boat, hoping to reach New Zealand. Of the survivors landed on the island nine men and the stewardess were taken off the island by the whaling brig Amhecst, on the 21st of November last, and were landed at the Bluff on Sunday night. An official inquiry is now being held into the cause of the wreck. The names of the passengers saved are : — James Teer, Patrick Coughey, Mary Anne Jewel (stewardess). Nicholas Allen, David Ashworth, Cornelius Drew, William Ferguson, Aaron Haipnan, A. M. Sanguilly, and Joseph Jewel.