THE COSPATRICK DISASTER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 61, 12 March 1875, Page 2

THE COSPATRICK DISASTER.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS. From our exchanges we clip the following additional particulars to those already published relativo to the loss of the Cospatrick, and the adventures of the survivors : — • THE FINDING OF THE BOAT'S CREtV. The following ia the description by Captain Juhnke, master of tho British Sceptre, of his finding the men : — These men were picked up by me on the 27th of November, io latitude 28.50 S., 12 4E. Having had a severe gule from south after passing the Cape of Good Hope, during which I ran dead before it, wo had got inlo the south-east trades, wind fresh and Equally. At 180 p.m. saw something afloat at a distance on our lee bow, having passed a great deal of driftwood imagined that it was another piece of the same, but after auother look I kepi the ship

towards it, and found it was a boat with human beingß in it, but with no oars. A piece of board was erected as a mast with a cross piece nailed on, on ■which was extended a piece of Bail. I motioned them to run the boat before the squall to our lee quarter, and having shortened sail and thrown the ahip flat aback, I backed right up to the boat which answered well, for wo soon had her alongsiJe. The sight was something horrible. There were five men in her alive, and one dead body. One man was stripped naked up to bis waist, his feet swollen, full of sores, himself raving mad, one colored man barely alive, but still in his senses, Mr Macdonald, lato second mate of the Cospatrick, in charge. They were soon passed on deck, and every kindness* and attention was shewn them. Warm water baths, weak brandy and water, nourishing food and medicine adapted to their symptoms, has been the treatment adopted. Notwithstanding all our care the poor passenger, who never regained his senses, died last Sunday, and was buried on Monday morning. The colorad man died yesterday (the 2nd December), and was buried this morning. Mr Macdonald has been very ill, but is now improving,^ and the other two men are improving. For fear they should have a relapse, I shall call at St. Helena. SUFFERINGS OF THE BOAT'S CREW. * With regard to the sufferings of the boat's crew, the Telegraph correspondent gives the following collcquy : — Some one on board one of the tuga which met the Nyauza said to Cotter : " Well, Cotter, when you managed to get into the boat, and she was fairly off, how was it you could not pick up some of those who were Hotting away from the burning ship and being drowned?" — "We did pick up as many as our boat would hold. If we had taken in another we should have gone down ourselves. Such a high sea was running that we could not see many of the people when they once threw themselves over the ship's side to avoid being burnt." ' Where are tho rest of those who went in your boat ?" — "They all died, sir, everyone, except us three and the man who went mad before he landed from the British Sceptre, and who afterwards died tco." 11 Did any more go mad besides this one?"- — "Yes, sir; most of the men did before they died. 1 ' < "Did they jump overboard?" — "They would have done so, but we prevented them ; but they did not laefc, very long after the madness toaK them." / " What provisions had you on board the boat ? What did you eat ?"— " We bad nothing 'in the boat, and we ate one another, ' was tbo horrible reply, given, however, wiih a practical' earnestness which shewed that this dreadful step was only resorted to as a matter of dire necessity. '* But you did not eat one another alive?"— ".Oh no ; no one was eaten until he was dead." " Because," said the questioner,/ " the other day we had a story of a shipwreck in which the men in a boa^ had to cast lots as to who should die, and an Italian was killed in order to be eaten." — " We did not do that, and I do not think we should ever have done it." EXAMINATION OF THE SURVIVORS. On Friday the three survivors Were examined by the owners of the vessel, but the statements did not differ from those already given. Mr Temple asked the mate an important question, "How was it that when there was a regulation that each boat Bhould always have a keg of water in it, there was no water in the boat which lived ?" The first answer was that the boat which was saved had at first capsized, and that was the case. But it was confessed that there was no/ water in either boat. The kegs hau been token out of each that very day when the boals wir<3 cleaned, and had not been put back. •' Waa it not the duly," said Mr Temple, "of the captain or somebody to inspect and see that the boats were restored after being cleaned ?" The mate could not say. He afterwards said that soon after leaving port he was told off to one beat and the first officer to the other. Neither of the bouts had its keg, but the boat of which we have not; heard had about a gallon of water in i/ in tine, which the emigrants brought up. The latitude and longitude are dicisively fixed by Macdonald. He ai d the chief officer used to work it out i - dependently every day at noon, and w they differed tho captain worked the^ reckoning over again. At noon on the 17th Macdonald took the reckoning, and found latitude 37 deg. 15 mm. 8., longitude 12 deg. 25 mm. E. This would make the scene of the calamity about 400 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. Macdonald and Lewis kept watch/ and watch. He was nearly dead on board the Sceptre. The men in the boat were only partly dressed. Cotter had a serge shirt aud trousers, but no hat. Lewis cut his own hair in the bout with a passenger's scissors. He said that was to take the heat eft bis heath Macdonald had his boots on, and the madman who bit him when the British Sceptre was in sight, which none of the others saw, for they were dozing, bit or pinched his toes through j the boot. This man had recently attempted to jump overboard. lie was quite harmless, but seemed to think he was going to be taken as a soldier.

"Don't let them take me," he would say, " I'll jump overboard." He would go about and pull the button off anyone's coat. At St. Helena the officer of the Board of Trade gave them some clothes ; and on Friday they were furnished by the owners with winter raiment ot an outfitter's in Leadenhallstreet. MISCELLANEOUS. Her Majesty has made anxious enquiries about the facts connected with the loss of the Cospatrick. Great kindness was shown to the three survivors at St Helena. They wero eight days at the hospital in the island, aud recovered rapidly. For ft long time their skin kept peeling off, but they were soon able to take regular meal 3, and on board the Nyanza they were treated simply as second-class passengers. While the survivors were at the owners' on Friday there came a messenger from Cottei's mother, who was ill in bed, had heard of the loss of the Cospatrick, and would not belie/c her son was caved till she saw him. The messenger was his elder brother, a laborer; and when the two young laboring men met affei- such an eventful separation they first grasped hands lyand then kissed each other on the lips. Macdonald was interviewed on Wednesday, in his own house atMontrose. 1 He said that numbers of the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew of the Cospalrick had called continually on him in London eager for information, which it was out of his power to give, and it was fully past midnight before he could get home to his lodgingf , Referring to the statement in the letter of the Governor of St Helena to Lord Carnarvon, that there were over 200 tons of spirits on board the vessel, Mr Macdonald said he knew for a fact that the quantity on board did not exceed 40 tons, and that these did not ignite until the fire had made great progress. Hie attention being called to the suggestion that if they had kept themselves continually wet with salt water they might have suffered less from thirst, Macdonald said, that while they were in the boat they were never dry. He also mentioned that about two hours before the fire broke out the .wife of a schoolmaster named Fitzgerald gave birth to a child.