WRECK OF THE AMERICAN SHIP ASIA. FEARFUL SUFFERING OF THE CREW.

Southland Times, Issue 921, 23 March 1868, Page 13

WRECK OF THE AMERICAN SHIP ASIA. FEARFUL SUFFERING OF THE CREW.

The " Valparaiso and West \ Coast Mail " gives the following account ofthe loss of the American ship Asia, the sufferings of the crew, and their rescue by the British ship Professor Airy :- — "We regret to have to relate a circumstance that, if not immediately denied and disproved, evinces barbarity, of 'the blackest kind on the part of a shipmaster lately arrived at this port towards a shipwrecked crew, cast away on that dreariest and most inhospitable of all solitudes — Cape Horn. In our ' Maritime Notes ' we have related the arrival of the Maria Miles,, Captain .Brandt, and the statement, he made concerning the lost ship, together with the arrival ofthe wrecked crew a day or two afterwards iv the Epsilon, and their rebutting evidence. Since then we have been favored with the following report by the captain and part owner of the wrecked vessel : —The American ship Asia, 1015 tons, William Wilcox and others, of New Bedford, Connecticut, owners, sailed from Newcastle, England, with' a cargeof 1340 tons of steam coal for San Francisco, arid went on shore about midnight on the 21st August, ori Barrievelt Island, to the eastward of Cape Horn,- during a heavy snowstorm and gale from the S.W. The ship at the time of the accident was under close-reefed topsails; reefed foresail, and foretopmast staysail. When she struck the surf was running so high that it was . found impossible to lower the boats, and a spar was run from the bow to the rocks, by means of which the crew were enabled to reach the shore, the ship sink- - ing in eight fathoms within ten minutes after the captain (who was the last man . on board) left. The only food they could get ashore was a small quantity of bis- ' cuit and a few tins of preserved meats, not amounting to half a biscuit a day during the time they were on the island. They numbered nineteen, all told aud as may be imagined, suffered fearlully from cold, hunger, and exposure in that bleak latitude. Thej did not even have sufficient canvas to rig a shelter for ail, and so they had to stand outside, watch and watch, "being fifteen days without fire, only possessing as fuel a few pieces of the wreck. On August 30th, the captain says: — 'Saw a barque bound west. Made, fires and set signals ; she saw us arid came within three miles of land, then squared' her yards and went off on her course. The wind was N.N.K, wr-h nnc weather. She was- a long lo v sq ;e, painted black; we know she say. v v-r steering.' How different

is the next statement? 21. — The British ship, Professor Airy, Captain G-roves, came in sight and -took us : on hoard, which operation was accomplished within an liour, though that officer, iwith a degree of humanity that highly became him, expressed his readiness to wait a week, if need he, to remove us. At that time they were reduced to the last ■extremity ofoyfretchedness, aad fatal consequeuces must have ensued but for this timely succor. Thei captain aad crew of the lost vessel express *; themselves m as -warm terms, of the humanity and kindness ihey experienced on board the Professor Airy and the Epsilon, as. they indignantly denounce the barbarity vof the Dutch haroue. Comment is ■„ useless ji |if the captain of the-Maria Miles does.not clear Tiimself from the. reflection cast ; on r his character, we must, assume hisr^silence to be an admission; of his guilt, in fthich case «re declare him to be utterly unworthy of the position he holds, and of the countenance, of all honorable men, and the name of Brandt deserves to become the synonym for barbarity, as that .of Groves : for humanity and ..benevolence." • '