THE WRECK OF THE LASTINGHAM.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4887, 8 September 1884, Page 2

THE WRECK OF THE LASTINGHAM.

[Pee Peess Association. J

Wellington, This day.

The steamer Napier returned from Jackson's Head this morning, but on account of the weather was unable to get round to that side of the Head on which the ship struck. Parties were landed on this side of the Head, and crossed over the hills to where the vessel lay, and found her lying on the port bilge with her deck slanting seaward, and the mast standing out of the water.

Blenheim, This day. The three shipwrecked sailors will leare Picton for Wellington by the next boat. Their names are: Thomas Chalmers, native of the West Indies; C. Alvarez, a native of St. Michaels islands; and George Henry Ward, a negro, born in the United States. Chalmers has often traded in the Sounds, and has been shipwrecked before in various parts of the world; while Alvarez was once shipwrecked off the Mauritius, from a cattle ship, and got ashore on the back of a cow. The three sailors were interviewed yesterday, giving a long account of the wreck and their subsequent adventures and privations till taken off by the schooner and brought in the steam launch to Picton. Ward appears to have subsisted for two or three days on tallow candles, washed ashore from the vessel. All three men speak well of the .ship and its officers, but Ward says the captain drank hard, and he has seen him unable to stand, though he cannot say how the captain was on the night of the wreck. Grog was served out to the men occasionally. The three men are none the worse for their shipwreck, and speak highly of the kindness of the captains of the schooners; Jones, the settler who sheltered them on Friday night, and the authorities at Picton. Ward's opinion is that the officers could handle the ship better than the captain, and that had the former had charge she would now be at Wellington wharf. Ward was the lookout man on the forecastle, and heard the men say one of the passing steamers was so close they could distinguish the man at wheel and the officers on the bridge.