Sir—I have been all day down at the scene of the wreck of the Dunbar, and had a long interview with Johnson, the man who was saved. If the statement he made to me, and which I carefully noted, be of any service to you as information of a correct character for the public, who all feel a deep interest in this melancholy event, I shall be glad that I have taken this course to forward it. He stated that they were off Botany at half-past eight o'clock p.m., Thursday; the captain then stood off shore, on the starboard tack, ship with double-reefed fore and main topsails; a very dirty dark, and rainy night, two men were placed at the wheel; Captain Green instructed them to keep their luff; he (Captain Green) had not been off the deck for two hours since they first made land, some days previously; at half-past eleven p.m., the captain gave orders to square away, which was done; the ship then ran under close-reefed fore and main topsails and foresail. As they neared the "light" the captain ordered the foresail to be clewed up, sent the second mate to the foresail to keep a look-out, then very dark; told him to "keep a good look-out for the North Head." The captain asked if he could see the Head. The mate replied no, it was solid darkness. The second mate suddenly called out "Breakers a-head." The captain ordered the helm to be put hard to starboard to bring the ship round, then blowing strong; ship on a dead lee shore, having such small sail upon her, the ship would not come round, (this was about 12 o'clock), and the sea lifting her in, she almost immediately struck; the passengers, who had been in bed, rushed up on deck in their night dresses; their shrieks were dreadful (Johnson describes the scene at this time the most terrible part of the whole; the ladies asked the captain, and entreated the seamen to know if there was any hope; the ship was still holding together, and the men thought and said there was hope.) Almost immediately after, as if in angry denial of that expression, the decks burst up from the pressure of the water, the ship was rent into a thousand pieces, and all on board (except him) were hurried into the foaming terrific sea.
THE SAILOR RESCUED.
Johnson, with the old boatswain, and two Dutch seamen, were about the last who were washed from the wreck, they four holding on a piece of plank, from which the two Dutchmen were soon after washed; a huge sea then threw Johnson and the boatswain on shore amongst some pieces of timber, from which Johnson scrambled to a higher shelving rock to avoid the next sea, which he did, but the poor old boatswain, less active, was carried way, and perished. Johnson then climbed to a still higher position, and, being much exhausted, laid down and slept. The next day he saw a steamer (the Grafton) go into the Heads; he made signals to her, but was not seen. During the day he saw another steamer (the Washington) pass, and tried to attract her attention; as, also, that of a schooner running in. Friday night was passed in this state. On Saturday morning he endeavoured to get along the rocks; he could see people on the cliffs above, but could not make himself seen, until a brave lad, (Antonio Wollier, an Icelander,) who had gone down "Jacob's Ladder," and along the rocks, noticed Johnson waving a handkerchief; relief came, and he was soon after hauled up to the top of the cliffs, which are there about 200 feet high.
The noble fellow, Wollier, was then hauled up, and received the hearty manifestations of the thousands there assembled. I opened a subscription, which was suggested by Captain Loring, of H.M. ship Iris, and in a few minutes, about £10 was collected, and handed over to the courageous boy, who, in answer to my compliment when handing him the money, said, in broken English, "He did not go down for the money, but for the feelings of his heart."
Johnson says that a blue light was burned when the ship struck, but it was very dim, and could scarcely be seen; Captain Green must have taken the bluff north end of the Gap for the North Head, for, in ordering the helm to starboard, he must have supposed that to have been his position, and North Head a lee shore; for had the helm been put to port, the ship would have cleared, and run for the entrance to the Heads.
Afterwards, at the "Gap," another brave fellow, whose name I have not yet learned, volunteered to go down to send up some of the mangled corpses, now and then lodging on the rocks beneath us—now a trunk of a female, from the waist upwards—then the legs of a male, the body of an infant, the right arm, shoulder, and head of a female, the bleached arm, and extended hand, with the wash of the receding waters almost as 'twere in life, beckoning for help! then a leg, a thigh, a human head would be hurled along, the sea dashing most furiously, as if in angry derision of our efforts to rescue its prey; one figure, a female, tightly clasping an infant to the breast, both locked in the firm embrace of death, was for a moment seen, then the legs of some trunkless body would leap from the foaming cataract, caused by the receding sea, leaping wildly, with feet seen plainly upward in the air, to the abyss below, to be again and again tossed up to the gaze of the sorrowing throng above.
We procured a rope, lowered the man, with some brave stout hearts holding on to the rope above, and in this manner several portions of the mutilated remains were hauled up to the top of the cliff, until a huge sea suddenly came, and nearly smothered those on the cliff, wetting them all to the skin. I caused the man to be hauled up, thinking it too dangerous to continue. It was a heartrending scene and I was glad to leave it, which I did soon after, and returned to Sydney about dark.
Wonderful to say, Johnson has not as much as a scratch about him, and is otherwise quite well. He states that there were a great many bodies near to one place where he was rescued, and his great fear was that he would be starved. The ship was eighty-one days out.
Saturday evening.