(Signed) “JOHN BRAID.”
Leghorn, March 18, 1800.
Capt. Todd remained upon deck, with his First Lieutenant, to the last moment, giving orders for saving the crew, without thinking of his own safety. Before he fell a sacrifice to the flames, he had time and courage to write down the particulars of this melancholy event, for the information of Lord Keith, of which he gave copies to different sailors, entreating them, that whoever should escape might deliver it to the admiral.
Thus fell victims to perhaps a too severe duty, the captain and his first lieutenant, at a time when they still had it in their power to save themselves; but self-preservation is never a matter of consideration in the exalted mind of a British naval officer, when the safety of his crew is at stake.
Lord Keith and some of the officers were providentially on shore, at Leghorn, when the dreadful accident occurred. Twenty commissioned and warrant officers, two servants and 142 seamen, are the whole of the crew that escaped destruction out of nearly 900 souls on board, that for nearly four hours exerted every nerve to avoid that dreadful termination which too surely awaited them.
A SCENE ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
On the morning of the 5th of August, 1833, during a severe gale in lat. 46, lon. 31, Capt. Dempsey, of the ship Kingston, discovered at a short distance to leeward, a brig lying on her beam ends, with flag of distress waving. Capt. D. instantly bore down towards her, when she proved to be the Albion, of Cork, crowded with passengers. Having reached within hail of the unfortunate vessel, a heart-rending scene presented itself. “We beheld,” says Capt. Dempsey, “the brig reeling ere she took the farewell plunge—witnessed the cool intrepidity of the sailors, even at such a moment—and listened, with feelings the most harrowing, to the piercing shrieks of the ill-fated passengers. The crew of the Kingston flung their best boat into the boiling Atlantic, but every exertion was vain—the angry ocean soon made her its prey. The Albion went down with every human soul on board.”