ARRIVAL OF THE “GREAT WESTERN” AT NEW YORK.
“At three o’clock p.m., on Sunday the 22nd of April, the Sirius first descried the land, and early on Monday morning, the 23rd, anchored in the North River immediately off the battery. The moment the intelligence was made known, hundreds and thousands rushed, early in the morning, to the battery. Nothing could exceed the excitement. The river was covered during the whole day with row-boats, skiffs, and yawls, carrying the wondering people out to get a close view of this extraordinary vessel. While people were yet wondering how the Sirius made out to cross the rude Atlantic, it was announced, about eleven a.m. on Monday, from the telegraph, that a huge steam-ship was in the offing. ‘The Great Western! The Great Western!’ was on everybody’s tongue. About two o’clock p.m., the first curl of her ascending smoke fell on the eyes of the thousands of anxious spectators. A shout of enthusiasm rose in the air.” The movements of a great steam-ship in and out of port are always watched with interest—why, even the arrival of the “husbands’ boat” at Margate or Ramsgate is an event! One can, then, well imagine and understand the excitement caused in New York by the arrival of two fine vessels almost simultaneously from England. It meant, in some branches of commerce, a complete revolution. These first passages were made in seventeen and fifteen days respectively. Almost immediately after this, the great Cunard Company commenced operations, the Admiralty awarding them the mail contract. Then came the great contest for the maritime supremacy, commercially regarded, of the Atlantic Ocean, when American enterprise came into the field, and organised a formidable rival to the English company in the Collins Line. The history of this contest would fill a volume.
THE FIRST CUNARD STEAMER.
The national pride of the Americans had been touched by the commercial success of British steam-ships frequenting their ports, and they determined, vulgarly speaking, “to have a piece of the pie.” American genius and enterprise had sent forth a fleet of steamers to trade on their coasts, lakes, and rivers, which a leading English authority considers “were marvels of naval architecture, unsurpassed in speed, and in the splendour of their equipment.” Their clipper-sailing ships “were the finest the world had then produced, while their perfection in the art of ship-building had even reached so high a point that they constructed steamers to ascend rivers where [pg 107]there was hardly depth of water for an Indian canoe; indeed, it was proverbially said, in honour of their skill in the art, that their vessels would traverse valleys if only moistened by the morning dews.” Why should they not have a great ocean line? It was looked upon in Congress and by the country generally as almost a national question, and it resulted in a heavy mail subsidy to Mr. Collins and his colleagues. They immediately made arrangements for the construction of four large vessels. Later, the Government increased the subsidy by over one-third (from $19,250 per trip to $33,000) but increased speed was required in return. How much this may have had to do with the two terrible disasters about to be related will no doubt strike the reader. The Collins Line commenced its voyages in 1850.
“A voyage across the Atlantic,” says Lindsay, “must ever be attended with greater peril than almost any other ocean service of similar length and duration; arising, as this does, from the boisterous character and uncertainty of the weather, from the icebergs which float in huge masses during spring along the northern line of passage, and from the many vessels of every kind to be met with either employed in the Newfoundland fisheries, or in the vast and daily-increasing intercourse between Europe and America.
“In such a navigation the utmost care requires to be constantly exercised, especially by steam-ships. Nevertheless, although the Collins Line of steamers performed this passage with a speed hitherto unequalled, they encountered no accidents worthy of notice during the first four years of their career; but terrible calamities befell them soon afterwards.”
On the 21st of September, 1854, the Arctic, according to the usual course, left Liverpool for New York. She had on board 233 passengers, of whom 150 were first-class, together with a crew of 135 persons and a valuable cargo. At mid-day on the 27th of that month, when about sixty miles south-east of Cape Race, and during a dense fog, she came in contact with the French steamer Vesta. By this collision the Vesta seemed at first to be so seriously injured, that in their terror and confusion, her passengers, amounting to 147, and a crew of fifty men, conceived she was about to sink, and that their only chance of safety lay in their getting quickly into the Arctic. Impressed with this idea many of them rushed into the boats, of which, as too frequently happens, one sank immediately, and the other, containing thirteen persons, was swamped under the quarter of the ship, all on board of her perishing. When, however, the captain of the Vesta more carefully examined his injuries, he found that though the bows of his vessel were partially stove in, the foremost bulk-head had not started. He therefore at once lightened his ship by the head, strengthening the partition by every means in his power, and by great exertions, courage, forethought, and seamanship, brought his shattered vessel, without further loss, into the harbour of St. John’s.
In the meantime a frightful catastrophe befell the Arctic, and was so little anticipated that the persons on board of her supposing that she had only sustained a slight injury by the collision, had launched a boat for the rescue of the passengers and crew of the Vesta. It was soon, however, discovered that their own ship had sustained fatal injuries, and the sea was rushing in so fast through three holes which had been pierced in the hull [pg 108]below the water-line, that the engine fires would soon be extinguished. The Arctic’s head was therefore immediately laid for Cape Race, the nearest point of land; but within four hours of the collision the water reached the furnaces, and soon afterwards she foundered. As it was blowing a strong gale at the time, some of the boats into which the passengers and crew rushed were destroyed in launching; others which got clear of the sinking ship were never again heard of, and only two, with thirty-one of the crew and fourteen passengers, reached Newfoundland. Among those who perished were the wife of Mr. Collins, and their son and daughter; but the captain, who remained on board to the last, and the first as well as the second and fourth officers, were saved. Seventy-two men and four females sought refuge on a raft, which the seamen, when they found the ship sinking, had hastily constructed; but one by one they were swept away—every wave as it washed over the raft claiming one or more victims as its prey; and at eight o’clock on the following morning one human being alone was left out of the seventy-six persons, who only twelve or fifteen hours before had hoped to save their lives on this temporary structure. The solitary occupant of this fragile raft must have had a brave heart and a strong nerve to have retained his place on it for a day and a half after all his companions had perished, for it was not until that time had elapsed that he was saved by a passing vessel. His tale of how he and they parted was of the most heart-rending description.[33]