Mr. Patterson was sent by the Directors to Dundrum with Mr. Alexander Bremner (who had had considerable experience in floating stranded ships), and they endeavoured to protect the vessel by breakwaters. These, however, were soon carried away; and, after this misfortune, the Directors seem for a time to have lost all hope of saving their ship.
On December 8, when the immediate pressure of Parliamentary work was over, Mr. Brunel went to Dundrum, having some time before been requested by the Directors and underwriters to examine and report on the ship. He was delighted, he said, in spite of all the discouraging accounts he had received, to find the ‘Great Britain’ ‘almost as sound as the day she was launched, and ten times stronger and sounder in character,’ though at the same time he was grieved to see her ‘lying unprotected, deserted, and abandoned.’
Whatever may have been the misgivings of others, he felt no doubt as to the possibility of saving the ship, by at once protecting her by a breakwater made of fagots; and before he left Dundrum he set Captain Hosken at work at the new arrangements, and he guaranteed the immediate expense in the event of the Directors not sanctioning the measure.
Immediately on his return to town, he wrote the following somewhat vigorous letter to Captain Claxton:—
December 10, 1846.
I have returned from Dundrum with very mixed feelings of satisfaction and pain, almost amounting to anger, with whom I don’t know. I was delighted to find our fine ship, in spite of all the discouraging accounts received, even from you, almost as sound as the day she was launched, and ten times stronger and sounder in character. I was grieved to see this fine ship lying unprotected, deserted and abandoned by all those who ought to know her value, and ought to have protected her, instead of being humbugged by schemers and underwriters. Don’t let me be understood as wishing to read a lecture to our Directors; but the result, whoever is to blame, is, at least in my opinion, that the finest ship in the world, in excellent condition, such that 4,000l. or 5,000l. would repair all the damage done, has been left, and is lying, like a useless saucepan kicking about on the most exposed shore that you can imagine, with no more effort or skill applied to protect the property than the said saucepan would have received on the beach at Brighton. Does the ship belong to the Company? For protection, if not for removal, is the Company free to act without the underwriters? If we are in this position, and if we have ordinary luck from storms for the next three weeks, I have little or no anxiety about the ship; but if the Company is not free to act as they like in protecting her, and in preventing our property being thrown away by trusting to schemers, then please write off immediately to Hosken to stop his proceeding with my plans, because I took the pecuniary responsibility of the cost of what I ordered until he could hear from you, and of course I do not want to incur useless expense, but still more I do not wish any proceeding taken as from me to be afterwards stopped. I will now describe as nearly as I can what I have seen, and what I think.
As to the state of the ship, she is as straight and as sound as she ever was, as a whole. She is resting and working upon rocks, which have broken in at several places, and forced up perhaps 12 to 18 inches many parts of the bottom, from the fore stoke-hole to about the centre of the engines, lifting the boilers about 15 inches and the condenser of the fore engine about 6 or 8 inches; the after-condenser, perhaps, half an inch. The lifting of the fore-condenser has broken that air-pump, the connecting rod having been unwisely left in, and the crank being at the bottom of the stroke. Of course the air-pump could not help being broken; except this, the whole vessel, machinery, &c., are perfect. I told you that Hosken’s drawing was a proof, to my eye, that the ship was not broken: the first glimpse of her satisfied me that all the part above her 5 or 6 feet water line is as true as ever. It is beautiful to look at, and really how she can be talked of in the way she has been, even by you, I cannot understand. It is positively cruel; it would be like talking away the character of a young woman without any grounds whatever.
The ship is perfect, except that at one part the bottom is much bruised, and knocked in holes in several places. But even within three feet of the damaged part there is no strain or injury whatever. I think it very likely that she may have started leaks where she has been pounding away upon the rocks, but nothing more; and as I said before, all above her 5 or 6 feet water line is uninjured, except her overhanging stern; there is some slight damage to this, not otherwise important than as pointing out the necessity of some precautions if she is to be saved. I say ‘if,’ for really when I saw a vessel still in perfect condition left to the tender mercies of an awfully exposed shore for weeks, while a parcel of quacks are amusing you with schemes for getting her off, she in the meantime being left to go to pieces, I could hardly help feeling as if her own parents and guardians meant her to die there.
Why, no man in his senses can dream of calculating upon less than three months for the execution of any rational scheme of getting her off; and no man in his senses, I should think, would dream of taking her across the channel in the winter months, even if he had got the camels or floats fast. Of this I don’t feel so competent to form an opinion, though I think I can judge, and I should consider it a wanton throwing away of my shares if the Directors allowed her to be taken out, even if afloat; but at all events I am competent to judge of the probable time occupied in getting means to float her, and I maintain that it would be absurd to calculate upon less than two or three months. It is not therefore the mode of getting her off that we ought to have been all this time thinking of, but how to keep her where she is. I feel so strongly on this point that I feel quite angry. What are we doing? What are we wasting precious time about? The steed is being quietly stolen while we are discussing the relative merits of a Bramah or a Chubb’s lock to be put on at some future time! It is really shocking.
Having expended a little of my feeling, I will tell you what I have done, and what I should recommend.