It may naturally be asked how the vessel could keep so long together amid so destructive a conflagration? She could not have kept together two hours, had not the officers, to avoid one danger, encountered another by opening the ports and letting in the water, when she shipped such heavy seas as to become water-logged, which of course prevented her burning downwards.
The Cambria, a vessel of little more than 200 tons, was previously sufficiently filled, having goods in her hold, and about 50 persons in passengers and ship’s company. How great then must have been the pressure and confusion caused by the influx which carried the total on board to more than 600! The progress of the fire in the Kent had been so rapid, as to prevent the sufferers from saving any clothes, except what was on their persons, and both officers and soldiers were thus ill prepared to encounter the wet and cold of the deck. The cabin and the ’tween decks (the space for the steerage passengers) were thus crowded beyond measure, and most fortunate it was that the wind continued favourable for the return of the Cambria to an English port. She reached Falmouth in 48 hours after quitting the wreck, and landed her unfortunate inmates on the 4th of March.”
Lord William Bentinck, lost off Bombay; 58 recruits, 20 officers, and seven passengers perished. This lamentable occurrence happened June 17th, 1840.
Abercrombie Robinson, and Waterloo, transports, in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope; of 330 persons on board the last named vessel, 189, principally convicts, were drowned, August 28th, 1842.
H.M.S. Fantome, of 16 guns, lost off Montevideo, June 25th, 1843.
The troop ship Albert from Halifax with the 64th Regiment on board which was miraculously saved July 13th, 1843.
H.M. Frigate Wilberforce, lost on the coast of Africa, February 2nd, 1844.
Birkenhead, troopship, from Queenstown to the Cape of Good Hope, with detachments of several regiments on board. She struck on a pointed rock off Simon’s Bay, and 454 of the crew and soldiers were drowned; 184 only were saved by the ship’s boat.
The Trent, and a great number of other ships of all capacity, wrecked off the Crimea during the war. A tremendous tornado swept the Black Sea and literally dashed many of the brave ships of England and France to pieces.
WURTZCHEN, BATTLE OF.—One of the most bloody and fiercely contested battles of the campaign of 1813. Fought between the allied Russian and Prussian armies, and the French, commanded by Napoleon himself. The carnage was dreadful on each side, but the Allies retreated from the field. Fought, May 21st, 1813.