The "Canadian," the second of the name, launched in 1860, set out from Quebec for Liverpool on the 1st of June. Reaching the straits of Belle Isle two days later she encountered a heavy gale and great masses of ice. About eight miles from Cape Bauld, the northernmost point of Newfoundland, the vessel was struck by a sunken floe, which tore a hole in her side under the water-line, and she sank in two hours. Twenty-nine of the passengers and crew were drowned, including James Panton, the mail officer, who neglected the means of safety in his endeavours to save the mail.
The only criticism made by the board of trade court was that the straits route being a perilous one except at the height of the season, the sailing instructions which gave masters a discretion of taking this route after the 20th of May ought to be amended by fixing the earliest date at a month later.
At the end of the season—on the 5th of November—the "North Briton" ran ashore in an attempt to make the passage between the Island of Anticosti and the Mingan Islands. The circumstances that the vessel entered the passage an hour after midnight, with a heavy sea running, were noted by the marine court. But they confined themselves to a censure on the captain for some lack of vigilance, not considering it necessary to deprive him of his certificate.
Again there was a burst of public indignation, and a demand that the government should dissociate themselves from the contract. The postmaster general pleaded that such action would, in the eyes of the foreign governments, be tantamount to a confession that Canadians had lost faith in their route. He assured the legislature that he was bringing effective pressure on the Allan Company to compel them to perform their contract satisfactorily.
The complete immunity from accident during 1862 seemed to indicate that the measures forced upon the company by the postmaster general were successful. But the faith of the Canadian in the superior advantages of their route was soon to be put to further trials.
Between the 27th of April, 1863, and the 22nd of February, 1864—a scant ten months—three vessels of the line were lost. The first of these, the "Anglo-Saxon," which crashed into the rocky coast of Newfoundland, a few miles above Cape Race, gave some point to the observations of the commission as to the disturbing influences operating upon the compasses of vessels as they approached land.
The "Anglo-Saxon" left Liverpool on the 16th of April, and for the first nine days made an uneventful voyage. A clear, bright day on the 26th gave the captain an opportunity to make observations, and ascertain the ship's position; and as the weather was steady, he was able to run under full steam and sail.
Next morning it was foggy; and John Young—a former commissioner of public works, and one of the chief advocates of the Canadian ocean service—asked the captain if it was his intention to make Cape Race. The captain said it was not, as by noon they would be twenty miles south of the Cape. About eleven o'clock Young's attention was directed to what appeared to be a huge iceberg close at hand. He ran towards the deck, but before he could reach it the ship struck, and he found himself facing a precipitous mass of rock so lofty that in the fog he could not see the top of it.
Instead of being sixteen or seventeen miles south of Cape Race, the vessel was four miles above it. Though they were so close to land that many passengers saved themselves by creeping along the mast to the shore, 238 passengers were drowned, including the captain, whose faulty seamanship had brought about the calamity.
This shore is the most dangerous on the north Atlantic. Besides the magnetic influences, there is an underplay of powerful currents, which makes navigation in these waters difficult and dangerous. The Newfoundland government published a list in 1901 showing that seventy-seven vessels, great and small, had been lost on the Cape or within a few miles to the north or west of it.