In 1843 Mrs. Collingwood was summoned to England to secure by identification an inheritance of property. She had then reached middle life, but, nevertheless, without a companion or attendant, she sailed on the 1st of July in the above year in the Cunard steamer Columbia, from Boston for Halifax and Liverpool. The Columbia, like all the earliest boats of the Cunard line, was a paddle wheel boat of about 1,200 tons. I know very well what those boats were, for I made a passage in the Hibernia of the same line in March, 1847, and I often wonder that in such small crafts, with one wheel buried in every roll of the sea, passengers were willing to expose themselves to the hazards of a winter passage. On Sunday, the second day out, when 240 miles from Boston, while still in charge of the pilot who, in accordance with the custom prevailing while the steamers called at Halifax, remained on board, the Columbia, in a thick fog, having been carried out of her course by an unusual Bay of Fundy current, struck a sloping rock on Black Ledge about a mile and a quarter from Seal Island, and 25 miles from Barrington, Nova Scotia, the nearest port on the mainland. Fortunately the sea was smooth and when the fog lifted a fishing schooner nearby came to the ship and with the boats of the steamer transferred to the island the passengers, 95 in number, including those in the steerage, and 73 officers and men, with luggage and the mails. The cargo was eventually saved, but the ship was a total loss. While on the island a sort of colonial government was established with Mr. Abbot Lawrence of Boston, one of the passengers at its head, to prevent excesses and possible disturbance, and a passing vessel was sent to Halifax with news of the wreck. In due time the steamer Margaret took them to that port, most of the passengers and crew continuing their passage in her to Liverpool. For the kindness and attention shown to Mrs. Collingwood by Mr. Lawrence she was always grateful. The valet of Mr. Lawrence was James Burr, a colored boy from Plymouth, who often with pride recounted to me the story of his adventure. It is a little singular that our townsman, Robert Swinburn, recently deceased at an advanced age, came to Plymouth when a young man from Sunderland, the town in which Mr. Collingwood lived, and where he also was engaged in the employment of a potter, and should twenty years later than the voyage of Mrs. Collingwood have been also summoned to England for the purpose of obtaining an inheritance. A circumstance connected with the loss of the Columbia, which reminds us of the changes which have occurred in the facilities of communication, is the fact that the news of the wreck, which occurred on Sunday, the 2d of July, did not reach Boston until Sunday, the 9th.