Queen felt only too keenly that his loss was an irreparable calamity at a time when his wise guidance and exquisite tact rendered his services to her eldest son of supreme importance.[138] During the greater part of the year the Queen led a life of absolute seclusion. The first public sign of her renewed interest in current events was given when the tidings of the Hartley Colliery accident sent a thrill of horror through every English heart. On the 16th of January the beam of the steam-engine in the Hartley coal-pit snapped. The shaft was blocked and shattered by the wreck of the machinery, and some two hundred and four miners were consigned to a lingering death in the workings, into which the water poured at the rate of 1,500 gallons a minute. For nine days rescue parties toiled without stint or ceasing to reach the prisoners. They even heard their efforts to cut their way out, but were unable to reach them. When a gang was at last able to penetrate to the workings they found men and boys lying dead in groups, surrounded by mournful relics and painful records of their last hours of agony. The male population of three hamlets was swept away; every cottage contained a coffin, some, alas! more than one, over which widows and orphans wailed out their hearts in unavailing sorrow. Among the first to express sympathy with the bereaved ones was the Queen. _Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco_ was probably the thought that flashed across her mind when she sent her anxious telegraphic messages to the scene of the disaster, whilst as yet there were hopes that some lives might be saved. After the funeral, the scene at a great religious meeting held at the pit was most touching, when the incumbent of Earsdon read to the assembly of mourners a letter which her Majesty had dictated to Sir Charles Phipps, and which had been addressed to the head viewer (or overseer) of the mine. It ran as follows:-- “OSBORNE, _January 23rd, 1862_. “SIR,--The Queen, in the midst of her own overwhelming grief, has taken the deepest interest in the mournful accident at Hartley, and up to the last had hoped that at least a considerable number of the poor people might have been recovered alive. The appalling news since received has afflicted the Queen very much. “Her Majesty commands me to say that her tenderest sympathy is with the poor widows and mothers, and that her own misery only makes her feel the more for them. “Her Majesty hopes that everything will be done, as far as possible, to alleviate their distress, and her Majesty will have a sad satisfaction in assisting in such a measure. Pray let us know what is doing. “I have the honour to be, your obedient servant, “C. B. PHIPPS.”