In this terrific storm the ship behaved nobly, but was at one time in considerable danger of being driven ashore. She returned to Southampton, and was berthed for the winter in Southampton Water. On the 21st January, the captain of the _Great Eastern_, Captain Harrison, was drowned in Southampton Water by the capsizing of a small boat carrying him from the ship to the town. The boat, which was fully manned by six picked seamen and the captain’s coxswain, was seized in a sudden squall near the dock-gates, and upset before the trysail could be lowered. Boats were at once put off from the _Indus_ to the rescue, but when Captain Harrison was reached, the body was floating a little under water, and life was quite extinct—death being apparently the result of apoplexy caused by the intense cold. The coxswain was found insensible close by, and survived only till the evening. A fine youth, son of the chief purser, was also drowned; the chief purser himself (Mr. Lay), and Dr. Watson were amongst those saved with the crew. The _Great Eastern_ made her first Transatlantic voyage to New York after a very successful but by no means rapid passage of ten days and a half. In many respects the vessel fully answered the expectations of her builders. Her vast bulk aided the fineness of her lines in cutting through the opposing waves without any apparent shock. To those which rolled upon her sides she rose with a easy swing, and they passed to leeward, seemingly deprived of their fury; others struck her with full force, but no vibration or shock was communicated to the vast mass. It was speedily discovered that there were two prime defects in her appointments—it was impossible to raise the steam in the boilers which animate the paddle-wheel engines to the full power; and the wheels themselves were not so placed as to act on the water with effect. On the 21st, the power of the ship was put to a most trying test. A strong northwesterly gale had raised a rough sea. “It has always been said that she never could or would pitch, but the truth is this ship does just the same on a small scale that ordinary vessels in a sea may do on a very large one. The _Great Eastern_ against a head sea makes a majestic rise and fall, where a steamer of 2,000, or even 3,000, tons would be labouring heavily, and perhaps taking in great seas over her bows. On this Thursday she dipped down below her hawse pipes. It was a fine sight to watch her motion from the bows, splitting the great waves before her into two streams of water, like double fountains, and to look along her immense expanse of deck as she rose and fell with a motion so easy and regular that the duration of each movement could be timed to the very second.”