On the morning of March 25th, 1878, the country awoke to one of the most painful and unlooked‐for catastrophes that have befallen the navy during the present century—that of the _Captain_ hardly excepted, for certain doubts had always been felt as to how the bulky ironclad would behave in a heavy gale. “One of the finest corvettes of her class that ever floated,” said a competent authority, “commanded by a captain and officered by men of the highest professional experience, and with a crew young, but sufficiently trained, and numerous enough in nautical parlance to have ‘torn her to pieces’, capsizes, with the loss of every soul on board her but two. Such a calamity, taken in all its bearings and with such a loss of life, is unparalleled in the modern history of the navy. It is true that about forty years ago a man‐of‐war schooner (the _Pincher_), very much over‐masted, was, off the ‘Owers,’ not very far from the same spot, capsized in a heavy squall, and all her hands were lost, although she was in company with a corvette at the time. But the _Eurydice_ was not over‐ masted, and she went down in broad daylight and in smooth water. Yet where is the officer or the man—let him be the best seaman in the world—who can say, ‘Such would not have been the _Eurydice’s_ fate had I commanded her?’ The fact is, the disaster, truly lamentable as it is, might have happened to any seaman. With a fair wind, smooth water, and within a short distance of her anchorage, running along too close under the high land of the Isle of Wight to notice the hurricane‐like squall rushing down upon her in time to prepare for it, the ship was literally forced under water, the accumulating weight of which eventually capsized her beyond recovery. Adverse comments have been made on the ports being open; but with a fair wind, smooth water, and Spithead close by, what danger could possibly be apparent, to cause them to be closed after a sea‐voyage so nearly ended? Had the _Eurydice_ met with the same squall at sea she would have weathered it.”(57) [Illustration: H.M.S. “EURYDICE” ON HER BEAM‐ENDS JUST AFTER THE SQUALL.]