The Wreck of the "Royal Charter": Compiled from Authentic Sources, with Some Original Matter — John Shaqi
The Wreck of the "Royal Charter": Compiled from Authentic Sources, with Some Original MatterFowler, Frank
History
The Wreck of the "Royal Charter": Compiled from Authentic Sources, with Some Original Matter
Fowler, Frank
Royal Charter (Ship); Shipwrecks -- Wales -- Anglesey
are taken care of by the officers of police and coast-guard now on
duty. The services of the Anglesea militia have also been called
into requisition, to assist in the protection of any property
received, and also in the removal of the bodies washed up on the
shore. The position of the vessel at the time of the catastrophe,
and whether or not blame attaches to the captain or his officers,
were subjects of comment amongst many of those who visited the spot
yesterday. At present it would be unfair to give currency to these
remarks, seeing that the matter will undergo a strict investigation
at the coroner's inquest. The number of persons saved is now stated
to be thirty-nine; and of these, twenty-one are passengers, and the
remainder belong to the crew. Only very few of the bodies recovered
have yet been identified. A gentleman attended yesterday, to make
inquiry as to his wife, whom he supposed to be on board the "Royal
Charter." The body of his beloved partner was not amongst those
lying in the church, but on a closer investigation, his eye fell on
the corpse of a faithful servant, who, he felt sure, would accompany
his wife on the voyage. This fact too truly told the mournful
result.
'The man who swam on shore with the hawser was a Maltese, and not a
Portuguese, as first said. He lost everything he possessed, and
swooned when he reached land.'
Depend upon it that man ("heroism has no country") will be rewarded.
We shall not do here as was done in Sydney when the 'Dunbar' was
lost,--allow our sympathy to expend itself upon the saved to the all
but utter forgetfulness of the saviour.
A third and a later newspaper reporter's letter must find a place:--
'MOLFRA VILLAGE, REDWHARF BAY, SATURDAY.--Who does not shudder at
the mention of a shipwreck? In Llanallgo church, about a mile from
the desolate coast on which the unfortunate "Royal Charter" has gone
on shore, lie about thirty distorted and mangled bodies, and to that
locality anxious and distracted relatives crowded early yesterday
morning. At another church hard by, which is known as Penrhos, there
were also the bodies of two children and two ladies laid out; and
the anxiety of friends may be gathered when it is stated that
through pelting and incessant rain, over almost inaccessible roads,
for more than fifteen miles, hundreds of people wended their way to
the _locus in quo_ of the wreck.
'This has been pronounced the most dreadful occurrence of the kind
that has happened on this coast. Perhaps it is the most terrible
marine disaster that has ever happened anywhere. So complete is the
wreck, that Captain Fell says in his _naïve_ nautical style, that he
has been seventeen years "at this sort of work," but never saw a
vessel so completely destroyed. The size of the ship, too, and the
number of persons lost, render it an unexampled calamity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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