'My narrative is now brought down to about eighteen months ago. I know little of the "Royal Charter" since then. She made, it seems, her last run out to Australia in fifty-nine days, and in a Melbourne paper I received by the last mail, I saw it stated that "an able band of musicians had been engaged to proceed with the vessel home!" Ah! jollity enough was there on board, I doubt not, as the barque neared port! Fifty-eight days from Melbourne to Cork! Splendid winds must she have had all the way home; high must have been the spirits of captain, crew, and passengers! Where is the merry company now? It is a sad, sad story. Women must wring their hands, and strong men must weep, as they read that after a haven had been actually reached--after some of the passengers had even landed in Ireland, and set the telegraph in motion to tell their friends in distant places that they were safe on British soil--the ship should have been dashed to pieces by the merciless sea-spume, and that of the five hundred souls on board, four hundred and seventy should have perished! 'I could write more. I knew so many of the brave officers and crew who have perished. I knew the bluff, honest, daring captain. But of what avail is it to speak of them now? They have all gone. May they rest in peace until that day when even the sea shall render up its dead!' That was written on Thursday afternoon. The evening papers of that day contained nothing very new. On the Friday morning, however, there was sufficient in the daily journals to show me that I had--without presuming to expressly state--rightly indicated the cause of the ship's destruction. _Not a life need have been lost if the "Charter" had not broken her back._ What a strange light that sentence sheds upon what I have written concerning the build of the ship--of her scant beam and startling length.... Of the setting aside, in fact, of the normal conditions of the Thing! How the vessel came upon the coast is a question running parallel with the foregoing, and the character of the captain, as set forth in that newspaper communication of mine, comes in here with answer. That answer, we all desire, should carry due amount of weight with other commanders of ships with precious freight of human souls on board. There are a few iron plates, rolled up like shrivelled parchment, on the rocks of Molfre Bay. They are all that is left to us of the wreck of the "Royal Charter," auxiliary screw, thousands of tons burthen, fire-proof bullion-room, patent reefing topsails, and the rest. What precious warning in those crumpled iron plates! Will sea-captains read of them and still go steaming up channel on nights piteously dark with fog and mist? Unhappily, experience says they will.