10 MARCH 1849, Page 9

lirlfstellantous.

At a Court of Directors, held at the East India House, on Wednesday, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles James Napier G.C.B., was appointed Com- mander-in-chief of the Company's Forces in India, and an Extraordinary Member of the Council of India. Sir Charles, it is said, will set out on the

20th. . .

The Seventy-fifth and Eighty-seventh Regiments are ordered to proceed at once to India.—Times.'

We have very good authority for announcing, that in consequence of the disastrous intelligence from India, orders were on Saturday issued by his Grace the Commander-in-chief, and circulars were despatched by the evening mails to all commanding-officers of regiments and depots, counter- manding any further discharge of soldiers from the Army. The battles in India seem to have anticipated the Government in its truckling to Cobden and CO.—Standard.

The Lords of the Admiralty have sanctioned an alteration in the con- tract of the Royal West India Mail Steam-Packet Company, by allowing the Honduras and Central American /nails to be conveyed direct from Honduras to Jamaica, instead of being' conveyed- to the latter 'place by tray of Hevannah: The new arrangement will commence during the ensuing summer, as soon as the vessel which ilt now-building for the company expressly to run between Belize and Port Royal is completed.

Mr. R. B. Crowder,.Q.C. and has been appointed a Deputy-Lieute _nant for the county of Cornwall.

The Ban Jellaohich has received the Order of the Guelph front the King of Hanover.—Morning Chronicle.

• The Times has published an account by one of the passengers of the Forth steamer of the loss of that packet on the Alacranes reef. The Forth was fifteen days behind her time at Havannah, owing to the long outward _passage of the Avon, whose mails she awaited. Mr. Crawford, the Com- pany's agent at Havannah, decided that the Forth should go direct to Vera Cruz to prevent farther derangement of the times by this delay; and she started on Friday the 12th of January. She struck on the reef at about daylight on the following Sunday, under "circumstances which impress the strongest conviction on all the passengers, some of them fully compe- tent to form a judgment, that Captain Sturdee, the commander, was wholly free from blame"; one of the currents peculiar to the Gulf of Mexico having. negatived all his calculations.

"Among our passengers, 34 in number, (total, including crew, being 126) were Mr. Lawrence, of Liverpool, and three others, bound for New Orleans, but who preferred, visiting Vera Cruz to remaining in quarantine at Havannah, and Lieu- tenant Molesworth, R.N. As we advanced in our way down and approached the terrible reef of the Alacranes, we all talked, of course, a good deal about them; but such was our well-grounded confidence in Captain Sturdee' that any idea of .danger to ourselves never entered our heads. On Saturday, at noon, being one 'hundred and seventy the miles from the reef, Captain Sturdee expected we should pass eighteen or twenty miles from it at about eight a. m. next morning. Towards evening, after I bad read Mr. Cameron's account of the loss of the Tweed, I said jokingly to Captain Sturdee, I hoped he would give the Alacranes a very wide berth. He took me thereupon to his cabin. His chart was on the table, and there he demonstrated to one the impossibility of our coming within .eighteen to twenty miles of them, or of our coming up with them at all before 'daylight.

' With as much security, then, as if we had been on land, I believe, every one ..on board the Forth turned in on Saturday night. About a quarter-past five, before daybreak, I was awakened by an unusual movement of the vessel—another —in a moment I knew we were aground. In the first voyage I ever made I had been in the same predicament. Ere I could huddle on my clothes, crash upon crash broke upon our ears: while the rolling of the vessel dashed us all from one point to another. I clambered up the companion; but Captain Sturdee was calm, energetic, collected. The heavings of the monster steam-ship were terrific. We were on the Alacranes—at least we expected so, although it seemed impossible. The breakers foamed, reared, dashed up against us. Yet, I assure you, Captain Sturdee gave his orders as if we had been in a calm. I looked around. I could see no land, nothing but breakers; could feel nothing but the rending timbers and mad swaying of the ship. I firmly believed that all was lost. Meantime' Cap- tain Sturdee was commanding the crew with perfect sang froid, and all obeyed bins. This, and the vessel keeping together, gradually restored confidence. We got some clothing up for the females. The life-boats were hoisted up from their places over the wheel. One gave way in the surf; the other came gallantly alongside. With difficulty, but devoted care on the part of Molesworth and the officers, the ladies and children were got down from the high ship into the boat amid the roaring surf. The other passengers followed, and what to do next was to be considered by Captain Sturdee. Inside the reef all was quiet and safe. How to pass the reef and the breakers was the question. Swamping of the boat seemed inevitable. While we were in this uncertainty and danger, guess the feelings of all when a voice from the Forth called out, 'A sail in sight.' It was quite true; cheers from all sides arosei and then Molesworth volunteered to cross the break- ers, and to show, at the risk of his life, whether we in the life-boat could cross or not. Four sailors soon agreed to man his boat: Away they went; and what a moment, wlem they were in the midst of the raging surt'l But they cleared all, amid cheers from the vessel, reiterated from the life-boat; and Molesworth, stand- ing on the stern, waving his cap and animating his men, ordered his sail to be hoisted, and steered for the vessel in sight. "Captain Sturdee next ordered his officers in the life-boat to cross the surf. We were sixty souls and upwards. If we swamped, who were to be saved ? But not a cry from even one female was heard. As each breaker poured its water over us, and we surmounted it, our boatmen were animated by cheers from on board ; and after a frightful struggle of about ten minutes, drenched and breath- less, a tremendous cheer from on board told us we were in safety and smooth water.

"To conclude. In about an hour boats from the vessel we had seen came to to us, with the gallant Molesworth with them. We found we were on the South- east edge of the Alacranes reef, about seven miles from the island of Perez,—a sort of wreckers' home in the midst of the surrounding death-like waters. To that island we all directed our boats, and reached it at four in the afternoon. Captain Sturdee was the last man to leave the Forth. "At five o'clock next morning, Captain Strtrdee started for the wreck, and be- gan to save our effects. The picturesque life we led on the island while Ibis went forward for two days and a half I have no time to detail. I must content myself by saying, that having saved, through the almost incredible exertions of Captain Sturdee, aided by his officers and some good men among the crew, nearly all our property on board, we sailed from Perez island on Wednesday the 17th January, in a Yucatan brigantine of 100 tons, and after a thirty-three hours passage reached Campeachy." A letter from Captain Sturdee to his "dear friends and passengers" ac- knowledges the consolation which their "approbation" had administered to him.

The Lieutenant Molesworth mentioned is the son of the Reverend J. W. Molesworth, Vicar of Rochdale; who has sent for publication in the Times a most graphic description of the whole wreck, by his son. "The ship now swung from side to side," says Lieutenant Molesworth; "the decks working, and the beams breaking: a rock through her bottom into the en- gine-room soon put an end to 'Turn her head full power,' which I could see was useless. The engines stopped themselves, the water ran out at the bottom of the boiler, and the sea rising inside soon put out the fires; so there we lay, powerless as a log, in the midst of the breakers, on the top of the rocks, the sea every now and then lifting her, and then sending her down with renewed force and a heavy crash on the rocks again. To see the decks opening and shutting, and the pas- sengers crying to God for assistance and forgiveness, to see the mothers holding their children, and husbands and wives taking leave of each other, is a sight more easily imagined than described. I felt that we must' all be lost, especially as I had seen the chart, and discovered that there was no land within seventy miles: but still I did not despair."

The Bishop of Oxford is about to lead to the altar the amiable and accom- plished daughter of Baron Alderson, with whom his Lordship spent a few days on the occasion of his visit to the opening of the church.—Norfolk Chronicle. Me. Moreton, an American printer, who died lately in Paris has bequeathed 40,0001. to be given as a premium to anybody who shall succeed in constructing a machine capable of striking off 10,000 copies of a newspaper within an hour.

Mr. Alfred Snaee, the surgeon to the Bank of England, and inventor of the bat- tery which bears his name, has announced important discoveries in animal elec- tricity. By a test, which he terms electro-voltaic, he has satisfied himself that the terminations of the sensor nerves are positive pules of a voltaic circuit, whilst the muscular substance is the negative pole. The sensor nerves are the telegraphs which carry the sensation to the brain, and the motor nerves carry back the vo- lition to the muscles. The brain he infers to consist of gve distinct voltaic circles ; which, upon theoretical grounds, he believes to be sufficient to account for all mental platenomena. Mr. Smee has succeeded in making artificial electric fish, and artificial muscular substance.—Morning Post. The public will be gratified to learn that an eight-oar cutter race is about to take place between the gentlemen of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The event, we are assured, is to be decided cn or about Thursday the 29th in- stant, over the usual course from Putney to Mortlake, when a great aquatic treat may be anticipated.—Tirees. At the Liverpool steeple-chase, on Wednesday, two of the horses slipped and broke their backs, and another horse broke his thigh, when taking the third leap. The three were killed in the geld by cutting their throats.—Preston Guardian. The usual half-yearly return of railway accidents has just been presented to Parliament. During the six months ending December 31st, 112 persons were killed on the railways in the United Kingdom, and 120 wounded; the passengers conveyed numbered 31,524,641. No fewer than 103 of the fatal hurts were the re- sult of the misconduct or want of caution in the sufferers themselves; but of the persons hurt not fatally, only 34 come without the same category : 68 passengers were hurt from causes beyond their own control. On the 31st December, there were 5,007 miles of rail opened in Great Britain and Ireland; being an increase of 650 miles during six months. On Monday evening last, the mill and machinery belonging to the estate of Mr. W. Eccles situate at Cuerden, near Preston, was put up for sale by Mr. Fisher, at the Bull Inn. There was a good attendance, and the competition spirited. The property was ultimately sold to Mr. Orrell, of Belmont, for 30,6001. This sum is, we believe, about 10,0001. more than the same property could have been bold for a short time ago, and shows very plainly that the staple trade of the county is in a much better state than at that time.—Preston Guardian.

A "speculative lot" was put up to auction at Mr. Marsh's sale on the let in- stant—" The important and valuable reversion in and to a moiety of 12,0001. Con- sols, receivable on the decease of a lady, now aged tifty-seven, provided she shall have no more children: the youngest child is nineteen years of age; the husband is still living, and is now aged fifty-nine years." The lot sold for 2,1801.

A mother and son have been found drowned in a brook between South Pether- ton and Martoek. They had been travelling in a wagger', the brook running along the side of the road; but how they got into the stream canuot be explained.

The cholera returns for the week give these results. London—cases, 28; deaths, 11. Provinces—eases, 6; deaths 5. Scotland, cases, 453; deaths, 168. Results of the Registrar-General's return of mortality iii the Metropolis for the week ending on Saturday last—

Number of Winter Deaths. Average.

Zymotie Diseases 910 .... 221.

Denny, Cancer, and other diseases of uncertain or variable seat 45 .

64

Tubercular Diseases 174 .... 203

Diseases of the Brain, Spinal Marrow,Nerres, and Senses

154 . • 141 Diseases of the Heart and Blood.vessels 46 .... 40 Diseases of the Lungs, and of the other Organs of Respiration... . 204 .... 243 Diseases of the Stomach. Liver, and other Organs of Digestion .. • 6$ .... 67

Dillelt,e21 of the Kidneys, Sc .

10 .... 13 Childbirth, diseases of the Uterus, dtc. ....

Rheumatism, diseases of the Bones, Joints, Se Diseases of the Shin, Cellular Tissue, 9.e lialformations

.. 1

Premature Birth

Atrophy fitie

....

61 .... 15

Sudden

Is....

14

Violence. Privation, Cold, and intemperance

135 .... 67

Total (including unspecified muses> 1135

U69

The temperature of the thermometer ranged from 72.0° in the sun to 23.00 in the shade; the mean temperature by day being warmer than the average mean temperature by 2.7°. The direction of the wind for the week was variable.