CORRESPONDENCE.
A SEA-STORY OF TO-DAY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "Spiecreroa."1 SIR,—In utter defiance of the often expressed opinion that the romance of the sea no longer exists, or if it still lingers on anywhere it is certainly not to be found in connexion with steam, incidents still persist in occurring which contradict such an opinion in the most emphatic manner, and of such is the affair about to be set forth here in the plainest words possible.
On November 30th last the little steam collier Congress,' carrying about a thousand tons of coal, left Cardiff for Brest. She was thirty-one years old, and carried a crew of fourteen bands, of whom four were seamen, and three were the master and two officers. So that while at sea at night with wheel mad look-out manned the only available hand for any deck- work was the officer of the watch, unless, indeed, the look-out man were called from his post. There is nothing unusual in this ; it is only mentioned to portray the situation exactly. The rest of the hands of course belonged to the engine-room and stokehold, including the steward. The next morning they were on the Cornish coast with a heavy gale blowing right on shore, but hauling to the northward during the fore- noon with a very heavy sea. There is no doubt that the vessel was handled with seamanlike care, being steered and driven with every possible attention to her needs in conflict with those mighty Atlantic waves. Most of us who have been in Channel during a gale have seen similar vessels to the ' Congress' fighting for their lives-
" Just a funnel and a mast, lurching through the spray"— have watched the great masses of water breaking clean over all, and have felt our hearts go out to the brave men whose lot it is to earn their poor pay in so strenuous a fashion. At about 1 p.m. the • Congress' shipped an extra heavy sea which carried away en bloc the structure known as the flying bridge, from which the vessel was navigated, and with it the wheel-house and the chart-room (one room divided by a bulk- head), all the boats, four in number, the engine-room sky- light, and the master, mate, and helmsman, who were all on the bridge. It should be unnecessary to explain that now the vessel was unsteerable, and besides had a huge opening into her vitals for the continually invading seas to enter. More- over, the starboard bulwarks were also carried away, and such few items of cordage (never very many in a vessel of this kind, where much use is made of steel wire rope) as had been on deck were promptly twisted around the propeller. At the tremendous impact of this sea, the second mate, whose watch it was below, awoke from his hardly won sleep and rushed on deck. Seaman though he was, it must have taken some appreciable space of time for him to realise the extent of the disaster and the fact that upon him, the uncer- tificated man with less than the pay of a scavenger, had fallen the sole responsibility. A few seconds only, and the man had risen to the full stature of his position. His first care was to get the hand steering-gear aft connected. His next almost incredibly difficult task, to get the propeller disentangled, assisted by at the utmost three other men. Then, and not until then, was the vessel manageable, and all the while she had been in imminent danger of destruction by the inces- santly assailing seas.
Now to rescue the hapless ones dashed with the structure upon which they had stood into the foaming seas. They were still in sight, or, rather, their frail support was, for already the mate had gone. But to bring the vessel round so as to bead for them would have been to invite destruction, for it must have exposed her battered side to the seas, and one blow would have certainly sunk her. Moreover, it must be remembered that the vessel was almost derelict, and there were no boats. So the man in charge did all that a seaman could for the lives and property whose care had been thus suddenly thrust upon him, and kept in towards Godrevy Head, making signals of distress as night came on, which were answered from the lighthouse on that point, but that was all. No help was forthcoming until the small hours of the follow- ing morning, when another collier, the Bilbster,' came along, and when close to demanded the news. Now, and quite naturally, the crew clamoured to be taken off the vessel, for they believed her to be sinking. At any rate, they asserted their right to grasp at the chance afforded them of living a little longer, and it ought to be difficult for any one to blame them, seeing that all they bad at stake was their lives. Nor can we wonder if the brevet-captain was quite ready to believe that this little group of men would take no further orders from him in the face of such an opportunity as now offered. Whether we are surprised or not matters little, the fact being that the poor man, worn out with labour and anxiety (he had been continually toiling under the worst conditions for over eighteen hours) accepted the offer of rescue by the master of the Bilbster,' and he with his crew were promptly salved, and taken on board the rescuing vessel. Then he told the master that he believed the ' Congress ' might yet be saved if a volunteer crew went on board of her and she were towed in. To which suggestion the master gleefully responded, of course, because while saving life at sea even at the imminent risk of your own must always be done gratuitously, saving property means a comfortable addition to the salvors' scanty salary. Think of it! Had the Congress' been totally lost the underwriters would have had to pay to her owners £7,750. What an immense sum did that, as it turned out to be for him, injudicious suggestion of Mr. James Purdy's save the under- writers! Of course he did not think of that. He only felt concerned as a true seaman at the possibility of losing the ship, and did to the last all he could to prevent that calamity. In the end the Bilbster ' accomplished the feat of towing the disabled Congress' safely into port, and there it was learned that the helmsman, whose narrative is not the less romantic of the two, was found by the lifeboat tossing helplessly upon the wreckage to which his superior physique had enabled him to cling, while the master and the mate had both relinquished their hold and been drowned.
Subsequently the whole matter was brought before the Court of Inquiry at Liverpool, presided over by the Stipendiary Magistrate, assisted by a naval Captain and two merchant masters as nautical assessors. The inquiry was a most exhaustive one, extending over four days, and embracing not merely the circumstances of the wreck, but the condition and antecedents of the vessel. But all of it seemed to show that the man upon whom the responsibility was suddenly thrown bad done all that mortal man could do, save offer up the lives of those that were with him and his own as a sacrifice to the manes of those whom it was impossible to save. However in the end the verdict of the Court was that the second officer, Mr. James Purdy, must be severely censured (1) for not attempting to save the lives of the men washed oven board ; and (2) for premature abandonment of the vessel. I do not wish to challenge the decision of the Court, whic!, was no doubt given as a matter of strict right and duty, be' it may, I think, be a subject of legitimate wonder whether this humble seaman would have received the same verdict if he had found any one to defend him, or had been a member of any of the masters' and officers' societies, and consequently had had the benefit of skilled help and advice in the present- ment of his case. But surely such conduct as his cannot fail in its appeal to the hearts and consciences of all of us who love manliness, and believe in the undying romance and
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