Loss of an Emigrant Ship out of Londonderry, and two hundred and forty
passengers The following is from the Illustrated London News of May 8, 1847.
We are sorry to have to record the loss of the ship Exmouth, under very
painful circumstances, the loss of life being very great. According to the
statement of three sailors, the sole survivors of the wreck, and who arrived
in Glasgow on Saturday evening, the Exmouth, of 320 tons, Isaac Booth, of
Sunderland, master, sailed from Londonderry for Quebec between three and
four o\\\'clock on the morning of Sunday, the 25th ult., with a light south
west breeze. She had a crew of 11 men (inclusive of the captain), and about
240 emigrants, consisting principally of small farmers and tradesmen, with
their families. Many were females and children going out to join their
fathers and protectors, who had already settled in Canada. There were also
three cabin passengers, young unmarried ladies of the middle classes, two of
them being sisters, on their way to join their relatives at St. John, New
Brunswick. The vessel was registered for 165½ passengers; but, as two
children count as one adult, and as a very large proportion were under
age-there being only about 60 men amongst the passengers-the survivors of
the wreck think that the total number of these ill-fated emigrants must have
amounted to 240. The ship lost sight of land about four o\\\'clock on Sunday
afternoon. The breeze, which had been light in the morning, increased to a
gale during the day, and about eleven p.m. it came in terrific squalls,
accompanied by heavy torrents of rain. They then furled the fore and main
sails. The wind, which had been to the westward at first, veered northerly,
and the storm increased in violence, which blew the two top-sails from the
bolt-ropes. The crew then commenced to bend other topsails, which they
furled; but about three in the morning they were blown from the gaskets. The
ship was now driving to the southward and eastward. The reason of the master
not standing to the westward, where he would have ample sea room, was for
the purpose of attaining some harbour of refuge, where he might repair
damages, and replace the sails. On Monday forenoon the long-boat was
unslipped by the force of the seas, which broke over the vessel, and in the
course of the same forenoon the bulwarks were stove in, and the life boat
washed away. The gale continued with the same violence during the whole of
Monday night and Tuesday. About eleven o\\\'clock on Tuesday night (the 27th
ult.), land, and a light, were seen on the starboard quarter, which Captain
Booth, at first, took to be the light on the Island of Tory, off the north
west coast of Ireland, and, in the belief that he thus had ample sea-room in
the course he was steering, he bore along. As he drifted near the land,
however, and observed that the light was a flashing, instead of a stationary
one, he became conscious of his error and dangerous position, and made every
effort to repair it, by bringing the ship farther to the northward and
westward; and, with the view of \"clawing\" her off the land, the
maintopsail and the foretopmast stay sail were set, and the jib half
hoisted. The effort, however, was an ineffectual one; the ship soon got
amongst the broken water, and, at half-past twelve on Wednesday morning, was
dashed amongst the rocks. If the above be a correct version of the
impression on the captain\\\'s mind as to his position-and it is distinctly
spoken to by two of the survivors-the result shows that he must have been
fully a hundred miles out of his reckoning; but, perhaps, it could not well
be otherwise. The sun was obscured all the time by black clouds; the moon
was only seen through a heavy haze at intervals, and from these causes it
was impossible that any observation could be taken. The light seen was in
reality that of Oransa or Oversay, on the point of the Rhinns or Runs of
Islay, to the north-west of the entrance of Lochindaul; and the land seen,
and on which the brig eventually struck, was the western part of the
iron-bound coast of the island. She went ashore, and after striking once was
dashed broadside on alongside the rocks, which rose to the height of the
mast-head. She struck violently against the rocks three times, and at the
fourth stroke the mainmast went by the board, and fell into a chasm of the
rock. Captain Booth had previously taken his station in the maintop, that he
might personally keep a look out; and, as soon as the brig struck, John
Cleat, the mate, and all the seamen, eight in number, joined the captain in
the maintop, leaving the captain\\\'s son, a youth of about fifteen yers of
age, asleep in his cot below. After remaining in the maintop about three
minutes, five of the crew went down for the purpose of ascending the
foretop, thinking that they would have a better chance of gaining the shore
from that part of the ship. At the same time, on of the crew, named John
Scott, went out upon the mainyard with a life-buoy on his person; thus
leaving in the maintop the captain and three seamen, whose names are John
Stevens, William Coulthard, and George Lightford, all belonging to South
Shields. When the maintop, along with the wreck of the mast, was thrown into
a rift of the rock, Coulthard, then Lightford, and finally Stevens,
scrambled up the rigging, and obtained a footing on the crags. The captain
was about to follow the men, when a wave dashed over their heads as they
clung to the rock, but they were enabled to maintain their position; and
when they looked round after the sea had retired, they found that the
captain and all were gone. The mainmast had been broken into splinters by
the fourth collision with the rocks, and this recoiling wave had not only
dragged the ship, but the fragments of the mast, which adhered to her by the
rigging, further into the sea, and thus cut off from the dense mass of human
beings on board every chance of escape. Had the wreck remained in the chasm
where it was originally thrown, and from which the three survivors escaped,
it might have been used as a bridge by the others; but, unhappily, this last
possibility of relief was taken away. The same wave which effected this
fearful havoc must also have prevented the five seamen from reaching the
foretop, from which they might have had a chance of escaping. A quarter of
an hour elapsed from the time of the brig first striking until the three
survivors got upon the rock. There was no cry from the multitude cooped up
within the hull of the ill-fated brig; or at least it was unheard, for the
commotion of the elements was so furious that the men on the top could
scarcely hear each other at the top of their voices. The emigrants,
therefore, must have perished in their berths, as the rocks rapidly thumped
the bottom out of the vessel. The three men who had escaped to the rock, so
soon as the ship entirely disappeared, searched anxiously for some outlet by
which they might reach the mainland; but none such could be found, and they
finally took shelter in a crevice, which, however, did not shield them from
the rain, which fell heavily all night, and here remained till grey
daylight. They then discovered an opening, through which they scrambled to
the summit, and after day had fairly broken, they observed a farm house
about half a mile distant, Thither they proceeded, and were most hospitably
nourished and put to bed. They were thoroughly worn out by exhaustion, not
one of the crew having been in bed from the moment the ship left Derry. They
were at the same time nearly naked, from having divested themselves of their
heavy clothing when the Exmouth struck, and lost part of that which remained
when scrambling on the rigging and amongst the rocks. The hospitable farmer
and others apprised by him, went to the scene of the catastrophe, but of
course too late to help, and only to gaze on the desolation. Mr. Chiene,
Islay\\\'s factor, soon heard of the event, and kindly furnished the men
with a passage to Glasgow by the Modern Athens steamer, where they arrived
on Saturday last. Here they were consigned to the care of Mr. Fildes, of the
Naval Rendezvous, and assistant to Lieutenant Forrest, agent for the
Shipwrecked Mariners\\\' Society, and by him they have been clothed and
comfortably boarded in the meantime. At the latest date of our advices from
Islay, about 20 of the bodies had come ashore. They were principally
females, with one little boy amongst them; and as many of them were in their
night clothes, the probability is that they were those who had rushed upon
deck at the first alarm caused by the striking of the ship.
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