358 SlecpH'Packel Regulations. [^Oct. 



their heartS;, to drink Welch ale at Beaumaris, and return to drink En- 

 glish ale in the next twenty-four hours at Liverpool, was there a single 

 soul that could know any thing about the ship, the engine, or the 

 drunken villain of a captain ! 



" It is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, that the number of pas- 

 sengers on board the steamer, at the time of her sailing from Liverpool, 

 exceeded one hundred and ten, to which must be added the captain and 

 mate, two seamen, the engineer, the steward and his wife, a black boy 

 and four musicians, making not less than one hundred and twenty-two 

 souls ; probably more, as many persons are supposed to have gone on 

 board the ill-fated boat without registering their names. Out of these, 

 only twenty-two have been saved, leaving a certain total of one hundred 

 and two individuals who were swallowed by the remorseless waves." 



Now, of the one hundred and two people sacrificed on boai'd of this 

 ship, how many could possibly know anything about its condition ; though 

 they soon discovered that the captain was an unmannerly ruffian, by 

 his answer to their demands of being put back, and by his insolent ob- 

 servation that " there was little danger onboard, but a d — d deal of fear." 

 So on they went, brawling and blundering, until the horrid catastrophe 

 was accomplished. 



In this case the fault was the agents', for they should have provided a 

 proper captain ; and as a man does not take to habits of insolence and 

 drinking within the first half hour from his leaving harbour, they ought 

 to have known how far this fellow was fit to be trusted with men's lives. 

 As for tlie vulgar argument, that self-interest will make the proprietors 

 take care of their vessel ; every man of common experience knows, 

 that there is a low self-interest as well as a high one, and that there are 

 proprietors, who, to save sixpence at the moment, would run the hazard 

 of losing a thousand pounds twelve hours after. With tliose miserable 

 ruffians, the first consideration would be a cheap captain, and a rotten 

 ship ; the saving of wages and repairs altogether effacing the danger of 

 losing ship and all. Besides, the insurance-office takes off the only 

 stimulus to their prudence, and sink or swim, away goes the vessel to 

 sea. — If she goes to the bottom they are not the less secure of their 

 insurance. 



Again, in the best-formed vessels, what provision is there for those 

 accidents which may befil the best ships that ever crossed the sea ? One 

 of those steam-packets puts out crammed with three or four hundred 

 people. If the ship springs a leak, runs foul of another, or is driven 

 on a rock — all which things might happen to her if she had been steered 

 by Cook himself — there is one boat at the stern, to carry off the whole 

 four hundred. Half a dozen may escape in the boat; the rest are 

 lost, beyond all possibility of escape. The whole affair is a general 

 murder, man, woman and child plunged by wholesale into the bottom 

 of the deep ; and all this because a rascally parsimony in the proprietors, 

 an insatiable avarice, has refused to give the unhappy people any 

 chance of escape. What is the use of a legislature if private villany, 

 for it deserves no gentler name, is thus suffered to prey upon the lives of 

 the people ? The legislature must take the matter in hand, and steam- 

 boat proprietors must be suffered no longer to sport with life. 



It should be enacted — that no steaui-boat should be suffered to leave 

 its station, whether for river or sea, without being, half an hour before. 



