WRECK OF THE " DEUTSCHLAND." 273 



ever and again remind us of the dangerous nature of our shores. But a few months before 

 the Schiller had been wrecked, with the loss of 331 lives, and now an emigrant steamship, 

 of the same nationality, was to share the same terrible fate off the Essex coast. Happily, 

 the loss was not so serious, and led to the establishment of a life-boat station where one 

 had not existed before. 



Few maritime disasters of modern times have excited more general interest than 

 the wreck of the Deutschland : partly from the fact that it occurred so near the mouth 

 of the Thames, and partly because a part of the German press, in a strange and reckless 

 manner, advanced serious charges against the town of Harwich and the boatmen of that 

 port, accusing them of allowing the unfortunate emigrants to perish before their eyes, 

 and refusing them succour. The circumstances are as follows : In the first place, the spot 

 where the Deutschland was wrecked on the Kentish Knock is twenty-four miles from Har- 

 wich, and, therefore, at too great a distance for the vessel herself, and far less for any signals 

 of distress or national flag to be seen from that place, even in clear weather. " Accordingly, the 

 only modes by which intelligence of the disaster could be conveyed to Harwich would have been 

 by the different light-vessels repeating the signals from one to another, and finally to that 

 town, or by some vessel or boat proceeding there. Now it so happened that all the hovelling 

 smacks belonging to that and adjacent places had themselves been driven into port by 

 the violence of the gale and the heavy sea, and that the only available means of com- 

 munication was, therefore, by signals from the light-ships. It appeal's from the evidence 

 of the officers in charge of those vessels at the Board of Trade inquiry, although the 

 Deutschland had been on shore since five and six o'clock in the morning 011 Monday, the 

 Cth of December, and had immediately commenced to throw up rockets, and continued to 

 do so until daylight, none of them were seen even from the nearest light-snip the Kentish 

 Knock no doubt, owing to the thickness of the weather and almost continuous snow-storms, 

 the master of that vessel first perceiving the unfortunate steamer at 9.30 a.m. He then 

 fired guns, sounded the fog-horn, and continued to do so at half-hour intervals during the 

 day, and at 4.30 p.m. commenced to throw up rockets, which were answered by the steamer. 



" At 5.20 the mate of the Sunk light-ship first saw two rockets, which he supposed 

 to be from a vessel on the Long Sand, whereupon he fired guns and sent up rockets 

 throughout the night, but did not see the wrecked ship until 7.30 on the morning of 

 Tuesday, the 7th. His first rockets had, however, been seen by the look-out on board 

 the Cork light-ship, from which vessel rockets were then immediately discharged; and at 7.30 

 these were replied to from. Harwich, they having given the first intimation to the good 

 people of that town that anything was amiss at sea; and even then not that a German 

 emigrant steamer was ashore on the Kentish Knock, but merely that some vessel was in 

 danger somewhere on one of the numerous sandbanks which lie in all directions off that 

 port. We have thus accounted for the circumstance of these unfortunate shipwrecked persons 

 being allowed to remain for fourteen hours in their perilous position without succour from 

 the shore, from the simple cause that no one knew of their danger ; and we have arrived 

 at another stage of our inquiry : viz., Were the means then adopted all that could be 

 reasonably expected from humane people, who would gladly afford succour, if in their 

 power, to any one in distress, to whatever country they might belong ? " 

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