DISCOVERY 



217 



the belief that the Arifl was found only two miles out 

 from Via Reggie. Who put this idea into his head ? 

 As I see the matter, none other than this man who was 

 in charge of the dredging operations till Trelawny 

 departed for Rome, the captain, apparently, of the 

 felucca in which both Roberts and Trelawny 's mate 

 had observed several spars belonging to the Ariel. 

 The question which one naturally asks is, " Why did 

 this man report that he had found the boat only two 

 miles from shore, but could not get her up ? " And 

 the answer which arises in one's mind is, " Because 

 he realised that its broken timbers would serve as a 



daughter wrote to him from Rome on November 22nd, 

 that " a little while ago there died at Spezzia an old 

 sailor, who, in his last confessions to the priest (whom 

 he told to make it public), stated that he was one of 

 the crew that ran down the boat containing Shelley 

 and Williams which was done under the impression 

 that the rich ' milord Byron ' was on board with lots 

 of money. 



" They did not intend to sink the boat, but to 

 board her and murder Byron. She sank, he said, as 

 soon as she was struck." 



Miss Trelawny 's letter was published in The Times, 



THE C.\SA MAGXI IX iS::2, WITH THE BOAT (THE ARIEL) IN WHICH SHELLEY W.\S DROU'NICO 

 From a draicing by Captain D. Roberts, who built the "Ariel." 



witness against him, and that, therefore, any sub- 

 sequent search-parties must be misled." 



Before proceeding, I must say that this is a conjec- 

 ture of which I am by no means certain, and, even 

 if we dismiss it, this does not affect the other arguments 

 that the Ariel was run down intentionally. Even at 

 the time of the disaster, as Leigh Hunt ' wrote, " a sus- 

 picion was not wanting that the boat had been run 

 down by a larger one with a view to plunder it. Mr. 

 Shelley was known to have taken money on board. 

 Crimes of that nature had occurred often enough to 

 warrant such a suspicion." This view of the case 

 received further support in 1875, when Trelawny's - 



1 Ref. III. 2 Ref. V. Pp. 112-117. 



and a violent correspondence ensued. Sir Vincent 

 Eyre wrote (December 28th) that he had been given 

 the version of this boatman's confession (made in 

 1863) as it had been handed on by the priest to an 

 Italian nobleman and by the latter to his friend with 

 whom he (Eyre) had earlier in 1875 been staying in the 

 Bay of Spezia: "A boatman dying near Sarzana 

 confessed, about twelve years ago, that he was one of 

 five who, seeing the English boat in great danger, ran 

 her down, thinking Milord Inglese was on board, and 

 they should find gold." 



Trelawny's suspicions of foul play were confirmed 

 by this letter from his daughter. His letter to The 

 Times (December 27th) contains two interesting state- 



