1848.] Fifteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms. 27 



A Fifteenth Memoir on the Law of Storms, being (Part I.) the Bucking- 

 hamshire and H. Co.'s Steamer Cleopatra's Hurricane on the Mala- 

 bar Coast and Arabian Sea, of April 1847. The Hurricane of the 

 H. C. S. Essex in June 1811, and (Part II.) some considerations on 

 the loss of the Cleopatra Steamer, and for Steamers navigating the 

 Eastern Seas in general. By Henry Piddington, President of 

 Marine Courts of Enquiry, Calcutta. 



Part I. 



In the month of April 1847, a very severe hurricane was experienced 

 on the Malabar coast, in which, amongst others, the ship Buckingham- 

 shire was totally dismasted and the H. C. Steamer Cleopatra, with con- 

 victs for the Straits is supposed to have foundered.* I addressed the 

 Government and Chamber of Commerce of Bombay, as soon as the 

 newspaper accounts reached Calcutta, to obtain all the information 

 possible, and to both I beg to tender my respectful thanks for their 

 ready compliance with my request. I further, upon receipt of the first 

 documents, forwarded to the Government of Bombay a set of Queries 

 specially relating to the unfortunate Cleopatra, and these also have been 

 filled up (though less explicitly than I could wish) and returned to me, so 

 that it will, I trust, be recollected that the remark quoted in the note below 

 was addressed to the Government of Bombay of 1842, and not to that of 

 The Hon Mr. Clerk in 1847. And while preparing this paper, I am far- 

 ther indebted to the Bombay Government for a copy of some remarks on 

 this storm, and a chart of its track, by Captain Carless, of the Indian 

 Navy, who has also appended some remarks on the loss of the Cleopatra, 

 having himself very properly avoided standing into the bad weather in 

 the Sesostris, when bound in towards the coast from Aden to Canna- 

 nore. I have also to express my thanks to Captain Twynham, of the 

 Peninsula, and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, for an important 

 log from Colombo. 



* Verifying- too fatally I fear, my half prediction respecting her and the Semiramis, in 

 a former occasion, in the eighth of these memoirs (Journal A. S. Vol. XII. p. 397), 

 where 1 have had to remark as follows — " I grieve to add that, to the disgrace of those 

 who may deserve the blame, neither the log of the Cleopatra or of the Semiramis, both 

 Government steamers, have been obtainable; I have strong suspicions that both ran 

 headlong into the storm circles. Is the Government of Bombay aware that a mistake 

 of this kind might cost it a steamer, or at least half of a lac of rupees of damages?" JSIot 

 long after this occurred the instance of the H. C. Steamer Pluto, which vessel, in the 

 face of every warning, ran headlong into a Tyfoon in the China Sea, was utterly dis- 

 abled, and narrowly escaped foundering, and on putting back drifted on the rocks of 

 Hong Kong ; her repairs, apart from the loss to the public service of her assistance at 

 Borneo, costing probably 30,000 rupees. 



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