108 LOSS OF THE ROTHSAT? CASTLE. 
There might have been a solemn satisfaction in pursuing 
tne melancholy story, as derived from the verbal communica- 
tions of different survivors; and it would have been interest- 
ing to have followed out the personal adventures of each in- 
dividual sufferer. But we draw the veil over the scene of af- 
fliction, and let the personal narrative already given suffice 
as a specimen of the rest. This summary only we add of 
the relative extent of death and preservation ; that whilst un- 
der the painful dispensation of a providence — to us at once 
mysterious and solemnl}'" awakening — above a hundred of our 
fellow-creatures were bereaved of their mortality by a simul- 
taneous stroke, — at the same time, under the good hand of 
the God of heaven, a remnant of one-and-twenty (two of them 
females) were supported through the almost unequalled ad- 
venture, " some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the 
ship ; and so it came to pass that these escaped all safe to 
landi" 
But why was the multitude of unconscious passengers led 
helplessly and unwillingly to try this fatal ordeal of human 
endurance and providential interference? Was it by stress of 
weather — by perplexing darkness — by bewildering fog — or by 
unavoidable accident, that the sad calamity was occasioned ? 
Alas, no ! There w^as nothing in the state of the weather, and 
littJe as to the state of the vessel — indifferent as that is reputed 
to have beeu — that can serve to palliate,. much less to excuse 
the fatal misa'i'/enture. The causes to which this melancholy 
catastrophe are, by popular report, ascribed, need not to be 
mentioned ; and it would have been grateful to Christian feel- 
ing to have passed entirely over the painful investigation ; but 
the interests of the public, and the future safety of our lives, 
demand that the truth, as far as determined by sufficient au- 
thority, should be strongly and plainly told. The only real 
or satisfactory authority which at this time can be referred to, 
is the evidence brought before the coroner, at the inquests 
held at Beaumaris, with the impression produced on the minds 
of the jury by that evidence, as declared in a lettcv handed by 
them to the coroner, after the delivery of their verdict. In 
that letter the jury express " their firm conviction " on these 
two important points, — " that had the Rothsay Castle been a 
seaworthy vessel, and properly manned, this awful calamity 
might have been averted ; and " that the captain and mate" 
'^have been proved, by the evidence brought before them, to 
have been in a state of intoxication !" 
It is painful for me to assist in censuring individuals already 
i 
