494 
AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF GENERAL VESEY. 
Thinking so interesting a regimental record should not be lost, I 
have, since General Vesey’s death, sought in various directions for 
more information regarding the eventful voyage, but without success. 
Major Murdoch writes :—“ There is not one scrap in the R.A. official 
records of the St. Helena 1851 episode; nor can I find anything in the In¬ 
stitution and Garrison libraries here.” So that for the slight additions I 
can supply to the story as related in the extracts, I am indebted to my 
memory of the history of the voyage related to me by Captain Vesey 
more than 30 years ago. He seldom mentioned the incident; not a 
great talker, he was ever one who considered himself and his doings 
as uninteresting subjects for general conversation; one of the noble 
silent men, “ scattered here and there, each in his department; silently 
thinking, silently working . . . They are the salt of the earth.” 
So far as I can remember he only referred to the matter of his own 
accord once in my hearing: we were breakfasting in the Mess at 
Shorncliffe in the year 1860; suddenly he sprang up and hastened to 
the window to look at a man who was passing; on returning to his 
seat he said to me : “ I declare, I thought it was the captain of the 
( Levenside.’ He swore he would do for me some day, and would find 
me wherever I was.” He seemed to regard the possibility of the 
encounter with amusement rather than alarm; it, however, never 
came off. 
With reference to the passage in the extract from The Times , “the 
vessel was navigated by the mates, by direction of Captain Vesey,” 
he told me that most of the crew and all the officers, except one, sided 
with the master and refused to render any assistance in navigating the 
ship, and that the only officer who would help him was one of the 
juniors—my impression is the junior; in the extract from The Times of 
13th September, the first mate is mentioned as the one who separated 
himself from the ship’s officers. However this may be, the officer and 
Captain Vesey (who knew something about navigation as he did about 
many things), with the help of some of the crew and of the gunners, 
took the ship into St. Helena. This was not the least notable incident 
during a very remarkable and sustained display of courage in the 
assumption of heavy responsibility under circumstances to which it 
would be difficult to find a parallel. 
A MERCHANT VESSEL SEIZED BY THE PASSENGERS. 
The Advocate , or St. Helena Weekly News , a paper recently started in St. 
Helena, gives an account of some extraordinary occurrences said to have taken 
place onboard a vessel called the“ Levenside,” and which were being investigated 
by the authorities of the island. 
The vessel had on board Captain Vesey, of the Royal Artillery, in command of a 
detachment of his corps, and Captain Neill, aide-de-camp to the expected Governor, 
Sir Emerson Tennent. She arrived on the 29th of May, and it appeared that on 
the 15th of that month, while at sea, Captain Campbell, the master, ordered the 
booby-liatch to be closed. This was done, and immediately afterwards Captain 
Vesey summoned the troops under his charge to take off the hatch, in defiance of 
the master’s orders, which was immediately carried into effect. On the 17th, two 
days after this, a squabble appears to have taken place between one of the soldiers 
