Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
SS Amazon
Destruction of
the Steamship by Fire with Great Loss of Life
Southampton
7th January 1852.
The following Notice has been
issued to the public by order of the Mayor, R Andrews.
The total destruction of the
West Indian mail steamship Amazon by fire, with the melancholy loss of upwards
of 141 persons who were on board whon she left the port of Southampton on
Friday last, thereby leaving numerous widows, orphans, and fatherless children
perfectly destitute, the mayor appeals to tho gentry and inhabitants of
Southampton and its neighbourhood to assist him in carrying out a general
subscription, and invites them to attend a public meeting to be held at the
Guildhall, on Monday next, the 12th inst., at 12 o'clock at noon, to take such
steps as may be deemed best for the relief of the sufferers.
From a Letter by
CHARLES E. DEACON, Town-Clerk, Audit-house, Southampton, 7th
January 1852
Lieutenant Brady RN.
Lieutenant Brady, R.N., the Admiralty agent of the Amazon
was sent on board to take charge of the mails at the last moment, in the place
of Lieutenant Wilkinson, R.N., who was prevented from embarking by a sudden
indisposition, and whose life has thus been providentially preserved at the
expense of that of Lieutenant Brady,
who is an officer well known and highly respected hero.
It may be added that all the officers, engineers, and
crew of the Amazon were picked men, and were selected for appointment to the
new ship from their previously known abilities and intelligence.
Value of Loss
The value of the Amazon when ready for sea was about £
100,000, and she is understood to have cost the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
fully that sum. We are informed that she is not insured, and the loss will
consequently fall entirely upon the insurance fund of the company—a fund
exclusively devoted from annual grants derived from the profits of the company
towards casualties of shipwrecks and the loss of their vessels. The value of
the specie, quicksilver, cargo, &c., when added to the value of the ship,
will give a total loss of property by this melancholy occurrence of little less
than 200,000 pounds sterling.
Impact on the Company & route
The destruction of the Amazon following so quickly upon
the stranding of the Demerara at Bristol will be seriously detrimental to the
interests of the company, as two out of the five new ships are thus withdrawn,
leaving only three— viz., the Oronoco, Magdalena, and Parana—with which to
perform the direct mail service between Southampton and the Isthsmus of Panama.
Several of the old ships will now have to be retained on the main line till
other vessels to replace the missing ships can be constructed, and in the
meantime much inconvenience will be experienced by the disorganisation into
which the general mail service will necessarily be thrown by the non-employment
of steamers of sufficient power and speed with which to maintain the chain of
communication between this country and the West Indies, Central America, and
the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, &c. We
have no doubt the directors will make every effort to remedy this state of
things without delay, but a considerable time will elapse before so great a
blow can be recovered, and the traffic will necessarily suffer to some extent
by the competition of of the New York route, which is found to be more speed
for the transmission of mails, passengers, and treasure from the Pacific and
some other points, than can be provided by the old West India packets, which
are, when compared with other ocean steamers, so deficient in speed.
Ten years of ship loss
The West India Mail Company has been the most unfortunate
of all the great steam packet associations in the loss of their steam ships.
Since the establishment of the company in 1841 no less than eight of their
fleet of steamers have been destroyed by casualties on the sea. We recapitulate
their names—the MEDINA, wrecked on the 12th of May, 1844, on a coral reef, near
Turk's Island; the ISIS, on the 8th of October, 1842, sunk off Bermuda, having
previously struck on a reef; the SOLWAY, wrecked off Corunna, on the 8th of
April, 1843; the TWEED, on the 12th of February, 1847, on the Alacranes rocks,
Gulf of Mexico; the FORTH, likewise lost on same rocks on the 15th of January, 1849; the ACTEON lost in 1844 in
the Negrellos, near Carthagena; and the new steamer DEMERERA stranded in the
river Avon, near Bristol, not long since. The wrecks of the Tweed and Solway
were attended with peculiarly distressing circumstances, involving the loss of
nearly 130 lives, and in the case of the survivors of the Tweed with an extent
of hardship and suffering which has rarely found a parallel in the records of
disasters at sea. The catalogue is closed by the burning of the AMAZON on
Sunday morning last, and by the harrowing occurrences which it has been our
painful duty to recount in connexion with her destruction. Great as the loss of
the Amazon may be in a pecuniary point of view, and extensive as will be the
inconvenience arising from an interruption of the mail service and the postponement
of long desired improvements and accelerations in the transit which would have
been introduced into the working of this important line, these considerations
bear little comparison with the frightful expenditure of human life which has
attended the destruction of this stupendous vessel.
Eliot Warburton
Among the passengers will be perceived the name of Mr.
Eliot Warburton, the well-known author, who was deputed by the Atlantic and
Pacific Junction Company to come to a friendly understanding with the tribes of
Indiana who inhabit tho Isthsmus of Darien. It was also the intention of Mr.
Warburton to make himself perfectly acquainted with every part of these
districts, and with whatever referred to their topography, climate, and resources—an
intention that had been frustrated by his untimely and dreadful death.
Mr Dellamare
Another of the passengers [not named in this letter, but assumed to be Mr Dellamare of
Chagres] by the Amazon, was one of the
deputies to the Congress of New Granada , who was returning to the seat of
Government in New Granada [now named Colombia], as one of the commissioners of the Atlantic and Pacific
Junction Company, empowered by them to negotiate for some modifications of the
very important concessions which were recently granted by the Legislature of
New Granada to the agents of the company in reference to the construction of a
ship canal. [Begun in 1904, despite the
idea having begun as early as 1520]
Raymond Forward