QUEER ADVENTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEER ADVENTURE.

The London News Agency issued the following 'extraordinary affair in midChannel,' which it states was related by John Cohen, captain of the fishing lugger Elizabeth, of Shoreham.

The Elizabeth, of ten tons, owned by Mr Samuel Smith, of Brighton, left Shoreham on Tuesday last with Captain Cohen and two other fishermen, James Rolf and George Thwaites. On Thursday morning the trawler L'Ogre, of Boulogne, seventy tons, ran into the Elizabeth's port side, smashing the bowsprit and outrigger, and doing other damage.

'The two vessels ran alongside each other for half a mile,' when the Shoreham crew, believing their lugger to be seriously damaged below the wate.r-line, prepared to jump on to the deck of the French trawler. The Frenchmen showed a. disposition to resist, and the Britishers 'had to break through the line of defence,' and struggle on to the Ogre, notwithstanding the hostile attitude of the

French

At 3 a.m. the crisis came. 'The English skipper implored the Frenchmen to take him and his two comrades to land, but the French captain replied that fie intended to throw them overboard. Rolf implored for mercy, for the 'sake of his wife and six children. Thereupon the French mate severed himself from his companions and promised to stand the strangers.'

The three Britishers lived through a morning' of suspense ; and then the French captain proposed to put them back on the Elizabeth, which was still afloat. Cohen and his mates refused. Eventually the captain of the Ogre towed the damaged lugger off Shoreham Harbour, put the three British fishermen upon it, 'and left them to struggle to land as best they could.'