A ROUGH SEA VOYAGE.

Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 109, 16 June 1866, Page 2

A ROUGH SEA VOYAGE.

(From the Bendigo Advertiser, 15th May.) The following is an extract from a letter received by this mail from Mr. Isaac Seymour, an old Bendigo resident, anil neai'ly seven years foreman of the blacksmiths, at Messrs Honvoods louudry. The letter is dated South Boston, America, 28th January 1866, addressed to his cousin here ; and from the well-known character of the writer its truthfulness may be implicitly relied on. After detailing I a few disagreeable but unimportant inci-

dents consequent, on a sea voyage with a family the writer goes on to state :—: — "I suppose you know we sailed from Melbourne in the ship Patrick Henry, in 1865. We were 84 days on the passage, had good winds, and lnavy weather at times. Hounded Cape Horn on the thirtyfirst day out, in a heavy snow gale, running right hefore the wind, with the sea ninuntuiiiNhigli. We saw several icebergs — one of which wriß about three miles long and two wide, and about 100 l'eet out of the water. We suffered a good deal from cold and starvation ; but the next portion of our voyage was more melancholj' and frightful, and of a character which I cannot describe to you in full, but will tell you some of it. When we left Melbourne, it was intended we should call into Bahia. in South America, about 1000 miles from the Horn, for water, and provisions. However, instead doing that, having a lair wind, and the chance of a quick passage, the captain determined not to call in, but to put us on hali-allowance of rations and ] water, so as to make the provisions last out, ] Passing Bahia, we had provisions for only I one week longer ; and on some of the passengers asking for their rights, they were handcuffed to the yard rail for half an hour — the weather cold and freezing. Further on the voyage, some of them were strung up by their hantjs for half an hour, and half that time with their feet off the deck. Their cries could be heard all over the ship bogging to be "shot down" rather than suffer such ajjony. One man — a Captain llamsay of Boston — died of starvation ; and all the passengers were so weak that they could scarcely walk about the ship," After deluding a very melancholy account of the death of a little daughter, from the culpable neglect of the ship's doctor (a man whose name we refrain fi om publishing through respect to the memory of his gallant and world -renowned son, whose life was sacrificed ill the service of this colony), the writer proceeds : — " The doctor was a drunken scamp ; he was drunk, or playing cards and smoking all the time ; am), instead ot looking after the sick people, he was looking after those who could give him ' a nip.' We all stopped at New York some days, trying to pull the captain for such cpnduct, but found it to be impossible. The ship was seized before we left her, and the British consul would have nothing to do with it. The Patrick Henrj sailed as a British ship, she went to sea under the British flag, and when at sea was under the American flag ; but going into New York she hoisted the British flag. We could not find any owners. She was neither a British nor American ship, therefore she was a pirate. We went to the American Emigration Office, and they tried all in their power to help us, but could not, because she sailed under the British flag, and out of a British port, and they told us it was the British consul's place to act in the matter ; but he would not."