STORY OF THE GENERAL GRANT

Evening Star, Issue 21968, 2 March 1935, Page 21

STORY OF THE GENERAL GRANT

BORE RAJAH'S FORTUNE IN BULLION Apropos this man’s scheme, it is interesting to recall the story of the General Grant, and the romance that has been connected with the endeavours to salvage her wealth. A full-rigged wooden ship, the General Grant sailed from Melbourne on May 4, 1866, bound for Europe. The bulk of her cargo comprised wool, which was supplemented with an unknown quantity of gold. Her manifest ia said to show that there were bars of gold valued at £140,000 placed in the main hatch, and* that iron-bound wooden boxes full of coins to be reminted (as there was then no mint in Australia) were placed in the captain’s cabin and the strong room adjacent to that cabin. There was an additional item in the manifest: “Nine tons of spelter,” an alloy which was made only in Europe, and which authorities believe to have been gold, as it was said to be very unlikely that a ship would be taking it back to the country of origin. It must have been wrongly described for safety’s sake. PROBABLY MILLIONS LOST, If that conjecture was the fact, the General Grant earned aboard her gold ■valued at more than two millions 1 There is positive proof, at any rate, that in 1866 Melbourne exported many millions in gold, and that the General Grant carried the largest quantity of any ship leaving there that year. Even an average would amount to an enormous sum, considerably over a million. One of the stevedores who was selected to load the gold into the main hatch of the General Grant, at Melbourne later came to live at the Maori Kaik. Otago Heads, where for many years he was a well-known fisherman, commonly known as Jack Cairngorm. The Cairngorm was the name of the vessel in which he ran away to sea as a hoy, his real name being John May. It is also a coincidence that one of the expeditions to salvage the General Grant should have been directed by one named May. It was usual in those days for the sailers from Australia to make for the South Pacific, passing between the Auckland Island group and The Snares, 100 miles nearer Stewart Island. Bad weather frequently swung the vessels out of their course, and as the sea in the vicinity of the Auckland group is particularly treacherous for navigation, It is little wonder that it has a great record for wrecks. SUCKED INTO CAVE. When she reached these rough latitudes, the General Grant was struck by a storm, and in making for shelter she sighted Disappointment Island, one of the group, lying three miles due east from the spot where the vessel eventually went to her doom. It is supposed* that in passing along the coast she was sucked into what is known as The Cave, a huge tunnel in the coast, which was sufficiently large to admit the General Grant without her masts touching the ceiling. Expeditions later found also that a vessel could comfortable manoeuvre inside The Cave in suitable weather. 1 However, on the dreadful night that the General Grant put into The Cave mountainous seas were being whipped up by a howling gale, and rising on the crests of these huge rollers the vessel met her fate in tlve unusuSl manner of having her masts driven through her hull by their striking the roof of the .crevasse. Out of a total crew of 100 nnlv tiiirteen were saved. Three ship’s boats put off, but only one earned its crew to safety. One capsized through being overloaded, and anothei was stove- in. , , The thirteen survivors rowed out or The Cave, and were fortunate enough to strike a spot on which to landfortunate in view of the fact that sheer cliffs rise from the sea for miles on either side of The Cave. The people fed on seal flesh and whatever vegetable matter they could obtain, tins crude diet causing the death ot a few of them, for at that time there wore no salvation depots for castaways on Auckland Island. Floats were set drifting into the sea in the hope that some boat might happen upon one, and rescue them. After a considerable time, during which a mate and another member of the party had set off in the boat to row to New Zealand (they were never heard of again), a small sealing vessel in those isolated waters picked up some of the little floats, and rescued the survivors. That vessel .came to I ort Chalmers soon - alter. _ bringing the 'General Giant’s survivoirs to the mainland.