LOSS OF THE WILLIAM NICOL.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 28, 4 November 1842, Page 4

LOSS OF THE WILLIAM NICOL.

(From the South Australian Registrar.)

Our readers will learn with regret that this fine vessel, commanded by Captain Elder, brother of our highly-respected fellow colonist, A. L. Elder, Esq., and which left this port in April last, bound to Bombay, with an overland mail from this province on board, was dismasted by a hurricane in latitude degrees south, longitude 70 degrees east, and with difficulty reached Port Louis in the Mauritius. As many remittances are known to have been on board, it will be some satisfaction to those who sent despatches by the William Nicol, for the overland mail, to know, that the whole of these were saved, and that Captain Elder forwarded them by the Ramsay, of Greenock, which sailed from the Mauritius for Bombay a day or two after the William Nicol arrived.

The disastrous circumstances attending the loss of this fine vessel cannot be better described than in the graphic language of Captain Elder himself:—

We hadlain-to under a close-reefed maintopsail for nine hours before the hurricane caught us. It came down at 2 p.m. oil the 18th May. The first thing that went was the main-yard in the slings ; the maintopsail blew to ribbons, then the main-mast went a few feet above the deck. I cannot describe the fury of the wind at this time, it was awful; I hope I shall never see the like again. It fell calm after four hour’s continuance. By that time we got the wreck clear of the ship’s side, which had endangered her safety very much, from its striking so hard against her side. In half an hour the hurricane came from the opposite quarter, and tore the foremast out of her, also a few feet above the deck. Finding, on the gale moderating, the ship was unmanageable, I bore up for the Mauritius as my nearest port. We got jury-masts rigged, topgallantsails for topsails, &c. But the worst was not over with us ; when we came down upon the land at darkening we got no assistance from the shore, and the strong current carried us, owing to the unmanageable state of the ship, upon one of the reefs bordering Port Louis, where she struck very heavily, and I am afraid, from the great expense of repair, will be abandoned. A Sandwich Islands paper, the Polynesian, says, “ Typographical [errors cannot altogether be avoided, as much of the type-setting is done by the natives, who are unacquainted with the English language.”