SHIP MADAGASCAR.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13432, 1 April 1914, Page 6

SHIP MADAGASCAR.

A MYSTERY OF THE SEA. OLD-TIME GOLD-SHIP'S FATE.

STORY REVIVED AT THE BLUFF

| An inquiry received at the Bluff from the United States concerning the location of the wreck of th© ship Madagascar has revived speculations as to the fate of this celebrated Blackwall liner, which was lost in 1853 while on a voyage from Melbourne- to the* Old Country, and never officially heard of after sailing. The inquiry was referred to Mr. J. W. H- Bannerman, x author of "Wrecks of Southern New Zealand," and he has given an interesting i-jjcird of the Madagascar- and her fate. Ihe name of the Madagascar is more or less fresh in the memory of some oJd residents of the Bluff. Those who have heard the old story of the mysterious treasure-laden'ship believed to nave been wrecked- near. Doughboy Bay, en the west coast of Stewart Island, are in doubt as to any definite details,'vvit j they are all fairly unanimous that a large vessel named the Madagascar met her doom in that locality in the 'fifties. There still Jives at the Bluff an old Maori identity who states that lie aw a vessel wrecked in a storm near Doughboy Bay about that" period, a:-.d he maintains-that she was the Madagascar, and that not a soul escaped. Efforts have on more vhan one occa-ion been made td extract definite details from this Maori'but his one answer has always been, "I will *ay where in rr.y will f I will not tell." He described her as a big ship. Another man who is reported to have seen the ivladag^s-'ar was old Tommy "Chasland, who used to say that he saw the Madagascar in bad weather off/Stewart Island and in Midi a position that she could not possibly have weathered the storm.

It is largely upon these two stories that the men of the elder generation have based their belief in the treasureship romance. The general selief has been sufficient to cause search to be made, and only recently it was reported that the wreckage of a large -\ a-sel has been observed ?'n calm easterly weather near Doughboy Bay. It vas at once believed that the hull of tbe old Madagascar had been founL Eow-e-ver this wreckage was either, \>hat was remaining of the Nicaragua.*! barque Emily, wrecks.l in IS9O, or the barque Jack Frost, wrecked in 1804 both meeting their doom in that vicinity. Some of the old hands, however, still believe in th-3 old tradition and ihey'maintain that at Stewarb island there lies 'a treasure ship as .rich in gold as the famous General Grant, lost at the Auckland Islands in 1866.

Nothing official has ever been available as to ihe actual fate of the Madagascar, that is so far as Lloyd's is concerned, and it is only of late that clues have been found. It appears that the celebrated Mclvor escort robbery in July, 1853 ; and that one of the highwaymen was arreste'l, on bc<vti the Madagascar in August, 1860. i;i Uobson's Bay, Melbourne, just as she <as about to sail for England. Detectivo ! Tuck well, one of the Melbourne defective staff of that period, visited the vessel shortly before she sailed, and in the Melbourne "Argus" he described his visit as follows :—

"The Madagascar, one cf Green's Blackwall liners, a frigate-built squarerigged ship of over 1000 tons, lay snug at her moorings in Hobson's Bay, with hatches battened down. Some 600 passengers on board, and there was a heavy freight of gold-dust in her lazarette. The scene that revealed itself baffled all description and will for ever remain fresh in my memory—drunkenness, fighting, swearing, and men, women and children in a state of seminudity, howling like wild animals. The crew were composed of men who were the most villainous and motley that ever signed articles on a capstan-head." Some of the passengers' were a rough lot, escapod convicts of the worst class. A pang (x horror shot through me as the thought rose to my brain, should evil overtake the Madagascar what would become of the women and young girls and the better class of passengers ? Several clays later the ship slipped her moorings and proceeded down the bay in charge of a pilot, passed safely through the Rip and after getting an offing of about seven miles dropped the pilot into his dinghy. From that moment u> the present she has never been seen or heard of." Further reference to the vessel occurs in Mr John Saddier's "Recollections of a police Officer," .in which appears a dying confession by a woman in New Zealand to a clergyman. This confession states that the Madagascar was robbed, set on fire and scuttled off the coast of South America. The captain and officers and some of the passengers were murdered by a mutinous crew, and six of those on board escaped, but afterwards succumbed, to fever.