The Great Tichborne Mystery.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5171, 28 November 1884, Page 3

The Great Tichborne Mystery.

i — ♦ — ! EVIDENCE RELATIVE TO THE | " OSPREY." {From the Lyttelton Times.'] No sooner has that unfortunate nobleman, Thomas Castro soi-disant Sir Roger ! Tichborne, ceased to languish in Her ! Majesty's keeping, than we are treated to i a small local revival of the great Tichborne ; mystery. Firßt of all, we are told that Government ammunition has been discovered in Wellington in cases branded Osprey, which would appear therefore, to j have been brought to New Zealand in a j transport of that name. The dates marked . on these cases are from 1844 to 1856, and would spread over some years previous and subsequent to 1854, in which year young Roger Tichborne was wrecked in the Bella. Then Mr David Cunningham, of Waimate, writes to a paper stating that he knew a Bchooner of the same name, which he saw at Hobart Town at various times between 1852^and 1856. He describes her as Ame- ; rican built, three-masted, and as hailing from Baltimore, U.S.A. ; also (and this is a . little awkward), as being of two hundred tons burden. Lastly, comes a hearsay account from our correspondent W. K. 1., of a Mr Edward Ancher, of Wanganui. This Mr Ancher, according to W. K. 1., j has professed himself to have been saili maker on board the Osprey at the time of the 1 alleged rescue of the Bella's boat. Of course, if this Mr Ancher (now said to be in Sydney), haß said this ; if he is ready to come forward and swear to it ; and if his testimony ; should remain unshaken, and should escape being discredited like that of the notorious ; Luie, then, doubtless, a new and valuable piece of evidence willbe supplied by him. In short, one of the most important of the missing: links in the Claimant's story will :be supplied. Until Mr Ancher comes for- • ward publicly with his evidence, we say no : more about it, except to comment on his strange, anc not very creditable, behaviour (if he really does claim to be the sailmaker of the Osprey) in suppressing evidence which he must have known to be of the first importance. For ourselves, we reserve the right at present of taking just as serious a view of Mr Ancher's reported story as we do of many other yarn 3 of ancient mariners. To turn, however, from this somewhat vague possibility of evidence, let us consider the statements of Mr Cunningham and others about the Osprey, and their bearing on the Tichborne ca&e. At the outset, we may point out that merely to prove that an American schooner, or a schooner of unknown nationality, called .the Osprey was known in Australian waters about the year 1854 will have, standing alone, no great effect in the Tichborne Claimant's favour. To explain orr meaning it may, perhaps, be worth while to state briefly that portion of the famous story with which the Osprey was connected. The real Roger Tichborne, driven from England by restlessness, consequent on his disappointed love for his cousin, Miss Doughty, travelled, to South America. He is known to have left Valparaisb and to have ridden over the Andes and through the Pampas to Buenos Ayres. Thence he went to Rio de Janeiro, where he embarked to sail northwards in the ill-fated Bella. This was on April 20, 1854. Four days afterwards the Bella's long boat was found floating bottom upward, surrounded by some wreckage. The hypothesis always has been that she was sunk by a collision at night time. The Claimant stated that she simply sank through leakage : that her crew put off in two boat- — one the same long-boat that was picked up on the scene of the wreck — and that the smaller boat, in which he was, was picked up by an American schooner called the Osprey, then on her way to Melbourne. He could remember nothing about the vessel except that he had an impression that she was so named, and that her captain was Owen Le.vis, or Lewis Owen. [Mr Cunningham, of Waimate, gave as the captain and partowner of his Osprey a John Gregg.] The Claimant dated hia arrival in Melbourne July 24, 1854. Now, under ordinary circumstances, a vessel arriving in a civilised harbour is reported to the Customs office, and her name entered on the records there. At the Claimant's trial it was shown that no vessel answering to his Osprey was entered as arriving in Hobson's Bay between June 24 and August 24, 1854. There was indeed an Osprey, but she was a small schooner of some 60 tons, which had just arrived from Glasgow. Another Osprey wa3 known in Melbourne about that time, a three-masted schooner from Liverpool ; but she happened to be wrecked in Loutit Bay on June 18, 1854, and so was out of the running for the Claimant's purpose. Nevertheless, he and De* Kenealy, or their solicitors, fought the Osprey question extremely well. First of all they adduced evidence to prove that, in consequence of the gold fever raging in Melbourne in 1854, the harbour was so crowded with shipping, aad affairs generally so badly disorganised, that it was impossible for the Custom House officials to overtake their work. Consequently, it might have happened that an American schooner Osprey might have cast anchor in tie bay without reporting herself, and yet have escaped notice. As against this, the Hon Mr Childers, now Chancellor of the English Exchequer, and then at the head of the 'Victorian Customs, swore that in July, 1854, the gold fever, and the confusion consequent thereupon, had so far abated ia Melbourne that the Custom House business was being worked smoothly and efficiently.. Mr Cooper, the shipping reporter of the Argus, also deposed that, at tiie time referred to, he was living on a vessel ■

in Hobson's Bay, in order to do his work more thoroughly ; that he not only saw no ! American Osprey, but did not think that ; one could have eluded his search. To counteract this and other like testimony, Dr Kenealy brought iuto Court witness after witness to swear that they had seen a largo three-masted vessel called the Osprey in Hobson'a Bay, somewhere about the month of July, 1554. One of these, a man Nash, declared that he went on board a barque-rigged vessel of the name, painted black, and with " Baltimore " on her stern. • He described her, however, as over 300 tons burden. Mr Cunningham's Baltimore Osprey was, the reader will remember, of ! 200 tons only. A more important witness was a Sydney ' merchant, .a Mr Russell, who in 1854 ■■ bought in Melbourne the small schooner ' Osprey before mentioned. He must have ; bought her after July 27, as the little Oaprey did not reach Melbourne till that : day. Mr Bussell's evidence was curious. While he was in Hobson's Bay examining his small Osprey, he was told that by an odd chance another craft of the same name was lying closo by. Tho coincidence induced him to go and look at her. She was, he said, a three-masted schooner, and looked like a Baltimore clipper, but he could not fix her tonnage more exactly than to put it at between 300 and 500 tons. No attempt was made to discredit Mr Russell's truthfulness. Even Chief Justice Cockburn, in his famous and very hostile summingup, threw no doubt on Mr Russell's veracity. A peculiarity in his evidence was that he thought the schooner's figurehead was a white osprey. Several other witnesses agreed that the figure-head was either a "fiddle" or a "billet-head." What, no doubt, told against Mr Russell's evidence having more weight given to it than the jury gave, was that he was nnable to fix a precise date for the occurrence of his visiting an Osprey in Hobson's Bay. The other witnesses had their testimony more or less shaken by crossexamination. One man, for example, swore that he saw an Osprey in July, 1854, but declared that it was in summer i time and that a hot wind was blowing on the day in question. As the Chief Justice, not unfairly, pointed out, it would be useless to prove that there was an Osprey in Hobson's Bay in the month of June. The Bella was wrecked north of Rio Janeiro, between April 20 and April 24. It was therefore, humanly speaking, impossible for a schooner to have compassed the distance between the scene of the wreck and Melbourne before July. An average passage would be three months, and would place the arrival on July 24, the day sworn to by the Claimant. Not quite so fairly, perhaps, Lord Cockburn remarked that it would be equally useless to show that there was an American schooner Oaprey in Hobson's Bay in Sept., 1854. But though not to allow the Claimant's Osprey five or even six months for her passage may seem a little hard, it must be admitted that the Chief Justice's reasoning applies to any time after, let us say, October, 1854. If, therefore, it was considered immaterial to prove that a schooner Osprey visited Melbourne before June or after October, 1854, the stories now circulating through New Zealand about some Osprey or another, which this or that witness knew of in Australasian waters between 1846 and 1856, will not tell greatly in the Claimant's favour Bhould they be substantiated. Castro's opponents never attempted to deny that a vessel called Osprey might have been in these seas about the year 1854. They put him to prove that such a craft as his American schooner Osprey had been seen in Hobson's Bay between June and September, 1854. This, in the jury's opinion, he failed to do. Unless Mr Cunningham's vessel — to take one example — can be traced to Hobson's Bay about the middle of 1854, her existence or non-existence will not be likely to affect the history of the Tichborne case.