Vermont Daily Transcript

Terrible Shipwreck

The ship Gossamer, bound from London to South Australia, with 30 passengers, besides her crew, was lost about the middle of December last, on the coast of Devonshire, England. Capt. Thompson, the master, had only been married three weeks, and his young wife was on board. The Glasgow [Scotland] Herald gives the following account of the wreck:

The ship was beating down the channel, under the charge of a pilot, in the face of a heavy sea. The captain was in the cabin with his young wife, unsuspicious of danger. About noon the vessel appeared to be getting dangerously near the rugged coast of Devonshire, but the pilot refused to change her course. Shortly after this, the pilot being convinced that he was hugging the shore too closely, gave orders to tack, but the order came too late. They were approaching the Prawle Point, round which a heavy sea was sweeping, and the ship was found to be driving upon the rocks. Two anchors were let go as quickly as possible, but they failed to take hold, and in a minute more the Gossamer was beating upon the jagged rocks about 60 yards from shore, with the sea breaking over her and sweeping the decks from stem to stern. No one on board seemed equal to the emergency. The captain could think of nothing but the peril of his young wife, while the crew were seized with a panic, and numbers of them leaped overboard, but few managed to reach the land. The captain threw off most of his clothes, and was preparing to follow, in the desperate attempt to save his wife when a powerful negro seaman, an excellent swimmer, offered to take Mrs. Thompson along with him, but the offer was refused, and the next moment a heavy sea tore the wife from her husband's arms and swept her overboard. Capt. Thompson instantly jumped into the sea after his wife, but the attempt to save her was in vain, and both perished within a few yards of each other. Meanwhile the officers of the Coastguard had been watching the course of the Gossamer, got their rocket apparatus in readiness even before the vessel was driven upon the rocks. They succeeded in saving the remainder of the crew and passengers, to the number of seventeen persons; thirteen were drowned, including the captain and his wife: and the loss of life is all the more deplorable when it is considered that the wreck took place within sixty yards of dry land, and with deliverance at hand almost as soon as it was required.