THE Loss OF THE UTOPIA.

THE loss of a fine ship of 1,000 tons or more, with a valuable cargo on board, is- so frequent an occurence now-a-days, and yet the aggregate of such losses forms so small a per-centage to the enormous value represented by safe voyages, that it ordinarily excites little or no attention, and is looked on almost as a matter of course. Indeed, considering the vast commercial intercourse carried on between these islands and all parts of the habitable globe which border on the sea, and the many vicissitudes and dangers attending navigation, it would be unreasonable to expect that the case should be otherwise. It is only, therefore, under very special circumstances, and when the interests of humanity are at stake, that we feel in duty bound to call attention to the same.

A fine ship, well manned and well found, with every appliance provided, and every precaution adopted to ensure the safety of the vessel and crew, which a prudent, conscientious, and humane shipowner could devise, might yet be lost, and her crew might perish, from causes which could not be foreseen or provided against—stress of weather and inability to work off a lee-shore, an unknown current, an error in the compass, or a bad look-out at night, might frustrate every precaution and cause the loss of the noblest ship, without the slightest blame attaching to those who owned her.

Unhappily, however, such are not the only causes of loss of ships and lives at sea; and far too many cases occur of vessels being sent to sea that are known to be overloaded or otherwise unseawortby; thus verifying the Scriptural assertion, that "the love of money is the root of all evil," and painfully illustrating the melancholy fact, that in this Christian country there are numberless professors of that religion, the highest precept of which, next to the love of God, is abnegation of self and love of others, who frequent its temples and adhere to its ceremonial forms, yet whose hearts are so hardened and minds so poisoned by the love of gold, that the very lives of their fellow-men, and even of their own servants, is a matter of secondary importance to them.

Amongst the fruitful causes of loss of life at sea is that of overloading; and yet it.

would seem to be one easily preventible, as a safety line of flotation can be readily defined for every ship, and the appointed authorities at every port could readily see that no vessel at the last moment of sailing was immersed below that line.

A case has recently occurred which would seem to imply that, despite the latest legislation for the protection of the lives of British subjects at sea, any unprincipled shipowner or his agent has the power to send, and even to force a well-insured unseaworthy ship to sea, against the judgment and will of her master and crew, to their almost certain destruction. J Surely such a disgraceful state of things, for the credit of our country, and more especially of that of our great and wealthy shipowning community, demands a remedy.

The case we have alluded to is that of the Utopia, a ship of 949 tons, which sailed from Liverpool for Bombay on the 10th of March last, and only three days after had to be abandoned by her crew almost at the moment of her foundering. The following statement of the facts of the case we abbreviate from the Report furnished to the Board of Trade by the nautical assessors and stipendiary magistrate who conducted the official inquiry at Liverpool, that was ordered by that Board on the case. The Utopia was built in 1853, and in 1862 she was registered A 1 Red, at LLOYDS, for five years. She had recently changed ownership, and was now the property of a shipowner resident in London.

When loading in the Brunswick Dock at Liverpool for the present voyage to Bombay, it appears that she took the ground, and evidently thereby sustained serious damage by straining, as previously she bad scarcely made any water, whilst immediately after that event twenty-eight inches was found in her, and on two subsequent occasions as much as forty inches. By the direction of the owners, she was pumped out by the men employed in stowing her cargo, usually at the expiration of each day's work. During the process of loading she was visited by the agent of Lloyd's Salvage Association at Liverpool, and by one of the surveyors of the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board, which latter gentleman offered his advice and assistance to the owner in the stowage of the cargo, mentioned the limits to which she might be safely immersed —viz., 20 feet 6 inches to 21 feet— and marked the side at the midship section to show the same, leaving a clear side of 6 feet 6 inches; little enough, we should say, for a voyage to India, looking to the gales of wind and heavy seas which in voyages of such a distance are sure to be encountered.

Nevertheless, before leaving the Brunswick Dock, on the 7th March, she was loaded until she was immersed six inches deeper than had been marked as her safe load line, and afterwards, in the Wellington Dock, had 120 tons of coke put on board.

The master, Captain LEAN, then, not liking the position of affairs, and finding that his remonstrances with the owner in regard to the equipment of the vessel for so long a voyage were unattended to, threw up his appointment. On the same day she had been surveyed by the Surveyor to the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, who found she had only 5 feet of her sides above the water, and was still taking in cargo.

He in consequence called in another surveyor, who agreed with him in considering her much overladen, and they so informed Captain LEAN, and subsequently reported it to the Secretary of their Association ; but there being no insurance effected in Liverpool, no action was taken. .Nevertheless, he again visited her on the 9th, when she appeared to him not to have more than 4 feet of clear side, and his final report was, that she was scarcely seaworthy, and that he would not like even to cross to Dublin in her in a strong S.W. gale. Yet the owner of this ship felt no hesitation in sending her and her human freight on a voyage to a distant land, during the greater part of which they would be beyond the reach of aid in the only too probable event of foundering at sea.

On the recommendation of a Liverpool agent, Captain J. DICKIE was now appointed to the command; but on proceeding on board on the 9th, he naturally enough did not like the appearance of things any more than his predecessor; but in the words of the Nautical Assessors in their Report, "An extraordinary and most unwarrantable pressure was then put upon him to compel him to go to sea, in the shape of a letter written by a ship-broker at Liverpool, and signed by the agent, as follows:— " Liverpool, March 8.

" DEAR SIR,—I am very much surprised to hear that you are making difficulties about going in the Utopia; and I must inform you that, if after I have recommended you to the owner, you do not go in the vessel, I will take care you never get any employment in a ship out of Liverpool, if I have any power to prevent you, as I will not put up with this sort of work.

"Yours truly, * * * * * * " Captain Dickie." A precious epistle this, to be sure! Virtually ordering a man into his grave, and, in the language of honest indignation and offended dignity, threatening him with de- privation of his bread for his contumacy in hesitating to step into it And can it be that Liverpool shipowners, at the instigation of a shipping agent, wonlc refuse employment to a British seaman for thus declining to deliberately drown himself and 17 men? Are they not Englishmen, and, for the most part, nominally al least, Christians, if not Christian gentlemen ? We cannot believe that they would do so; nor can we think that there is any specially demoralizing influence in the business of ship-owning, which should so harden a man's heart as thus to steel it against the common dictates of humanity.

To proceed, however, with our narrative, On the following morning, the 10th March, a Sunday morning, too, when respectable people at Liverpool were all preparing for the public devotions of the day, the " two shipmasters met the owner and his agents, Messrs. * * * and * * * *, and the pilot on the landing-stage, with the crew who had been shipped, to the number of 17, including 6 able seamen only, a crew evidently insufficient in number for a full rigged ship of her size, according to the evidence of several competent witnesses.

The riggers had been at work at the pumps in the morning, but had desisted before the crew went on board, not because there was no more water to pump out, but lest, apparently, the latter should get alarmed, and decline to proceed to sea in the ship." The pilot, who had expressed his opinion that the vessel was overladen, was asked by the court why he, nevertheless, took her to sea, to the imminent risk of ship and cargo and of 18 lives ? He replied that he was under a penalty to his own boat to undertake the duty, and that had he not done so he would have had to pay it himself.

And thus, bursting, as it were, through every barrier that should have stood between herself and her destruction, heeding not captains, or surveyors, or pilots, but seemingly impelled by some malignant spirit, the Utopia, overladen, undermanned, leaky, and ill-found in her equipment, was towed to sea to pursue her hopeless voyage.

Upon the tug leaving, sail was made, the wind being fair, and weather moderate; but so ill-found was the cordage and rope generally, that the topsail halliards had to be unrove to cat and fish the anchor.

Scarcely had they shaped their course when the well was sounded, and 3 feet 3 inches of water was found in the hold; some hands were, therefore, at once placed at the pumps, which from that time were more or less continuously worked. Nevertheless, the water gradually increased, there being on the 11th at eight A.M. 4 feet 10 inches, which was the last correct sounding that could be got, as the pumps became then choked with sand.

During the 12th and 13th the ship was observed to be settling gradually and the wind and sea increasing, the master thought it best to run for Cork, but she had now become unmanageable; and at four P.M. on the 13th, • there being then only 4 or 5 inches from the covering board to the water's edge, and the ship settling down rapidly, the long boat was hoisted out.

All hands were speedily got into it—the master being the last to leave the ship ; and scarcely had they got clear of her, when she gave a plunge, and went down head foremost.

Happily the weather was fine, and not having proceeded so far to sea as to be beyond the beaten track of ships, they were picked up on the same evening by a barque, and were all safely landed on the 16th at Crookhaven.

Sad, indeed, are the reflections which the foregoing narrative is calculated to awaken! Whether with reference to the immediate object with which we are specially concerned, " the protection of life at sea," or to the fair fame of our country, as claiming one of the highest places in the scale of civilized nations; or to the hope of the philanthropist, the progress of human nature itself towards something better and nobler than the past or the present, who can contemplate, without discouragement and misgiving, such a sad example of, we ear, a very prevalent evil ? An evil not enacted in a corner, but unblushingly in the light of day; not perpetrated by men from the lowest dregs of society, nurtured n poverty, ignorance, and crime; but by members of a class deemed highly respectable, members of our great mercantile community —shipowners and their agents; and being done thus fearlessly and openly; also done by them, we fear, without their "losing caste " amongst their fellows.

Is it not, then, time, if we wish to retain our high place in the world, not only as a great and powerful nation, and the first commercial and maritime power, but as a conscientious and Christian people, setting a higher value on human life than on gold and silver; is it not time that we so enforce our existing laws, or so amend our maritime code, if necessary, as to make the occurrence of so great a scandal an impossible thing amongst us ? But, indeed, we may take up higher ground still; for in the case of nations, as of individuals, there is a higher than any human tribunal before which national as well as individual acts shall be judged; and if the lives of these 18 human beings had been sacrificed at the shrine of Mammon—which w'as so nearly being done—would not their blood have cried aloud to heaven for vengeance, not only on those who could perpetrate so great a crime, but on the community which apathetically suffered such things to be done amongst them ? But how, it may be asked, with our enormous trade, can this discreditable state of things be remedied? We have, in the present melancholy case, a forcible illustration of the fact, that overladen, illfound, unseaworthy ships can, in one of our greatest maritime ports, proceed to sea on a distant voyage, and that all the constituted authorities of the place are powerless to prevent her doing so. We reply, then give the present constituted authorities such power, or constitute a new authority to be clothed with it.

In the first place, we would suggest that at every port in the United Kingdom, large or small, an officer in connection with the Customs, or Coastguard, or Local Marine Board, or Shipping Office, should, periodically, in the case of vessels in the home trade (say, half yearly), and before sailing on each voyage, in the case of ships in the foreign trade, inspect, personally or by deputy, every vessel and her equipment, receiving replies to printed queries, signed by the master, in each case, and giving him in return a permit to sail. The cost of such supervision might be paid in the shape of a small fee on every permit issued, to be paid at the time of issue by the master; or it might be paid from the Mercantile Marine Fund, if there is a sufficient annual amount available for the purpose. At the same time it should be punishable, as a misdemeanor, for the master of any vessel to sail without having received such a certificate; and as felony for him to give false information in reply to the established queries as to the state of his vessel and her equipment, &c.

In the second place, to prevent the overloading of any vessel, which is so frequent a cause of unseaworthiness, it should be required that every vessel should have visibly painted on each side a thin white line, showing the level to which she might.be safely loaded, and below which it should be illegal to immerse her. Such a line would not be a disfigurement to any ship, whilst, being visible to every one, the authorized surveyors could in a moment tell when any vessel was overladen, without having recourse to actual measurement; and, at the same time, it would be a source of confidence to the passengers and crew in every vessel, and would be a perpetual witness in every part of the world frequented by our ships of the watchful care of the British Government and people for the lives and welfare of the seamen and passengers who work or sail on board them.

We have purposely withheld the names of all the parties implicated in this flagrant transaction, our object not being to expose individuals in a single case, but to draw attention to a crying evil, and so far to aid in its remedy. In the Official Report, however, from which we have taken the details of the case, and which was presented to the Board of Trade, the names of the several parties are given.