of coast; should the ship under such
circumstances soon become a wreck; can blame by
any possibility attach to any human creature?
No. Obviously it must be laid upon the
compasses. And this is a convenient thing,
because there is no fine payable by compasses,
and they are case-hardened against imprisonment.

This, however, is a plan convenient only to
one section of the public. It affords no solace
to passengers by sea. Experience proves that
the moral feeling of responsibility does not
work strongly enough to procure for ships
carrying large cargoes of human life and
hope, efficient crews. It does not make
captains as cautious as they are presumed
to be clever. If the matter were but trifling,
we as travellers should only lament this
necessary inconvenience; but it concerns our
lives; it is life and death consideration for
some thousands of us who are destined to be
drowned, unless we take heed to avert that
fate. Does it follow at all in sober sadness,
that we must begin to regard losses at sea,
not only as things to be lamented, but as
things in a great measure to be prevented
also.

It is not enough that we should honour the
brave men who give to scenes of shipwreck
features of moral grandeur and beauty. We
may cry in the imagining of such scenes,
that,

"There is death above, there is death around;
There is death wheresoever the waters be;
    There is nothing now doing
    Save terror and ruin.
On earth, and in air, and the stormy sea."

But in every such scene there is something
else a-doing. There is a man or there are
men, who, like the surgeon to the Tayleur,
in a recent terrible instance, throw their
hearts into the service of their fellows.
When these men perish at their work, they
do not die with soldiers' laurels, but their
names become connected with their last
brave actions, and are told by Englishmen to
one another in their households, so that, in
after years, they receive honour by many a
fireside. The surgeon of the Tayleur was
conspicuous in his exertions for the re-assurance
and assistance of the shipwrecked
passengers. We read at home, how, while
struggling across a rope, with his own infant
in his hands and teeth, he was plunged into
the sea that dashed his child out of his hold;
we read that he was seen, then, holding by
the ship's side with a drowning woman in his
arms, whose hair he was parting gently, and
to whom he seemed to be speaking words of
comfort. Her, too, the sea forced from his
grasp; and we read that he was next seen
perishing with his wife, during a vain struggle
to save her. The noble man with his little
family—his wife and his two children—is
swept away; he exists now only in the name
of ROBERT HANNAY CUNNINGHAM. But these
are the men whom we want living among
us; these are the energies that we need for
the leavening of all society, and for the
work of the world. These are not men to be
sent out in emigrant ships to the bottom of
the sea.

Their memory too will be best honoured if
we be indignantly aroused, for their sakes, to
amend an evil; and to swear to ourselves that
we will not allow their melancholy fate to
soothe us down into a luxurious, inactive
state of pity any more. We have great
consideration for the feelings of a captain as a
captain, of an owner as an owner, and
generally of the gentlemen hidden behind the
compasses. We regret, therefore, that this
matter should be of a solemn kind that will
not bear the consideration of those feelings
any more. There must be defined
responsibilities and no evasion; there must be
not only moral and sentimental, but material
and legal motives for the utmost care on the
part of all who send or take men down to the
sea in ships.

In the first place, the compasses, as
instruments, must be removed out of the
calendar of offenders and appear in future
by their representatives. There must be in
every seaport one or two government inspectors,
bound to have oversight over certain
things preparatory to the sailing of at least
every passenger vessel that swims. One of
these things must be the swinging of the
ship and the adjustment of the compasses
where it is necessary, and the certifying on
the day before a vessel sails, that she is
perfectly safe in this respect. Another, that the
ship is in every respect properly appointed for
her voyage. Without such a certificate let
no ship sail; and make the inspectors severely
responsible for the truth of that which
they attest.

Since it may be hard to regulate minutely,
while in port the manning of a vessel, let the
interests of owners be directed to that point,
by requiring of them that they shall atone for
negligence—not by a charitable subscription
of a wretched hundred pounds or so, for
hundreds of ruined people, widows and orphans;
but by paying legal damages in answer to the
claim or suit of every sufferer, when it is
proved that a ship was wrecked because she
was entrusted to a crew incompetent to work
her. Why should sailors be brought drunk
to their work as they often are, and spend
that time in sobering and shaking down
which is the most perilous time in the
whole voyage? Why should not an owner
be made to be as careful in the character
and condition of the men who navigate his
ship, as a gentleman in the hiring of servants
upon whom he puts responsibilities
incomparably smaller.

Another charge should be imposed upon
owners of all vessels, whether they carry
passengers or cargo. They should be responsible
according to a fixed scale, for remuneration to