Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 137.pdf/264

Rh happiness. We can see, however, no reason for irritation, either with the Admiralty, or the builder of the ship, or the captain of the vessel, though the latter was doubtless actually responsible. Rather, the loss of the "Eurydice" appears to us one of those cases which should teach the public with a certain sternness that in this world arrangements cannot be macfe perfect; that we may strive as we like for an ideal of efficiency, but that after all, all we can obtain is a rough approximation. That disturbing cause, that unforeseen but irresistible factor which we call Providence, and some call chance, can never be completely provided against, more especially when one of the agents to be controlled is anything so uncontrollable as the human mind. There never was an accident which ought so little to have happened. The "Eurydice," by the testimony of all experts, was an excellent vessel, trusted by all on board, which had just made a voyage to the West Indies, and which, so far as appears, had not a weak spar or a frayed rope on board. She was, as a training-ship, over-manned, if anything, with men whose training was just completed, and in the very prime of their health and their efficiency. Her officers were all of them picked men, one or two of them likely to become among the best in the service; and her captain, Captain Marcus Hare, had the best of characters in the navy. He was on deck, attending to his duty, and during the few moments between the catastrophe and his death gave his orders coolly, courageously, and as the evidence would indicate, wisely also. There is a hint in the evidence that the water carried on board had been used to supplement deficient ballast, and that the tanks had not been carefully refilled as they were emptied, a dangerous practice, both because it lightens the ship too fast, and unequally, and because, if the vessel once loses her equilibrium, the remaining full tanks roll with the weight of cannon, and especially dangerous to the "Eurydice," which was remarkable in the navy for the amount of sail she could spread; but with this exception, there was nothing about the ship to suggest or account for her fate. That the captain was at the last moment slightly careless or over-confident is probably true. The barometer had been falling for some hours, all the ports of the ship were open, as, with such a condition of the mercury, they ought not to have been; and the ship was carrying, for such weather as science indicated, far too much sail. The probability is that the captain, joyous at the notion of getting home, elated with the bright, cold weather — first of luxuries to a man just returning from the tropics — and the sun, which shone brightly just before and just after the squall, and with his destination almost in sight, had been careless in consulting the glass, or expected a mere snow-storm, or thought Spithead too near for precautions, and in that carelessness of an hour was his own and his vessel's doom. The mental failure for which no orders or precautions can provide had supervened, and the Admiralty and its jealous care were as powerless as the ship herself. The squall, coming down Luccombe Chine as through a funnel, struck the "Eurydice," and as Wilson sang,—

What possible fever of anxiety on the part of the Admiralty, what multiplication of orders, what energy in fitting ships can prevent such an accident as that? The captain had barometers enough. He knew what his ship could do. He knew what sail she was carrying, for he was trying to lessen it when the "Eurydice" capsized; and he had an excellent crew; and still, because of an inattention, a miscalculation, an emotion of eagerness, usually as unimportant as a passing thought, he and his men went down as hopelessly in the snow-storm as if they had been struck by a typhoon in the China Seas. The force of a squall of this kind, its direct impact,