Among The Passengers Who Joined Us At Halifax Were Captain Leitch, And
Three Of The Wrecked Officers Of The Steamship City Of Philadelphia,
Which Was Lost On Cape Race Three Months Before.
Captain Leitch is a
remarkable-looking man, very like the portraits of the Count of Monte
Christo.
His heroism and presence of mind on the occasion of that terrible
disaster were the means of saving the lives of six hundred people, many of
whom were women and children. When the ship struck, the panic among this
large number of persons was of course awful; but so perfect was the
discipline of the crew, and so great their attachment to their commander,
that not a cabin-boy left the ship in that season of apprehension without
his permission. Captain Leitch said that he would be the last man to quit
the ship, and he kept his word; but the excitement, anxiety, and
subsequent exposure to cold and fatigue, more especially in his search
after the survivors of the ill-fated Arctic, brought on a malady from
which he was severely suffering.
We had only sixty passengers on board, and the party was a remarkably
quiet one. There was a gentleman going to Paris as American consul, a
daily, animated, and untiring advocate of slavery; a Jesuit missionary, of
agreeable manners and cultivated mind, on his way to Rome to receive an
episcopal hat; two Jesuit brethren; five lively French people; and the
usual number of commercial travellers, agents, and storekeepers,
principally from Canada.
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