r do--we should have no profit." To
another gentleman who urged him to put back, he is reported to have
said very angrily, "I'm not one of those that turn back." He remained
in the cabin two whole hours, and peremptorily refused to comply with
the repeated requests made to him by the more timid of his passengers
to return to Liverpool; observing that if they knew him, they would
not make the request. Before dinner, his behavior had been
unexceptionable; but, after he had dined, a very striking difference
was observed in his conduct. He became violent in his manner, and
abusive in his language to the men. When anxiously questioned by the
passengers, as to the progress the vessel was making, and the time at
which she was likely to reach her destination, he returned trifling,
and frequently very contradictory answers. During the early part of
the voyage, he had spoken confidently of being able to reach Beaumaris
by seven o'clock; but the evening wore away, night came on, and the
vessel was still a considerable distance from the termination of her
voyage. It was near twelve o'clock when they arrived at the mouth of
the Menai Strait, which is about five miles from Beaumaris. The tide,
which had been running out of the strait, and which had, consequently,
for some time previous retarded the steamer's progress towards her
destination, was just on the turn. The vessel, according to the
statement of two of the seamen and one of the firemen saved, had got
round the buoy on the north end of the Dutchman's Bank, and had
proceeded up the river as far as the tower on Puffin Island; when
suddenly the steam got so low that the engine would not keep her on
her proper course. When asked, why there was not steam on, the fireman
said that a deal of water had been finding its way into the vessel
all day, and that sometime before she got into the strait, the
bilge-pumps were choked. The water in the hold then overflowed the
coals; so that, in renewing the fires, a deal of water went in with
the coals, and made it impossible to keep the steam up. It was the
duty of the fireman to give notice of this occurrence; but he seems
not to have mentioned it to the captain. The vessel, which had
evidently come fair into the channel, though there was no light on the
coast to guide her, now drifted, with the ebb tide and north-west
wind, towards the Dutchman's Bank, on the north point of which she
struck, her bows sticking fast in the sand. Lieut. Atkinso