The Times, Monday, Feb 12, 1866; pg. 7; Issue 25419; col F The INQUIRY into the LOSS of the LONDON. ----------------------------- (From the Examiner.) Much has been said about the better protection of the engine-room, and all that can be done to secure the hatch consistently with the requirements of the deck is certainly most desirable; but the question the commission of inquiry has to consider is not whether the London was a perfect ship, faultless in every respect, fortified in every quarter, but whether she was of the average goodness and equipment of her class. And in one particular there may be a doubt as to the latter point. It appears that she was not furnished with storm sails, but that her ordinary staysails were to serve as storm sails. These sails were of canvas No. 1, the very strongest, as one of the nautical assessors observed; but size is to be considered as well as texture for the strength of the storm sails, and the size of a staysail for ordinary uses is too large for a storm sail in its extraordinary exigency. It seems to us that it would be as unfitting to use a small storm sail as a staysail in fine weather as to use a staysail for ordinary purposes as a storm sail in a fierce gale. If there is any sail in a ship that should be a speciality, it is the storm sail. A most important sail of the London was soon blown to shreds, her driver or spanker; and if she had been provided with a storm trysail it would have served well in the place of the sail split, but as it was the ship had not a single storm after sail to keep her head to wind, both driver and mizen staysail having been destroyed. We are surprised at the deficiency in ships generally so admirably found as those of Messrs. WIGRAM, but we suspect that reliance on the auxiliary screw has somewhat relaxed the care in equipment for sail. The evidence of MONROE taken the last day of the adjourned inquiry is important in many points. He was a sailmaker, but had served as a seaman. He corroborates the statement of DANIELL that the mizen staysail was not blown away but set when the ship foundered, together with a part of the maintopsail. Yet when they wore ship it would seem that the mizen staysail should have been taken in. But here is MONROE's account: - "Half of the maintopsail on the port side had been blown away, while the other half was left, and the whole of the mizen staysail remained set. "Captain HARRIS asked the witness to explain how this could possibly be. "The witness said that, strange as the fact might appear, it nevertheless was true that half the canvas held on to the ship and actually went down with her." The sail to which the man alluded must have been the maintopsail, and it is possible that the lee half of it may have stood after the weather leech and foot of it had been blown away below the tack. But the explanation on this point was not pressed. MONROE corroborates the other evidence that the hatch was carried away to starboard, and he attributes the accident to the jibboom, which was adrift and rolling about so as to be dangerous to persons attempting to pass along the deck, and also to the ship. Indeed, if this statement be true, the boom must have been acting against the combings of the hatch and the superstructure like a battering-ram. There is, however, other evidence that the boom was securely lashed, and as there can be no motive for falsehood the point to be ascertained must be whether it did not get loose after having been secured. MONROE charges the crew with skulking. He says he saw none but passengers at the pumps, and none of the seamen working. And as many as 21 out of 80 were on a list of sick or disabled. The last witness examined, MAIN, gave a very bad account of the state and behaviour of the ship, but he is not a seaman. He says the ship lay like a log on the water, but we know not how to reconcile that statement with her wearing, as described by SHEALS, shortly before she went down. And the only purpose of getting her on the other tack was to make a smooth see for the boats under her lee, which was done for the one that escaped. It may have been, however, that her head flew round so quickly from her having been much by the stern from the weight of water in her abaft. The impression made upon our minds after a careful consideration of the evidence, so far as it is carried, is that if the ship had been made snug at the commencement of the gale, or even when she began to make bad weather, and in that state hove to under sail, instead of driven against the sea by steam power, she would in all probability have got through the storm, as others did of inferior capabilities. If she had been made snug, her masts and spars forward would not have been carried away, and there would have been no broken jibboom on deck to be washed about by the seas shipped, so as to batter down the engine-room hatch. The origin of all the mischief was carrying on what ought to have been reduced. Possibly Captain MARTIN's crew, strange and raw, could not, or would not, do the necessary work; but, if so, it shows that ships should not quit port as if nothing but fine weather and occasion for all sail aloft and alow were to be expected. It would obviously be easier to get up topgallants and royals, if weather should be favourable, than to get them down in a hard gale and heavy sea. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End of this article. Petra