The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"The 'Atalanta' was fitted out at Charlestown, mounted eight 3-pounders, and carried 65 men, French, Americans, and Irish, of whom 49 were killed or wounded in the action; the 'Antelope' having only two killed and three wounded--one mortally. "The House of Assembly at Jamaica, as a reward for this most gallant action, voted 500 guineas--200 to be paid to the master's widow, 100 to the first mate's, 100 to the boatswain, and 100 among the rest of the crew." Another adventure of a mail-packet worthy of mention happened a few years later. The 'Lady Hobart,' an Atlantic packet of 200 tons burthen, left Halifax, Nova Scotia, for England in June 1803, and a few days after leaving port, fell in with a French schooner, called 'L'Aimable Julie,' laden with salt fish. Captain Fellowes of the packet took possession of the schooner, and put a prize crew in charge. A few days later, however, the 'Lady Hobart' ran into an iceberg; and there being no hope of saving the ship, the mails were lashed to pigs of ballast and thrown overboard. The crew and passengers took to the boats, and the 'Lady Hobart' shortly thereafter foundered. After suffering great hardships, the voyagers reached Newfoundland on the 4th July. The illustration is from a contemporary print. The duty of throwing the mails overboard, when serious danger was apprehended, appears sometimes to have been carried out with undue haste; for we find an account in the 'Annual Register' of March 4, 1759, that the Dutch Mail of the 23d February had been thus disposed of through an unlucky mistake. The ship conveying it was of Dutch nationality, and, being boarded by a privateer, those in charge had hastily concluded that the visitor must be an enemy. When too late, they discovered their mistake, for the stranger proved to be a friendly English cruiser; and they thereafter reached Harwich with a budget of regrets in place of the mails.