Kent East Indiaman

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The Kent East Indiaman was a British ship.

A report of the time states...

THE SHIP ON FIRE, ON the 1st of March 1825, the Kent East Indiaman took fire in the Bay of Biscay, She had sailed from the Downs about the middle of February, being bound to Bengal and China. By the roll of the vessel, a cask of spirits had been displaced; and, as the men were about to fix it in its former position, a heavy sea struck the ship, and precipitated a candle from the hands of one of them. This, falling on a small portion of the spirits, which had escaped from the cask, produced an instant conflagration, which defied every effort to stay its progress. At this awful crisis, the Cambria, Captain Cook, bound from London to Mexico, having on board thirty-five miners and superintendents of the Anglo-Mexican company, hove in sight. Seeing a signal of distress, Captain Cook instantly bore down; and, on approaching the Kent, discovered her to be on fire. Not a moment was lost in rendering every possible assistance, and transferring the crew and passengers to the brig. Throughout the whole of this affair, there appears to have been a very obvious display of providential superintendence. The Cambria could not, as we are informed, have fallen in with the Kent, had not Captain Cook been induced to lie to for the purpose of repairing the bulwarks of his vessel. It is also stated, that if the Cambria, on her return to Falmouth, had been detained by the wind a day or two longer, it must have occasioned deplorable discomfort on board his vessel, a brig of two hundred tons, with more than 600 souls crowded together in her cabin and on her deck. But for this timely interference, 547 lives must inevitably have been lost. ^[1]

[edit] Casualty list

A total of 81 lives were lost^[2]

• 54 soldiers belonging to the 31st Regiment
• 1 woman
• 20 children
• 1 seaman
• 5 boys

[edit] References

1. ^ The record of Providence; or, The government of God displayed in a series of ... By John Young (1832)
2. ^ The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay, by Duncan McGregor Project Gutenberg EBook