D.—No. 1

No. 10.

No. 1. copy of DESPATCH fbom govebnob sie geoege geet, k.c.b., to his gbace the duke of NEWCASTLE, E.G. Government House, Auckland, 9th February, 1863. My Lord Duke, — I Lave the honor to report to your Grace the total loss of H.M.S. " Orpheus," on the bar of the Harbour of Manukau, on the West Coast of the North Island, nearly opposite to the Harbour of Auckland, which is on the East Coast. 2. Eight officers and sixty-one men have been saved from the wreck. The names of the officers who have been saved are given in the enclosure to this Despatch. Twenty-three officers and one hundred and fifty-eight men, it is believed, have perished, as the vessel has entirely gone to pieces, and nothing has been seen of them. The names of the missing officers are also given in the list transmitted herewith. 3. It is positively known that some of these officers and men have perished, as they were killed in the presence of the survivors, by spars and ropes. There is but slight hope that any of them can be alive. They can only have escaped by having been first washed out to sea on some spar, and then washed up on some other part of the coast. 4. The ship, as far as I can collect, was rather to the Southward of the Port, and was, at about halfpast one o'clock in the day, with beautiful weather, and a fair wind, making the Harbour under steam and sail, going about twelve knots. Kunning thus from the Southward, she was intending to make the passage across the bar as laid down in the chart of 1853. Since that time the bar has shifted about three quarters of a mile to the Northward. She was thus rather more than that distance too far to the Southward and touched, first on a small shoal off the middle banks and in a few minutes ran directly on to them, where there is always a very heavy sea, and where her position (about four miles out at sea) was hopeless. 5. At between four and five o'clock, a small coasting steamer, the " Wonga Wonga," which was going out of the Harbour, seeing her peril, went to her assistance, but from the heavy sea breaking was unable to get very near her, but the boats of the " Orpheus" and those of the men who were saved under the shelter of the steamer, managed from time to time to pick up others. They were aided in the most gallant and determined manner by three Maoris from the Pilot Station, who steered the boats. 6. The conduct of Commodore Burnett, his officers, and men was perfectly heroic ; I have never heard instances of greater courage, carelessness of self, and efforts to save the ship and others, than have been detailed to me. At about nine at night the mainmast went overboard, the other two masts went in less that twenty minutes afterwards. Those of the crew (and they were a great number) who

DESPATCHES RELATIVE TO THE LOSS OF HER MAJESTY'S SHIP "ORPHEUS."