ARRIVAL OF THE EXCELSIOR
The New
Zealander March 19th 1859
The
smart northerly breeze that set in on Wednesday morning brought quite a small fleet of
inter-provincials and coasters into port, together with the London
ship Excelsior. She has had a
fair average passage of 104 days from the Downs,
whence she sailed on 2 December, calling at no port in the Channel. The earlier part of her passage proved to be
tedious and she experienced 24 hours of very heavy weather in the Western
Ocean
but happily without any casualty. Had almost
no NE trades but caught a smart SE trade 4 degrees to the northward of the equator, which
she crossed on 5 January, sighting Cape
Augustine
on the Brazilian
Coast. Crossed the meridian of Greenwich
on 2 February and that of the Cape
of Good Hope
on 6th. Ran down her easting,
meeting with drift ice. Passed to the
southward and outside of Tasmania
in a heavy gale, sighting no land (except Cape
Augustine)
from the date of her departure from the Downs
until she made the Three Kings on Friday 11th; had light weather up the coast. On 6 January spoke the ship Donald Mackay
from Liverpool
to Melbourne. [There must, we suspect, be some mistake in dates,
it being, we think, impossible for a ship crossing the equator on the 5th to
speak another ship 11 degrees to the southward of it on 6 January] and on 20 January, the Lincluden
Castle from London to Bombay with troops. There
were two deaths and two births during the passage. The
Excelsior is a clipper ship and a fine vessel of her class, carrying her beam well
aft and thereby affording ample accommodation for passengers in her spacious cuddy. She brings another large accessing to our
populations and has come into port in clean and creditable condition. We beg to return our acknowledgement to Captain
Faithfull for the prompt and gentlemanly courtesy with which we were furnished with every
information in his power to give us. Three of
the seamen, accused of theft, were landed in charge of the Police as soon as the ship came
to anchor, the hands aloft stowing the foretopsail cheering them loudly on their shoreward
passage.