Our conversation turned,
naturally, upon the disaster, and especially upon the sad fate of
poor Wyatt. I thus learned the following particulars.
The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters and a
servant. His wife was, indeed, as she had been represented, a most
lovely, and most accomplished woman. On the morning of the
fourteenth of June (the day in which I first visited the ship), the
lady suddenly sickened and died. The young husband was frantic
with grief--but circumstances imperatively forbade the deferring
his voyage to New York. It was necessary to take to her mother the
corpse of his adored wife, and, on the other hand, the universal
prejudice which would prevent his doing so openly was well known.
Nine-tenths of the passengers would have abandoned the ship rather
than take passage with a dead body.
In this dilemma, Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being
first partially embalmed, and packed, with a large quantity of
salt, in a box of suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board
as merchandise. Nothing was to be said of the lady's decease; and,
as it was well understood that Mr.
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