25rd Feb. Capraix Brady of the Nepaul was: making for Plymouth from Marseilles. He made the Eddystone Light at about 5.10 pin. on the 10th of December, and went on cautiously, looking for a pilot, He stood down towards several vessels which were showing the usual pilotage signals, but found them to be fishing-boats, He burnt blue lights to show that he wanted a pilot. Then! he sighted a light which he thought was the light on the breakwater, and he went slowly on until he found himself on the rocks, and the steamer became a total loss, It had gradually come on thick after she passed the Eddystone, for Plymouth lies in a valley, and it is often foggy there, when it is clear at sea. For this error of judgment Captain Brady's certificate is suspended for six months, and his career is virtually closed, after twenty-six years of faithful service, during which he had never met with an accident. "His character for trustworthiness, care, and experience in navigation," says the P. & 0. Company's nautical inspector, " was the highest that a man could bear." We have often remarked onthe cruel fate of the merchant captain who makes one error in judgment in no other walk of life does one mistake ruin a man, Surely it is pre-pesterous that a man should be declared unfit to command a ship for six months, and should as a consequence almost certainly lose his employment, and certainly carry a stigma for life, because he has made an error of judgment, after an unbroken record of success for twenty-six years. Is any other professional man debarred from the practice of his profession for six months, and marked with an indelible stigma, because he has made one mistake? We are sure that the greatest sympathy will be felt for Captain Brady, by those who do not know him as well as by those who do, in his misfortune.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.