LETTER OF BAYARD TAYLOR

Fire Island, Tuesday, July 23.

To the Editors of the Tribune:—­

I reached the house of Mr. Smith Oakes, about one mile from the spot where the Elizabeth was wrecked, at three o’clock this morning.  The boat in which I set out last night from Babylon, to cross the bay, was seven hours making the passage.  On landing among the sand-hills, Mr. Oakes admitted me into his house, and gave me a place of rest for the remaining two or three hours of the night.

This morning I visited the wreck, traversed the beach for some extent on both sides, and collected all the particulars that are now likely to be obtained, relative to the closing scenes of this terrible disaster.  The sand is strewn for a distance of three or four miles with fragments of planks, spars, boxes, and the merchandise with which the vessel was laden.  With the exception of a piece of her broadside, which floated to the shore intact, all the timbers have been so chopped and broken by the sea, that scarcely a stick of ten feet in length can be found.  In front of the wreck these fragments are piled up along high-water mark to the height of several feet, while farther in among the sand-hills are scattered casks of almonds stove in, and their contents mixed with the sand, sacks of juniper-berries, oil-flasks, &c.  About half the hull remains under water, not more than fifty yards from the shore.  The spars and rigging belonging to the foremast, with part of the mast itself, are still attached to the ruins, surging over them at every swell.  Mr. Jonathan Smith, the agent of the underwriters, intended to have the surf-boat launched this morning, for the purpose of cutting away the rigging and ascertaining how the wreck lies; but the sea is still too high.

From what I can learn, the loss of the Elizabeth is mainly to be attributed to the inexperience of the mate, Mr. H.P.  Bangs, who acted as captain after leaving Gibraltar.  By his own statement, he supposed he was somewhere between Cape May and Barnegat, on Thursday evening.  The vessel was consequently running northward, and struck head on.  At the second thump, a hole was broken in her side, the seas poured through and over her, and she began going to pieces.  This happened at ten minutes before four o’clock.  The passengers were roused from their sleep by the shock, and hurried out of the cabin in their night-clothes, to take refuge on the forecastle, which was the least exposed part of the vessel.  They succeeded with great difficulty; Mrs. Hasty, the widow of the late captain, fell into a hatchway, from which she was dragged by a sailor who seized her by the hair.