Melancholy Shipwreck-One hundred and forty eight lives lost

We take the following account of a dreadful casualty from the Quebec Mercury:

The Minstrel left Limerick, Ireland, on the 21st April last, for Quebec, with one hundred and forty-one passengers, emigrants intending to settle in Canada. the vessel had a tolerable passage up to Tuesday last, at four o'clock in the morning, when she struck on Red Island reef. There was a heavy sea running at the time, but the boats were launched and made fast to the fore chains. Upward of one hundred passengers embarked in the boats, but their doom was quickly sealed; the vessel "heeled off" into the deep water and went down stern foremost, so suddenly that the "painters" of the boats could not be cast off, and the people who had embarked in the boats perished with their equally unfortunate companions on board the ship, except four of the crew and four passengers, who alone of upwards of 150 souls remained to tell the sad tale. These eight persons embarked in the gig, which towing astern, and fortunately for them the rope which attached it to the vessel broke when she went down. They succeeded in pulling to White Island, where they remained until the following day when they were taken off by the ship Wellington of Belfast, Capt. McIntyre, and brought to Grosse Island.