Melancholy Shipwreck

On Sunday night, we were visited by a most tremendous gale upon this coast, accompanied by heavy rain which, we are grieved to learn, has caused the shipwreck of two vessels belonging to this port.  The Abundance, Captain Leslie, and the Hunter, Capt. Mortimer, coal landed, left Sunderland on Saturday last, in company with the Jason, Gavin; and on Monday morning, about one o'clock, were put ashore; the former among the rocks at Collistown; and the latter on the sands of Forvie.  The Abundance is a total wreck; and we are concerned to state that Capt. Leslie, with 4 of his seamen, and a passenger of the name of Birnie, a seafaring man, perished among the breakers.  The mate and one seaman were with difficulty saved.  The crew of the Hunter were happily saved; and her materials are got on shore, but it is doubtful whether her hull will be got off.  - When these vessels left Sunderland, they saw the Crimmongate, Anderson, going in.

Published in the Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday 27th January 1819.

Fatal accident: George Allardyce, shipmaster

On Friday the 29th ult. a party of four men went from Macduff, to have some sport in shooting sea fowls among the rocks about three miles distant, when one of them, Mr George Allardyce, shipmaster, while in the act of loading his gun on the top of a tremendous cliff, slipping his foot, fell some hundred feet to the foot of the rock.  His companions hastened to the spot to render their friend any possible assistance, but they found him speechless, and his skull fractured in a shocking manner; he was immediately placed on the back of one of the party, but life was extinct before the bearer could reach the summit of the awful precipice, which he accomplished with difficulty.  Captain Allardyce has left a widow and eight children to deplore his melancholy fate, and that premature death which he had, in the course of his maritime life, three times escaped, having as often suffered shipwreck.

Published in the Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday 10th January 1816.