COFY
8, The Parade,
Plympton.
"On the 18th of October 1903 (at which time I was
residing at Blackheath) I signed Articles in the Steem Ship
Scotia of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, at that time
lying in the Victoria Docks, London, to serve as Carpenter.
The Ship had been purchased from the Construction end
Maintenance Cable Company of Greenwich for the sum of £12,000.
The ship was chartered by the Dutch to lay a cable
between Billaton and Banca near Borneo in the Dutch East Indies.
An attempt was made to insure the ship for £100,000
which risk the underwriters refused to take, but an insurance
of £50,000 was effected,
The ship, after shipping the caro of cable at Green-
wich, proceeded to Singapore and fromt thence to Billaton and
the operation was duly carried out in the presence of a number
of Dutch officials who were on board. On the completion of
the work, whilst presuming to return to Singapore, an attempt
was made to cast the ship away by running her on to a coral
reef in very deep water between Banca and Forneo, which attempt,
although causing the loss of one of the propellers and other
serious damage, failed; and the ship returned to Singapore for
repairs which were duly carried out.
The ship was then chartered to survey the channel
between Hanilla in the Phillipine Islands and the orthern
7