2-791-427 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Explosion of a brig, by Captain Warner, off Brighton, 1844. Captain Warner 'put to the test his alleged power of destroying ships at sea, completely and instantaneously...immense numbers of persons proceeded from London to witness the experiment...the number must have been upwards of 30,000...an immense cloud, seemingly of smoke of an unusually white complexion, but really of spray, was seen to ascend from the vessel [the John of Gaunt]...she seemed to be enveloped in a cloud of smoke...the main and mizen masts were seen to fall over the vessel into the sea. A few seconds more, and a rumbling sort of noise, which it is difficult to describe, was heard to proceed from the ship, and ere yet the sound had died on the ear the vessel was a complete wreck. She went almost instantaneously to pieces, no trace of her being visible but the top of her foremast'. From "Pictorial Times", 1844.