SOURCE: The Saturday Magazine, No. 117. Supplement, April, 1834
Many of the colliers are of great age and remarkable build; at page 168, we have given an engraving of the most celebrated of these vessels*, the Betsy Cains, which, after a service of a century and a half, was wrecked on a reef of rocks in entering the Tyne, near the Spanish battery under Tynemouth, on the 18th of February, 1827. This venerable ship, which was built of oak, whose changeful existence extended for a longer period than that of any other ship on record, was originally a Royal Yacht, called the Princess Mary, and is popularly believed to have conveyed the Prince of Orange to this country at the Revolution of 1688. Nearly sixty years ago she was sold by Government, and employed as a West Indiaman, when her build, which was considered particularly excellent, was materially altered. She was subsequently employed as a collier, and excited much interest, particularly from a popular saying, "that the Catholics would never get the better whilst the Betsy Cains was afloat!" It is thought that she was Thames-built.
View of the Betsey Cains beached at Tynemouth
* For the subject of our engraving, we are indebted to a lithographic sketch, made from a painting by Mr. James Ferguson of North Shields, by Mr. W. Davison of Sunderland—both eminent artists in the north of England.
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