Testimony of Mr.Lubin passenger on the Ruby, whereas the ship tries to carry help to Saint-Pierre.

"I left by the Rubis vapor, at two hours and half of the afternoon, with a company of thirty troops, ordered by lieutenant Tessier. Moreover, the abbot Parel, administrator of the diocese, accompanied by one of his vicars, had taken passage on board. After having become Case-Pilote, we note that the sea is strewn with wrecks.

The Ruby must slow down its walk to avoid breaking its propeller. We notice some groups of people. We approach Carbet; with our great astonishment, there is relatively little world on the shore. Saint-Pierre is wrapped in a cloud of smoke, is accompanied by flames, especially in the northern part, said the Fort. Saint-Pierre and his surroundings seem to us a heap of ashes and ruins. The roads contain only one enormous quantity of pieces of wood. Two ships with vapor, out of iron, completely destroyed, leaning on the coast, the boats with half descended in the davits, became the prey of the flames. Not trace of the hull of a sailing ship; not a boat; we meet only three or four boats coastal, known as dugouts, of the Basse-Pointe, the skittle in the air, capsized. On the shore and in the surrounding countryside, not an alive being.

A dozen individuals only took refuge on the rocks located between Saint-Pierre and Carbet; the launches of Suchet will collect them. We knew that these people belonged to the crews of the disappeared ships. I ask the captain to approach more close possible of Saint-Pierre and, making put at the boat with the sea, we even move towards the city, the lieutenant, and me. We unload a little after the place of Bertin; loneliness is complete and we penetrate to the street Bouillé. At this place, we find of place in place of the corpses, some inflated by gases and not carbonized; as for those which cover the site with the houses, they appear to us entirely carbonized. Impossible to penetrate in the interior and to arrive at the central street of the city, the street Victor-Hugo.

It would be necessary, indeed, to go on a burning blazing inferno. We take again the boat and unload in the Bertin place. There also of the corpses inflated by gases and not carbonized. The hands are not contracted; death appears to have been fast and free from suffering. On this place, a dozen corpses including one, that of a woman, with the thigh crossed by a beam. The quays do not exist any more, the tree trunks, either. The headlight of the Bertin place, high 20 meters approximately, is shaven with approximately 3 meters. The interior iron staircase which it dessert seems to be broken. The stones which remain are not calcined, the iron of the staircase did not suffer from fire. The grid of the fountain of this place is twisted, a deformed pipe still gives water. We try to penetrate in the street Lucy, but heat is so suffocating that it is necessary to give up it, and we regain the vapor to go to find the people who are in Carbet."