Cospatrick was a wooden three-masted full-rigged sailing ship that caught fire south of the Cape of Good Hope early on 18 November 1874, while on a voyage from Gravesend, England, to Auckland, New Zealand.

[2][3] Cospatrick was a Blackwall frigate built at Moulmein (now Mawlamyaing) in Burma in 1856 for prominent London shipowner Duncan Dunbar.

[5] The voyage was otherwise uneventful until about 12:45 a.m. on 18 November – about twelve hours after the vessel's position was determined as 400 nautical miles (740 km) south-west of the Cape of Good Hope.

British Sceptre picked up the surviving boat on 27 November, by which time there were only five men left alive; they had been reduced to drinking the blood and eating the livers of their dead companions.

Two of the survivors died shortly after being rescued, leaving only second mate Charles Henry MacDonald, able seaman Thomas Lewis, and passenger Edward Cotter.