Some 400 men of the 78th Highlanders regiment, together with their wives and children, embarked on Princess Charlotte on 18 September 1816 but a day later she hit a sunken rock.

The ship's boats could only take about 150 people at a time, and a number of men remained marooned on the wreck and a nearby rock.

She rescued 27 men (or 40) from the wreck, but then left after having lost a boat in a second attempt to bring of survivors, and with the weather worsening.

[3][4][5] On 10 November, the merchant ship Prince Blucher, Captain Weathrall, was sailing in the vicinity when she spied wreckage.

By the time they were rescued, the survivors had run out of food and were too weak even to gather the few shellfish on the rocks at low tide.