Vancouver, B.C. 
March 12, 1916 

          I should have written what I have written to you a long while ago—but I don't know, it seems as if the Lusitania left its seal on every one who was in it, and even now, almost a year later, I am afraid all the survivors are thinking more seriously of May 7, than they are of their business or the other things they should attend to. I know that is the case with me.
          If you have been informed that there was a man on board who was in the company of your father and Mrs. Hubbard on many occasions, I guess they have me in mind, for we really did spend a lot of time together—so much so that he took to calling me "Jack." I don't know why, unless it was that I was then going on an assignment for the paper called Jack Canuck.
          The night previous to the murder, l and Rogers, the proprietor of Jack Canuck, had attended at his cabin for a sort of little conversazione, a fruit feast or steamboat visit, in return for a visit he had made to me the night previously.
          I did not see him again until the next day, just a little before the torpedo hit us. I then called the attention of himself and Mrs. Hubbard to the extra watch which had been put on for submarines, and walked them forward to where two men were right at the stern with glasses. Two were on each side of the navigating-bridge, and three were in the crow's-nest, which is half way up the foremast. 
          He expressed surprise at this, for he was sure a submarine would never make any effort to torpedo a ship filled with women, children and non-combatants.
          He mentioned the fact that there were no guns on board, and that there was no place to put them. I agreed that there were no guns, but pointed out that there were places to put them, and walked both round to the places which were built with the vessel for the mounting of guns if required.
          Nobody but one having a close acquaintance with a ship would know what the round, elevated patch on the deck was for; but I come from a seafaring family (my father having been drowned at sea while in command), and so I knew what they were for.
          We then parted to go to our cabins before taking lunch. On finishing mine I went to the top deck, and was smoking with Rogers when I saw the torpedo coming toward us.
          We both sought the shelter of the companionway until after the explosion, when I saw another coming and again took shelter. After the second one we emerged, for the vessel took a terrible list right away.
          I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.
          Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms—the fashion in which they always walked the deck—and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, 
          "Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were.”
          They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, 
          "There does not seem to be anything to do."
          The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him.
          It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.
          The blow to yourself and your sister must have been terrible, and yet, had you seen what I have seen, you would be greatly consoled, for never in history, I am sure, did two people look the Reaper so squarely in the eye at his approach as did your father and Mrs. Hubbard.
          It was there that the philosopher shone.
          Both showed that they had not been talking for talk's sake, or writing because it presented itself as a means of securing a livelihood. Both were philosophers, and both showed that they were each other's most apt pupils.
          I don't believe that the prospect at that moment troubled them any more than it would have done had the call been to go to lunch instead of to tread the Valley of the Long Shadow.
          If he wrote his philosophy, he certainly lived it to the last moment. He was a big man in life, but to my mind he is a vastly bigger man in death.
          I suppose you have asked yourself the question; "Was it possible for them to have been saved? Did they really do all that could be done?" To this I would say they could do nothing more than was done, especially if they wanted to remain together, and apparently there was no intention on either side of separating.
          There was a preponderance of women and children on board. This fact is accounted for owing to the number of wives and children of men belonging to the Canadian contingents (which were almost wholly composed of Old-Country men) who were going to England, where they could live cheaper and be near to the hospitals where their dear ones would be taken in case of injury.
          Some of the horrors of the disaster can never be committed to print. I can tell you this: There were a surprisingly large number of women on board who were in advanced stages of pregnancy—presumably English women who were going to their parents for the birth of their children.
          I saw the corpses of four of these in the mortuary at Queenstown, and they had been delivered of their infants in the water, precipitated labor owing to shock being the cause. But can you in your mind conjure such a picture!
          Because Great Britain is at war, there should be stretched out on the cold flagstones of the mortuary at Queenstown the bodies of four women in a condition which even animals respect, and this for the furtherance of the Kultur which Emperor William would impose on Europe, and America next, I suppose, were he not stopped (and he is stopped).
          And this is but one of the many horrors I could tell you.
          It must be a source of gratification to you to know that they are getting the crews of the subs right along. The announcements are not made, but rest assured they are getting them.
          My mother resides in Liverpool, and a younger brother is in the service of Cannnel-Laird's (Birkenhead, across the river from Liverpool). Cammel's are shipbuilders, and of course are now busy on warships.
          My mother tells me that there is not a week goes by but what the crews of one or more German submarines are taken from them at Cammel's yards and buried in the little cemetery just near the shipyards.
          They work round the estuary of the Mersey. The destroyers get them, and they are brought up the river to Cammel's, where they are opened up and the bodies taken from them.
          While I was in Scotland I was alongside the Garelock, and they had got two away up the Clyde that morning—but never a word in the papers about it. If there is one thing the British Navy does better than another, it is to keep its mouth shut. But what a lot there will be to learn after it's all over and the story is written!

 Yours very faithfully, 

       ERNEST C. COWPER