File:The steam ship President in gale.png

English: Original caption: "The Steam Ship President, The Largest in the World. Lieut. Roberts R.N. commander on her last voyage from New York to Liverpool. As last seen from the Packet Ship ORPHEUS Capt. COLE in the terrific gale of March the 12th 1841 at 5 o'clock P.M. Lat. 39, 46. Long. 71, bearing N.E. by E. by Compass steering East. In the inquiry before the British Consul, June the 5th 1841, Capt. Cole of the Packet Ship Orpheus, stated that when he last saw the President on the 12th of March she was rising on the top of a tremendous sea pitching heavily and laboring tremendously. She was then situated in that dangerous part of the Atlantic Ocean about midway between the Nantucket Shoal and the St. George's Bank, just where the Gulf Stream strikes soundings, and where the waves rise almost straight up & down & as high as a four or five story house. And further that it was his belief that the President did not survive the gale, but foundered with all on board and that all perished before sundown on the 13th or in less than twenty-four hours after he last saw her, most probably in the terrific night of March 12th 1841." (The painting's composition is strikingly similar to that in this lithograph, even though the latter one claims to depict an earlier storm which the President survived.)