About a month after setting sail, the Arran ran into floating ice between Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland, and on 9 May the ship drifted into Bay St George, off Newfoundland's west coast, and became trapped.

“It appeared to me rather unlikely that those without shoes would ever reach the land.”

“The ice was broken and rough-looking. Two of the boys were barefooted when they left the ship. The clothes of two of them were very ragged. The distance between the ship and the land, according to the best judgement I could form, was from 10 to 15 miles.

“I heard the three little boys crying when they were asked to go,” seaman George Henry said in court.

The younger boys were terrified of the idea, but the captain then ordered that all the stowaways except Peter Currie were to be put overboard.

With the ship going nowhere, 22-year-old Bernard Reilly - the eldest of the stowaways, who had dreams of making it to Nova Scotia to work on the railways - persuaded James Bryson that it might be worth trying to cross the ice to escape the misery on board the ship.

Between eight and nine o’clock in the morning the stowaways set off across the ice. The ship’s mate threw each a biscuit as they left.

The floe was made of slabs of various sizes, some as big as a football pitch, others much smaller. Reaching the end of one, the stowaways had to jump on to the next.

Hugh McEwan, who had been poorly since leaving Greenock and had been seen spitting blood during the voyage, soon started to lag behind. He slipped into the freezing water once and was pulled free by James Bryson. When he fell in a second time he managed to crawl out himself. But each time he grew weaker.

“I saw him fall in the last time. I was in the water too,” John Paul said in court.

“He was kicking and trying to get out. He caught hold of me. I kicked and he let me go, then I got out by scrambling on the edge of the ice. I saw his head as the ice closed over it. I did not hear him cry. The ice covered over him, and I never saw him again.”

Some hours later, Hugh McGinnes sat down on the ice, his bare feet sore and swollen. He was overcome by exhaustion.

“We urged him to come along with us, and said if he did not he would be frozen,” James Bryson said.

“He said he could not come any further. We left him there with nothing to protect him - no greatcoat, nothing but his ragged, frozen clothes.”

As the remaining four stowaways neared land, the large slabs of ice became rarer. But they struggled on, each in turn slipping and falling into the water, their clothes freezing solid to their bodies.

They reached the end of the ice as the sun was going down.

They could see a few houses on the shore, but a channel of water and drift ice up to a mile wide lay between them and dry land.

Bernard Reilly, the 22-year-old, and 16-year-old David Brand tried to paddle ashore on pieces of ice, using a batten taken from the ship.

John Paul and James Bryson, frozen, famished, exhausted and weak, were stranded.

They shouted out for help in the hope that someone would hear them.