Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 by William O. S. Gilly

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Not a barrack-house or tree escaped the ravages of the storm; many
were levelled with the ground, others extensively damaged, and the
hospital was completely unroofed, which rendered the situation of the
sick most deplorable. One of the patients was killed by the falling
beams. Several Europeans fell a sacrifice to the storm, many of them
being exposed to the torrents of rain without any place of shelter
within reach.

Lord George Stuart, the officers and crew of the Sheerness were
acquitted of all blame respecting the loss of that vessel, it being
the opinion of the court, that 'Every exertion was made for the
preservation of the ship by the captain, officers, and crew upon that
trying occasion; and that, owing to the violence of the hurricane, the
loss of the ship was inevitable; and every subsequent attempt to get
her afloat proved ineffectual, in consequence of the damage she had
sustained in grounding when driven on shore, from the impossibility of
keeping her free by means of the pumps.'

Lord George Stuart entered the navy in the year 1793 as a midshipman
on board the Providence, in which ship he had the misfortune to be
wrecked in the year 1797.

He received his post rank in 1804, and was almost constantly employed
from that time until 1809, when he assumed the command of a light
squadron at the mouth of the Elbe.

Here he performed an important service in taking the town of
Gessendorf, situated on the banks of the Weser, and in driving from
the fortress a body of French troops who had made frequent predatory
and piratical excursions in the neighbourhood of Cuxhaven.

A few days after the defeat of the French, the gallant Duke of
Brunswick also arrived on the opposite banks of the Weser, after
having almost succeeded in effecting his retreat through the heart of
Germany. By the previous dispersion of the enemy and the destruction
of the fortress, he succeeded in crossing the river and escaping his
pursuers, who would otherwise, in all probability, have captured or
destroyed the whole of his detachment.

His Lordship was next appointed to the Horatio, a 38-gun frigate.
Whilst cruizing on the morning of the 7th December, 1813, off the
Island of Zealand, he received a letter from a gentleman who had been
in the British service, requesting his aid to drive the French from
Zierick-Zee, the capital of Schowen. He at once complied with this
request, and directed a detachment of seamen and marines to storm the
batteries as soon as the tide would answer for the boats to leave the
ship, which could not be done until nine P.M. In the meantime, a
deputation arrived on board from the principal citizens, bearing a
flag of truce from the French general, and requesting, that in order
to save the effusion of blood, and to prevent the disorders which
would in all probability arise, as the city was then in a state of
insurrection, terms of capitulation should be granted, by which the
French should be allowed to withdraw with their baggage to
Bergen-op-Zoom. To this, Lord George Stuart gave a peremptory refusal,
and summoned the French to surrender unconditionally. After a short
delay, the signal of surrender was made, and thus, by the promptitude
and decision displayed by the British officer, the French were
compelled to evacuate the Island of Schowen without bloodshed, and the
ancient magistrates of Zierick-Zee resumed their former functions.

Lord George Stuart subsequently commanded the Newcastle, and was
employed in the last American war. In 1815, he received the Order of
the Companion of the Bath, and died as rear-admiral in 1841.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Captain Hunter died in 1807.

ATHENIENNE.

The Athenienne, of 64 guns, commanded by Captain Robert Raynsford,
with a crew of 470 men, sailed from Gibraltar on the 16th of October,
1806, and at noon on the 20th, the Island of Sardinia was seen in the
distance. The ship continued under a press of sail with a fair wind,
and sped on her course towards Malta. At eight o'clock of the evening
of the 20th, the first watch had been stationed, and the officer on
duty had reported the ship's progress at nine knots an hour. The
labours of the day were over, and all, save the few whom duty or
inclination kept on deck, had gone below. Another hour passed away;
the majority of the crew had retired to their berths to seek repose
after the toils of the day, and to gain fresh strength for the
morrow--that morrow which many of them were destined never to behold.

One there was on board the Athenienne, to whose care the safety of the
vessel and the lives of her crew had been entrusted, who appeared to
have misgivings as to the course she was steering. The captain was
seated in his cabin, looking over the chart with one of his officers,
when he exclaimed, 'If the Esquerques do exist, we are now on them,'
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when the ship struck.

For the information of our readers, we must state that the Esquerques,
or Shirki, are a reef of sunken rocks lying about eighty miles west
from Sicily, and about forty-eight from Cape Bon, on the coast of
Africa. In 1806, the charts were not as accurate as they are in the
present day, and the reef was not laid down in all of them; the very
existence, indeed, of these rocks was positively denied by some
navigators, though it was as positively asserted by others.

It would be vain to attempt to describe the scene that followed the
first shock, on the vessel's striking the rock. Upon the captain's
hastening on deck, he found the crew rushing up from their berths,
many of them in a state of nudity, and so stupified as to be utterly
incapable of making the least effort for their own preservation. Some
went below, and for the moment resigned themselves to despair, while
others rushed to the poop for safety.

In a few minutes, the officers had gathered round their captain. It
needed no words to point out to them the imminence of their danger,
and the necessity of their setting an example of steadiness and
intrepidity to the men. They suffered no signs of dismay to appear in
their demeanour, but immediately proceeded to consider what were the
best steps to be taken to meet the impending danger. The calmness and
courage thus displayed by the captain and his officers could not fail
of having the desired effect upon the ship's company, who recovered
from their panic, and seeing the necessity for instant exertion, held
themselves in readiness to execute each order as it was issued.

In order to prevent the ship falling on her broadside, the masts were
cut away; but she continued to beat so violently upon the rocks, that
in less than half-an-hour she filled with water up to the lower deck
ports, and then fell over to larboard on her beam ends. Captain
Raynsford, foreseeing the inevitable loss of his vessel, had ordered
the boats to be hoisted out, with the idea that they would be useful
in towing a raft, which he had caused to be constructed to leeward.
This raft would probably have been the means of preserving a great
many lives, had not the men in charge of the two jolly-boats pushed
off, and left their unhappy comrades to their fate. Unfortunately,
both the cutter and the barge, in hoisting out, were stove, and
immediately swamped, no less than thirty men perishing with them.
Several of the crew had been killed by the falling of the masts, and
others were severely injured. Two midshipmen were crushed to death
between the spanker boom and the bulwarks.

Brenton has thus described the horrible scene on board:--'Nothing was
to be heard but the shrieks of the drowning and the wailings of
despair. The man who would courageously meet death at the cannon's
mouth, or at the point of the bayonet, is frequently unnerved in such
a scene as this, where there is no other enemy to contend with than
the inexorable waves, and no hope of safety or relief but what may be
afforded by a floating plank or mast. The tremendous shocks as the
ship rose with the sea, and fell again on the rocks, deprived the
people of the power of exertion; while at every crash portions of the
shattered hull, loosened and disjointed, were scattered in dreadful
havoc among the breakers. Imagination can scarcely picture to itself
anything more appalling than the frantic screams of the women and
children, the darkness of the night, the irresistible fury of the
waves, which, at every moment, snatched away a victim, while the
tolling of the bell, occasioned by the violent motion of the wreck,
added a funereal solemnity to the horrors of the scene.'

The fate of the hapless crew seemed fast approaching to a termination.
When the vessel first struck, signal guns had been fired, in the hope
that some aid might be within reach, but none appeared; the guns were
soon rendered useless, and when the ship fell on her beam ends, the
wreck, with the exception of the poop, was entirely under water. Here
were collected all that remained of the ship's company, whose haggard
countenances and shivering forms were revealed to each other, from
time to time, by the glare of the blue lights, and by the fitful
moonbeams which streamed from beneath the dark clouds, and threw their
pale light upon the despairing group.

The sea-breached vessel can no longer bear
The floods that o'er her burst in dread career;
The labouring hull already seems half filled
With water, through an hundred leeks distilled;
Thus drenched by every wave, her even deck,
Stripped and defenceless, floats a naked wreck.
FALCONER.

Two boats only remained, one of which was useless, her side having
been knocked in by the falling of the masts; and the other, the
launch, was therefore the sole means of preservation left. She was
already filled with men, but it was found impossible to remove her
from her position on the booms; and even if she had floated, she could
not have contained above one-fourth of the crew. For about half an
hour she continued in the same position, (the men who were in her
expecting every moment that her bottom would be knocked out by the
waves dashing against the spars on which she rested,) when suddenly a
heavy sea lifted her off the bows clear of the ship. Three loud cheers
greeted her release, and the oars being ready, the men immediately
pulled from the wreck, with difficulty escaping the many dangers they
had to encounter from the floating spars and broken masts.

These gallant fellows, however, would not desert their companions in
misfortune, and although their boat already contained more than a
hundred, they pulled towards the stern of the frigate; but so great
was the anxiety of the poor creatures upon the poop to jump into the
boat, that in self-defence they were obliged to keep at a certain
distance from the wreck, or the launch would have been instantly
swamped. They were therefore reduced to the terrible alternative,
either of leaving their comrades to perish, or of throwing away their
own lives. Nine of the men who had jumped overboard were picked up,
but to have attempted to save any more would have been to sacrifice
all. One of the officers left on board the wreck endeavoured by every
argument to persuade Captain Raynsford to save himself by swimming to
the launch, but all in vain. This intrepid man declared that he was
perfectly resigned to his fate, and was determined not to quit his
ship whilst a man remained on board. Finding that all entreaties were
useless, the officer himself jumped overboard from the stern gallery
into the sea, and swimming through the surf, gained the launch and was
taken on board.

The general cry in the boat was, 'Pull off!' and at twelve o'clock, as
the moon sunk below the horizon, her crew took their last look of the
Athenienne. The situation of the launch was of itself imminently
perilous: she had neither sail, bread, nor water on board. Fortunately
there was a compass, and for a sail the officers made use of their
shirts and the frocks of the seamen. On the following morning they
fell in with a Danish brig, which relieved, in some degree, their
urgent necessities. Lieutenant John Little, a passenger in the
Athenienne, with a party of seamen, went on board the brig, for the
purpose of prevailing on her master to return with them to the wreck,
in hopes of rescuing any of the crew who might be still alive; but
this generous purpose was frustrated by violent and adverse winds.

On the 21st, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the party reached
Maritimo, having been sixteen hours in the open boat, and the next
day they proceeded to Trepani, in Sicily. On the 24th, they arrived at
Palermo; the news of the sad event had already been conveyed thither
to Sir Sidney Smith, by a letter which had been written from Maritimo.
The Eagle, of 74 guns, was instantly ordered to the Esquerques, but
returned with the intelligence, that all who were left upon the wreck
had perished, with the exception of two men, who had been picked up on
a raft by some fishermen. They related that the poop had separated
about eleven o'clock on the morning after the launch left them, and
that they, together with ten others, clung to it, but all had either
been washed off or died except themselves. There were also two other
rafts, on one of which were three warrant officers, and on the other
Captain Raynsford and Lieutenants Swinburne and Salter; but it was
found impossible to disengage the rafts from the rigging to which they
were attached, and the unfortunate men all perished.

The existence of the Esquerques, as we have already stated, had been
doubted, but from Captain Raynsford's exclamation, previous to the
ship striking, we may infer that he himself was not sceptical on the
subject. From whatever cause this fine frigate may have been lost, the
gallantry, at least, and self-devotion of her commander, from the time
the vessel first struck, will rescue his memory from reproach.

There's a prayer and a tear o'er the lowliest grave;
But thousands lament o'er the fall of the brave;
And thou, whose rare valour and fate we bemoan,--
In the sufferings of others forgetting thy own,--
O'er thy dust, though no trophies nor columns we rear,
Though the storm was thy requiem, the wild wave thy bier;
Yet thy spirit still speaks from its home on the flood,
Still speaks to the gen'rous, the brave, and the good;
Still points to our children the path which you trod,
Who lived for your country, and died in your God.

J.H.J.

Three hundred and fifty of the crew perished, while one hundred and
forty-one men, with two women, were all who were saved.

THE NAUTILUS.

ONLY a few weeks after the loss of the Athenienne, and of so many of
her crew, a shipwreck occurred in another part of the Mediterranean,
attended by circumstances of most painful interest.

His Majesty's sloop, Nautilus, commanded by Captain Palmer, left the
squadron of Sir Thomas Louis in the Hellespont, on the morning of the:
3rd of January, 1807, bearing dispatches of the utmost importance for
England.

The wind blowing fresh from the north-east, the sloop continued her
course through the Archipelago without danger or mischance, until the
evening of the 4th, when she was off Anti Milo; the pilot then gave up
his charge, professing himself ignorant of the coast they were now
approaching. As the dispatches confided to Captain Palmer were of
great moment, he determined to run every hazard rather than retard
their delivery. He therefore sailed from Anti Milo at sunset, and
shaped his course to Cerigotto. At midnight, the wind had risen to a
gale; the night was dark and gloomy; torrents of rain were falling,
accompanied by loud and incessant peals of thunder, whilst vivid
flashes of lightning ever and anon illuminated for an instant the
murky sky, and left all in obscurity more dismal than before.

At two o'clock A.M., the tempest and the darkness having increased,
the captain gave orders to close-reef topsails, and prepare for
bringing-to until daybreak. A little after three o'clock, a bright
flash of lightning discovered to them, the Island of Cerigotto right
ahead, and about a mile distant. The captain considered his course to
be now clear, and therefore directed all possible sail to be kept on
the vessel without endangering the masts, at the same time he
congratulated Lieutenant Nesbitt upon their escape from the threatened
dangers of the Archipelago.

He then went below, and was engaged with the pilot in examining the
chart, when a cry was heard of 'Breakers ahead!' Lieutenant Nesbitt,
who was on deck, ordered the helm a-lee; it was scarcely done, when
the vessel struck. The shock was so violent, that the men below were
thrown out of their hammocks, and they had difficulty in getting upon
deck, for every sea lifted up the ship and then again dashed her upon
the rocks with such force that they could not keep their feet. All was
confusion and alarm. Every one felt his own utter helplessness.

'Oh! my Lord,' writes Lieutenant Nesbitt to Lord Collingwood, 'it
draws tears from my eyes when I reflect on the complicated miseries of
the scene! Heaven, now our only resource, was piteously invoked; and
happy am I to say, our gallant crew left nothing untried which we
imagined could save us--all cheerfully obeying the orders of the
officers. An instant had hardly elapsed ere our main-deck was burst
in, and a few minutes after the lee bulwark was entirely overwhelmed.
A heavy sea broke entirely over us, and none could see the smallest
aperture through which hope might enter, and enliven the chill and
dreary prospect before us.'

The only chance of escape for the crew was by the boats, and one only,
a small whale-boat, got clear of the ship in safety, the others were
all either stove or washed off the booms and dashed to pieces on the
rocks by the raging surf. The boat that escaped was manned by the
coxswain, George Smith, and nine others. When they got clear of the
wreck, they lay on their oars, and those who had clothing shared it
with others who were nearly naked. They then pulled towards the Island
of Pauri, seeing that it was impossible for them to render any
assistance to their wretched comrades, as the boat already carried as
many as she could possibly stow.

After the departure of the whale-boat, the ship continued to strike
every two or three minutes, but as she was thrown higher on the rock,
the men perceived that a part of it was above water; and as they
expected the vessel to go to pieces at every shock, that lonely rock
offered a safer refuge from the waves than the frail timbers to which
they were clinging. The mercy of Providence soon provided them with
the means of exchanging their perilous situation for one of less
certain and instant danger. The mainmast fell over the side about
twenty minutes after the vessel struck, and the mizen and foremasts
followed. These all served as gangways by which the people passed
through the surf from the wreck to the platform of the coral reef, and
thus for the time were rescued from the certain death that awaited
them if they remained on board.

The rock, which they reached with difficulty, was scarcely above
water; it was between three and four hundred yards long, and two
hundred wide; and upon this spot, in the midst of the deep, nearly a
hundred men were thrown together, without food, almost without
clothing, and with very little hope that they should ever escape from
the perils that surrounded them. They had only left the wreck in time
to hear her dashed to pieces against the rocks; her timbers quivering,
rending, and groaning, as they were riven asunder by the remorseless
waves. When day dawned upon the cheerless group, its light only
revealed new horrors: the sea on all sides was strewed with fragments
of the wreck; not a sail was visible on the waters, and many of their
comrades were seen clinging to spars and planks, tossed hither and
thither by the waves. The situation of the survivors was truly
distressing; they were at least twelve miles from the nearest island,
and their only chance of relief was in the possibility of a ship
passing near enough to see the signal which they hoisted on a long
pole fixed to the rocks.

The day was bitterly cold, and with much difficulty the unfortunate
men contrived to kindle a fire, by means of a knife and flint that
were happily in the pocket of one of the sailors, and a small barrel
of damp powder that had been washed on to the rock. They next
constructed a tent with pieces of canvas, boards, and parts of the
wreck, and so they were enabled to dry the few clothes they had upon
them. And now they had to pass a long and dreary night, exposed to
hunger, cold, and wet; but they kept the fire burning, hoping that it
might be visible in the darkness, and be taken for a signal of
distress. And so it proved; for the coxswain and crew of the whale
boat, who were on the Island of Pauri, observed the fire in the middle
of the night, and the next morning the coxswain and pilot, with four
of the men, pulled to the rocks, in hopes that some of their comrades
might be still living.

They were beyond measure astonished to find so many survivors from the
wreck, when they had scarcely dared to hope that any could have been
saved except themselves. They had no food or water in their boat; for
they had found nothing on the Island of Pauri (which was only a mile
in circumference) but a few sheep and goats, kept there by the
inhabitants of Cerigo, and a little rain-water that was preserved in
a hole of the rock. The coxswain attempted to persuade Captain Palmer
to come into the boat, but the intrepid officer refused. 'Never mind
me,' was his noble reply; 'save your unfortunate shipmates.'

After some consultation, the Captain ordered the coxswain to take ten
of the people from the rock and make the best of his way to Cerigotto,
and return as soon as possible with assistance.

Soon after the departure of the boat, the wind increased to a gale,
the waves dashed over the rock and extinguished the fire, and some of
the men were compelled to cling to the highest part of the rock, and
others to hold on by a rope fastened round a projecting point, in
order to save themselves from being washed away by the surf; and thus
a second night was passed, even more wretched than the first. Many of
the people became delirious from the fatigue, hunger, thirst, and
cold, which they had suffered, and several died during the night;
some, apparently, from the effect of the intense cold upon their
exhausted frames. Terrible was the scene which daylight presented:
indiscriminately crowded together on a small spot, were the living,
the dying, and the dead; and the wretched survivors unable to give any
help to those whose sufferings might shortly be their own.

There was nothing to be done, but to wait in hope for the return of
the whale-boat, when, to the indescribable joy of all, a ship, with
all sail set, hove in sight: she was coming down before the wind, and
steering directly for the rock.

This cheering sight infused vigour into the weakest and most
desponding. Signals of distress were instantly made, and at last they
were perceived by the vessel, which brought to, and then hoisted out
her boat. Great was the joy of all the famishing creatures on the
rock, to see their deliverance at hand; the strongest began to fasten
spars and planks together to form rafts, on which they might get to
the ship; the boat came within pistol-shot. She was full of men, who
rested on their oars for a few minutes, as if to examine the persons
whom they were approaching: the man at the helm waved his hat, and
then the boat's head was put round and they pulled back again to the
ship, and left the crew of the Nautilus to their fate.

The transition from hope to despair was terrible,--all that day they
watched in vain for the return of their own boat from Cerigotto; but
hour after hour passed away, and they began, at length, to fear that
she had been lost in the gale of the preceding night.

Death, in its most horrible forms, now stared them in the face; the
pangs of hunger and thirst were almost insupportable. There was--

Water, water everywhere,
Yet not a drop to drink.--COLERIDGE.

Some, indeed, of the poor sufferers were desperate enough to allay
their raging thirst with salt water, in spite of the entreaties and
warnings of those who knew how terrible are its effects. In a few
hours those who had drunk it were seized with violent hysteria and
raving madness, which in many ended in death.

Another night drew on, and they made their sad preparations for it by
huddling together as closely as they could, to keep alive the little
warmth that remained in their bodies, and covering themselves with the
few ragged garments that were left. Happily the weather was more
moderate, and they hoped to be able to get through the night; but worn
out as they were, the ravings of some of their companions banished
sleep from the eyes of the rest. In the middle of the night they were
unexpectedly hailed by the crew of the whale-boat.

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