STORM WARRIORS:
OR,
Life-Boat Work
ON THE GOODWIN SANDS.
BY THE REV. JOHN GILMORE, M.A.,
RECTOR OF HOLY TRINITY, RAMSGATE; AUTHOR OF "THE RAMSGATE LIFE-BOAT,"
IN MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.
_FOURTH THOUSAND._
LONDON:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1875.
[_All rights reserved._]
[Illustration: Life-boat]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS.
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
TO
THE MOST BELOVED MEMORY OF MY LATE FATHER,
JOHN GILMORE, COMMANDER, R.N.,
AND TO THE MOST BELOVED MEMORY OF
MY LATE ELDEST BROTHER,
ROBERT GRAHAM GILMORE, CAPT., R.N.R.,
TWO MOST BRAVE, AND SKILFUL, AND TRUE,
AND LOVING-HEARTED SAILORS,
WHO HAVE PASSED IN FAITH AND PEACE TO THE
HAVEN THAT THEY HUMBLY SOUGHT,
I INSCRIBE THIS WORK.
J. G.
PREFACE.
"O Mamma, I do hope that we shall be wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, that
we may be saved by the brave life-boat men!"
"You horrid boy, hold your tongue, do," replied the Mamma, who was
anticipating, with some degree of nervousness, starting upon a voyage
for Australia in about three weeks' time, and could scarcely be expected
to enter to the full into her young son's very practical enthusiasm.
But within the last half hour the boy's shrill voice had been heard at
the Ramsgate pier-head, among the cheers that welcomed the life-boat
back from a night of toil and triumph on the Goodwin; and for the
present, to be saved from a wreck by the life-boat men is to him one of
the most delightful ideas on earth.
After reading an article in 'Macmillan's' of the life-boat men's doings,
a brave English Admiral, then commanding a fleet, wrote--"My heart
warms to the gallant fellows; tell them so, and please give them the
enclosed (a guinea each) from an English Admiral without mentioning my
name."
A Kentish Squire, sending a donation of a guinea for each of the men
wrote,--"To read the brave self-sacrificing doings of the Ramsgate
life-boat men, makes me proud of the men of my county."
Other gentlemen wrote, and ladies wrote, and by-and-by we heard from
Australia, America, South America, and also from other parts of the
world came evidence, that English hearts, wherever they are, cannot but
feel deeply as they read the simple narrative of such gallant deeds.
"Your life-boat stories have undoubtedly helped on the good life-boat
cause," said Mr. Lewis.
"The public have evinced considerable interest in those tales of
life-boat work," said Mr. Macmillan; and so the idea grew that I must
write a book about the life-boat work on the Goodwin Sands.
A formidable idea this for a man with no "learned leisure," and quite
unconscious of possessing any especial literary skill, or any especial
literary ambition.
Certainly, I could have no difficulty in obtaining full and abundant
particulars of the various adventures of the life-boat.
It was gravely said to a friend of mine,--"It is really very wrong of
Mr. Gilmore, as a family man, to risk his life in the life-boat." I have
been able to get all particulars without risking my life, and without,
which is not much less to the point, lumbering up the boat with a
useless hand; moreover, I doubt whether I should have had very keen
powers of observation, while cold and exhausted and breathless, and
clinging for very life to the thwarts, with the seas rushing over me,
and tearing at me, striving to wash me out of the boat; which would have
been my condition and very soon the condition of any unseasoned landsman
who went to share the strife which the experienced boatmen often find it
hard enough to endure.
I have managed better: I have had sometimes two, three, or four boatmen
up to my house; and we have fought their battles over again; I
questioning and cross-questioning, getting particulars from them, small
as well as great.
"What did you do next?" To one such question, I remember the answer
was--"Why then we handed the jar of rum round, for we were almost beaten
to death."--"But with the seas running over the boat, and the boat full
of water, it must have been salt-water grog very soon--how did you
manage it?"--"Well, Sir, when there was a lull, a man just took a nip;
then if there was a cry, 'Look out! a sea!' he put the jar down between
his legs, shoved his thumb in the hole, held on to the thwart with his
other arm, then bent well over the jar and let the sea break on his
back."
Thus getting them to recall incident after incident, I got the full
details of each adventure; and when we arrived at the more stirring
scenes, it was very exciting work indeed; the men could scarcely sit in
their chairs--their muscles worked, faces flushed, and most graphically
they told their tales, I, not one whit less excited, taking notes as
rapidly as possible.
Truly I must live to be an old man before I forget the hours I have
spent in my study with Jarman, Hogben, and Reading, and R. Goldsmith,
and Bill Penny, and Gorham, and Solly, and some other of my brave
boatmen friends, as they have told me their many experiences and toils
and dangers in life-boat work.
To Jarman especially do I owe thanks for his many graphic narratives; he
was coxswain of the boat for ten years, and during the time of most of
the adventures related.
One difficulty I have had to contend with has been the comparative
sameness in the ordinary life-boat services. I could have had nine
narratives in one especial fortnight, for nine times was the life-boat
out during that time; but it has taken nearly ten years for me to find
a sufficient number of narratives so varying in their chief incidents
that the book should not of necessity be wearisome from repetition, and
at the same time give a picture of the varied experiences and dangers of
life-boat work.
I must leave my Readers to judge how far I have gained my object in the
selection I have made.
As the few life-boat stories I have already published have been used to
some extent in public Readings, Penny Readings, and on the like
occasions, I have thought it well to make each story, as far as
possible, complete in itself, although to effect this, some repetition
of similar incidents has been unavoidable.
I come of a sailor family--this will account to landsmen for my seeming
acquaintance with nautical matters; I have never been to sea--this will
explain to sailors the ignorance on such matters that they will not have
much difficulty in detecting.
"God help the poor fellows at sea!"--"God protect and bless the
life-boat men!" (humble, honest, hardworking and most generous and
brave-hearted men as I well know full many of them to be);
"And God prosper the good Life-boat Institution, and advance its noble
object!" that many a brave fellow may be spared to his family and home;
many a good man be plucked from death to be yet the joy and support of
loved ones; and many a man, unfitted to meet death, be snatched from its
jaws to live to repent and to seek that peace which he had formerly
disregarded. With such prayers I launch my book. And may God further it
to His glory, by making it instrumental in gaining yet increased
sympathy with the already much-loved life-boat cause; thus blessing it
to be one of the humble instruments, among many, in helping to work out
the results for which, in our sailor-loving land, so many are ever ready
to hope, to work, to pray.
One last word. The narratives related are, I firmly believe, as far as
possible, strictly and literally true; I am positive the boatmen would
not knowingly exaggerate in the least; and I have sought to tell the
tales, incident by incident, what the men did, and what the men
suffered, and what the men said--simply as they related each
circumstance to me.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE SHIPWRECKED FARED IN DAYS OF OLD, AND
THE GROWTH OF SYMPATHY ON THEIR BEHALF 1
CHAPTER II.
WRECKERS 13
CHAPTER III.
THE INVENTOR OF THE LIFE-BOAT 19
CHAPTER IV.
THE GROWTH OF THE LIFE-BOAT MOVEMENT 23
CHAPTER V.
THE INVENTION AND LAUNCHING OF THE PRIZE LIFE-BOAT 32
CHAPTER VI.
THE RAMSGATE LIFE-BOAT AT WORK--STORM WARRIORS TO
THE RESCUE 48
CHAPTER VII.
THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "SAMARITANO," AND
THE RETURN 66
CHAPTER VIII.
A NIGHT ON THE GOODWIN SANDS 82
CHAPTER IX.
THE WRECK ABANDONED, AND THE LIFE-BOAT DESPAIRED OF 94
CHAPTER X.
SIGNALS OF DISTRESS--OUT IN THE STORM 116
CHAPTER XI.
THE EMIGRANT SHIP 134
CHAPTER XII.
THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "DEMERARA," AND
THE EMIGRANTS' WELCOME AT RAMSGATE 149
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WRECK OF THE "MARY"--GALES ABROAD 161
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WRECK OF THE "MARY"--A STRUGGLE FOR DEAR LIFE 171
CHAPTER XV.
DEAL BEACH 192
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LOSS OF THE "LINDA," AND THE RACE TO THE RESCUE 203
CHAPTER XVII.
THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "AMOOR" 214
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "EFFORT"--THE
DANGERS OF HOVELLING 224
CHAPTER XIX.
THE HOVELLERS, OR SALVORS SAVED. THE "PRINCESS
ALICE" HOVELLING LUGGER 234
CHAPTER XX.
THE SAVING OF "LA MARGUERITE"--(A HOVEL) 254
CHAPTER XXI.
THE WRECK BROUGHT IN 265
CHAPTER XXII.
THE WRECK OF THE "PROVIDENTIA" 275
CHAPTER XXIII.
HARDLY SAVED 287
CHAPTER XXIV.
SAVED AT LAST--THE FATAL GOODWIN SANDS 298
CHAPTER XXV.
SAVED AT LAST--WE WILL NOT GO HOME WITHOUT THEM 310
CHAPTER XXVI.
SAVED AT LAST--"VICTORY OR DEATH" 320
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF SOME OF THE LIFE-BOAT MEN 333
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CONCLUSION--THE LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION 344
STORM WARRIORS.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE SHIPWRECKED FARED IN DAYS OF OLD, AND THE GROWTH OF SYMPATHY ON
THEIR BEHALF.
A worthy Quaker thus wrote:--"I expect to pass through this world
but once; if, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or
any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it
now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way
again."
Before in fancy we man the Life-boat, and rush out into the storm, and
have the salt spray dashing over us, and the wind singing like
suppressed thunder in our ears--before we watch the gallant Storm
Warriors of the present day, in their life-and-death struggle, charging
in through the raging seas to the rescue of the shipwrecked, let us look
back and see how the unfortunate by shipwreck fared in the old time, and
then take a hasty glance or two, watching the gradual growth, from age
to age, of sympathy for the distressed; humanity becoming more
pronounced, and more practical; the progressive adaptation of Maritime
Law to the advancing tone of feeling; the gradual organization and
development of that most noble Society, "The National Life-boat
Institution," which has for its sole object the lessening of the dangers
of the sea, and the saving of the shipwrecked; and, lastly, the progress
and final triumph of the labours of science, in the invention of a
life-boat which is able successfully to defy the efforts of the most
raging storms.
The "good old days!" Those who sing too emphatically the glories of the
"good old days" must either be influenced by the enchantment distance
lends to the view, or guided by the wholesome proverb, "Let nothing,
except that which is good, be spoken of the dead."
Human nature seems an inheritance unchanging in its properties, and it
was in the old time much as it is now, capable of bringing forth fruit
good or bad, in accordance with the training it received, or the
associations by which it was surrounded. The old days were very far from
being either very golden or very good, the strong arm was too often the
strong law, and selfishness was far more likely to make the weak ones a
prey for plunder, than was compassion to make them objects for
assistance. There was a good deal of the Ishmael curse about the old
feudal days; the Baron's hand was too ready to be against every man's,
and every man's against his; to plunder and to pillage at all convenient
opportunities, as well by sea as by land, seemed very much a leading
institution.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Piracy was almost openly
recognized; a foreign ship with a rich cargo was too great a temptation
for the free sailors of those rough-and-ready days, and there was in
reality as much of the spirit of piracy in the rugged justice by which
it was endeavoured to suppress the crimes, as in the crimes themselves.
Supposing an act of piracy to have been committed, restitution was first
demanded from the nation, or maritime town, to which the pirate
belonged; and if satisfaction was not obtained, then the aggrieved party
was allowed to take out "Letters of Marque," and might sally forth to
all intents a pirate, to plunder any ship sailing from the place to
which the vessel which had first robbed him belonged. This system was
acknowledged under the name of the "Right of Private Reprisal;" and so,
what with pirates licensed and unlicensed, ships seeking plunder without
any discrimination, and ships seeking revenge without much, Hallam might
well write: "In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a rich vessel
was never secure from attack, and neither restitution nor punishment of
the criminals was to be obtained from Governments, who sometimes feared
the plunderer, and sometimes connived at the offence."
To piracy was added the constant petty warfare and feuds that were
carried on between maritime nations, and even between towns of the same
nation.
Hallam quotes, "The Cinque Ports, and other trading towns of England,
were in a constant state of hostility with their opposite neighbours
during the reigns of Edward I. and II.; half the instruments of Rymer
might be quoted in proof of these conflicts, and of those with the
mariners of Norway and Denmark."
Sometimes mutual envy produced frays between different English towns;
thus in the year 1254 the Winchilsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth
galley, and killed some of her men.
The evil effects of this confusion of might with right, the anxiety
occasioned by this constant warfare, and by these petty feuds, lingered
longer on sea than on land; and kept the morals of the seafaring
population of the coasts at the lowest ebb; and as one consequence, the
plundering of vessels wrecked on the shores was in all parts of Europe
carried on with as ruthless a hand, as was piracy and privateering
afloat.
It may be somewhat interesting to consider the gradual progress of
legislation with reference to this very terrible system and crime of
wrecking; and while doing so, we shall receive further proof of how the
rough mastery of the strong over the weak crept into the Laws, and how
full a development it had in such laws, as especially related to wrecks
and wreckage.
It is hard in the present day to conceive how, in the name of any
government making claim to the administration of justice, such a law
could have been passed as that which existed prior to Henry I., which
gave the king complete possession of all wrecked property: ownership on
the part of the original possessor was supposed to have been lost by the
action of the sea. Whether the law originated in that strong instinct
for the appropriation of unconsidered trifles, which is rather a snare
to all governments, or whether it was found necessary to make the king
the owner of wreckage, in order to lessen the temptation to cause
vessels to be wrecked, and their crews murdered for the sake of pillage,
no unfrequent occurrence in those days, however it was, the law existed,
and the shipwrecked merchant might come struggling ashore upon a broken
spar, and find the coast strewn with scattered but still valuable goods,
so lately his, but now by law his no longer, any more than they belonged
to the half dozen rude fishermen who stood watching the torn wreck, and
dispersed cargo being wave-lifted high upon the beach.
Henry I., whose declining years were years of tender and deep sadness,
on account of his own losses at sea, was somewhat more compassionate in
his dealings with the unfortunate by shipwreck.
He decreed that a wreck or wrecked goods should not be considered lost
to the owner, or become the property of the Crown, if any man escaped
from the wreck with life to the shore.
Henry II. made a feeble enlargement of this scant degree of mercy--he
expanded this saving clause, so that if either man or beast came ashore
alive, the wreck and goods should still be considered as belonging to
the original possessors; but failing this, although the owner should be
known beyond all possibility of doubt, all the saved property should
belong to the king; so that in those old days, if a cat was supposed to
have nine lives, it was quite sufficient to account for its being for so
long a popular institution on board ship; for even a cat washing
ashore, would become the owner's title-deeds to all of his property that
the sea had spared.
Richard I. could be generous in things small as well as great; he could
act nobly upon principle as well as upon impulse; it must have been,
indeed, only natural to his open unselfish nature and high courage, to
spurn the idea of robbing the robbed, of making the victim of the sea's
destructive power the further victim of a king's greed; he was prepared
to give his laws of chivalry a wide interpretation, and let them ordain
succour for the distressed by the rage of waters, as well as for the
distressed by the rage of men.
And so when about to take part in the third crusade, King Richard
decreed, "For the love of God, and the health of his own soul, and the
souls of his ancestors and successors, kings of England.
"That all persons escaping alive from a wreck should retain their goods;
that wreck or wreckage should only be considered the property of the
king when neither an owner, nor the heirs of a late owner, could be
found for it."
For several centuries all European nations had for the foundation of
their maritime laws, a certain code, called the Code of Oleron.
There is the usual veil of historical uncertainty clouding the origin of
these laws, for while some authorities declare that Richard I. had
nothing to do with them, others declare that they were completed and
promulgated by Richard, at the Isle of Oleron, as he was returning from
one of his crusades, and that they had first and especial reference to
the customs on the coasts of some of his continental domains.
The Laws of Oleron contain thirty-seven articles, and make very terrible
statements as to the system of wrecking, which in those days disgraced
the then civilized nations of the earth, while they show also, that if
sinners were then prepared to sin with a high hand, that the authorities
were prepared with no less energy to inflict punishment for crime.
Some of the extracts from these laws are as utter darkness compared with
light, when you read them beside extracts from the Life-boat journals of
the present day, suggesting as they do the customs of the people as
regards wrecking, and the scant mercy that was shown to the shipwrecked.
Consider, for instance, the picture as given in the following extracts
from the old laws of Oleron:--
"An accursed custom prevailing in some parts, inasmuch as a third or
fourth part of the wrecks that come ashore belong to the lord of the
manor, where the wrecks take place, and that pilots for profit from
these lords, and from the wrecks, like faithless and treacherous
villains, do purposely run the ships under their care upon the rocks."
The Code declares, that the lords, and all who assist in plundering the
wreck shall be accursed, excommunicated, and punished as robbers. "That
all false pilots shall suffer a most rigorous and merciless death, and
be hung on high gibbets."
"The wicked lords are to be tied to a post in the middle of their own
houses, which shall be set on fire at all four corners, and burnt with
all that shall be therein; the goods being first confiscated for the
benefit of the persons injured; and the site of the houses shall be
converted into places for the sale of hogs and swine."
But if this threat of burning the said wicked lords, and the wholesale
confiscation and destruction of their houses and properties, had not
sufficient terrors to control such hardened sinners, and if they, or
others, were prepared to add murder to robbery, then the laws enacted--
"If people, more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs, murdered
shipwrecked folk, they were to be plunged into the sea until half dead,
and then drawn out and stoned to death."
Railway directors and others would scarcely like the enforcement of laws
parallel to those which dealt with the carelessness of Pilots; which
provided, "That if negligence on the part of the Pilot caused shipwreck,
he was to make good out of his own means the losses sustained, and if
his means were not sufficient, then he should lose his head;" it was
meekly suggested; "that some care should be taken by the master and
mariners," possibly as much for their own sakes as for the sake of the
unfortunate pilot. "That they should be persuaded that the man had not
the means to make good the loss, before they cut off his head."
The preamble of an Act of Parliament is generally the summary of the
arguments for the necessity of the Bill.
The preamble of a Bill for the repression of crime, may be therefore
taken as the expression of the national conviction, that such crimes
exist at the time.
If so, during the reign of George II. human nature did not show itself
to be one whit better than in earlier days, still were men equally
capable of cruel selfishness and wrong, although civilization had done
much to curb the outward expression of many of the former evils, and to
control, to some extent, the open and virulent barbarities of still
darker days.
For we find that the old laws, and barbarous modes of punishment, were
not sufficient to cope with the strongly developed tendencies for
wrecking, which showed themselves, in various ways, to be existent, and
in full activity.
And therefore a new Act was passed, which recited--
"That notwithstanding the good and salutary laws now in being against
plundering and destroying vessels in distress, and against taking away
shipwrecked, lost, and stranded goods, that still many wicked enormities
had been committed to the disgrace of the nation." Therefore certain
provisions were enacted, the bearing of which was as follows:--
Death was to be the punishment for the chief of these enormities, such
as hanging out false lights for the purpose of bringing vessels into
distress.
Death for those who killed, or prevented the escape of shipwrecked
persons.
Death for stealing goods from a wreck, whether there be any living
creature on board or not.
Acts of Parliament in following years felt the impress of the more
merciful spirit of legislation which began to prevail. The punishment of
death for theft from a wreck was reduced to imprisonment; while penal
servitude for life was made the penalty for a new development of crime,
namely, that of wilfully scuttling, or setting on fire, or wrecking a
ship for the purpose of defrauding or damaging Insurance Offices or
Owners.
The existing Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and the amendments and
additions to it, now form the Code by which all maritime questions are
arranged; and most of the barbarities, cruelties, and wrongs which, for
so many ages, added to the perils of the sea, both as to life and
property, are now sufficiently guarded against.
But still a most subtle cruelty and fatal wrong is left almost
altogether untouched, that of sending vessels to sea in an unseaworthy
condition, as to hull, or spars, or sails, or rigging, or perhaps
dangerously overladen; many a vessel only worthy of being utterly
condemned, which no office would think for one moment of insuring, and
that would scarcely pay for breaking up, is bought cheap, patched up,
and sent, perhaps, to float up and down our coasts as a Collier, a sort
of dingy coffin, only waiting to be entombed by the first heavy gale and
raging sea in which she is caught, and then to go quickly down to her
grave, carrying with her her crew, unless they have taken warning in
time, and found some chance of escaping, which they are not slow to take
advantage of, knowing the nature of the craft they are in; but many a
brave sailor finds no escape, and feels no hope, when once the heavy
gale breaks on the crazy craft, and thus dies a victim to one of the
treacherous, and permitted, and most fatal cruelties of our most
Christian and most enlightened age; but this state of things, we may
well believe, will not be permitted to last much longer; the attention
of the public has been thoroughly aroused to the subject, more
especially by the zealous, energetic, and unselfish action of Samuel
Plimsol, Esq., M.P., who having the welfare of the poor sailor most
thoroughly at heart, has attacked with every courage the still existing
abuses, arising chiefly from the deficiencies in our Maritime Code, and
all who have sympathy with the sailor must wish him success, and who has
not? but it is hard work to develop legislative action, even from
wide-spread national sympathy; but the work is commenced; and as one
result of his action, a Royal Commission has been issued by Her Majesty.
The following is a synopsis of the opening instructions of the
Commission:--
VICTORIA R.
WHEREAS--We have deemed it expedient for divers good causes and
considerations that a commission should forthwith issue to make
inquiry with regard to the alleged unseaworthiness of British
Registered Ships; whether arising from overloading, deck-loading,
defective construction, form, equipment, machinery, age or
improper stowage; and also to inquire into the present system of
Marine Insurance; of the alleged practice of undermanning ships;
and also to suggest any amendments in the law which might remedy or
lessen such evils as may be found to have arisen from the matters
aforesaid, &c., &c. Given at our Court at St. James's the 29th day
of March, 1873, in the thirty-sixth year of our reign.
By our command, (Signed) H. A. BRUCE.
We may now therefore have great hopes, that there will be speedily some
good result, from the spirited manner in which this question of sending
unseaworthy vessels to sea has been brought before the public.
Note.--I have to thank a friend for Notes, which he kindly gave me,
of extracts which he made from books to which he had access in the
British Museum, referring to the Ancient Maritime Laws upon
Wrecking. My friend has, since this Chapter was first written,
developed his Notes into an Article, which he published in a
periodical; I have, nevertheless, not refrained from giving the
account, which I think my readers may find interesting.
J. G.