ship; actually, no one imagined that the fine vessel would presently
make a final plunge and disappear. Tryon had, indeed, signalled to the
other ships not to send the boats which were being lowered. Having
received the report that it was thought the _Victoria_ could keep
afloat some time, Tryon consented to her being steered for land. But
the helm refused to work.
The admiral now signalled: “Keep boats in readiness; but do not send
them.” And then, turning to an officer, said: “It is my fault--entirely
my fault!”
The seriousness of the position was now breaking upon him, though even
then he did not realise how near the end was. The crew worked hard but
orderly, hoisting out the boats, or doing whatever they were told,
while down below the engineers and stokers kept at their posts, albeit
they knew that they stood little chance if the ship dived beneath the
surface.
Presently the men were drawn up on deck, four deep, calm, cool,
facing death without a tremor or sign of panic, which would have been
calamitous.
“Steady, men, steady!” cried the chaplain, the Rev. Samuel Morris; and
steady they were, till Tryon, seeing that all hope was gone, signalled
for boats to be sent, and gave orders for every man to look after
himself.
“Jump, men, jump!” was the command; and they rushed to the side, ready
to fling themselves overboard. As they did so the great ship turned
turtle, and men went tumbling head first into the sea, down the bottom
of the ship as she dived, her port screw racing through the air.
The scene that followed beggars description; but the following extract
is from a letter written to the _Times_ by a midshipman who was on one
of the other ships. He was sent off in a boat to rescue the struggling
men in the water.
[Illustration: “It was simply agonising to watch the wretched men
struggling over the ship’s bottom in masses”]
“We could see all the men jumping overboard,” he wrote. “She continued
heeling over, and it was simply agonising to watch the wretched men
struggling out of the ports over the ship’s bottom in masses. All this,
of course, happened in less time than it takes to write. You could see
the poor men who, in their hurry to jump over, jumped on to the screw
being cut to pieces as it revolved. She heeled right over, the water
rushing in through her funnels. A great explosion of steam rose; she
turned right over, and you could see all the men eagerly endeavouring
to crawl over her bottom, when, with a plunge, she went down bows
first. We could see her stern rise right out of the water and plunge
down, the screws still revolving. It was simply a dreadful sight. We
could not realise it. Personally, I was away in my boat, pulling as
hard as we could to the scene of the disaster.... After pulling up and
down for two hours, we reorganised the fleet, leaving two ships on
the scene of the disaster; and, making for Tripoli, anchored for the
night. No one can realise the dreadful nature of the accident.
“However, dropping the _Victoria_ for a minute, we must turn to the
_Camperdown_. She appeared to be in a very bad way. Her bow was sinking
gradually, and I must say at the time I thought it quite on the cards
that she might be lost also; but, thanks to the indomitable way in
which the crew worked, they managed to check the inrush by means of the
collision mat and water-tight doors. All last night, however, they were
working hard to keep her afloat.
“You can imagine our feelings--the flagship sunk with nearly all hands,
the other flagship anchored in a sinking condition. We have a lot of
the survivors of the _Victoria_ on board, but their accounts vary
greatly.... Anyhow, what is quite certain is that the admiral did not
realise the gravity of his situation, or else he would have abandoned
the ship at once, instead of trying to save her. The discipline was
magnificent. Not until the order was given did a single man jump
overboard.
“The last thing that was seen was the admiral refusing to try to save
himself, whilst his coxswain was entreating him to go. Another instance
of pluck was exhibited by the boatswain of signals, who was making a
general semaphore until the water washed him away. Unfortunately the
poor chap was drowned. Many of the survivors are in a dreadful state of
mental prostration. Most people say that Admiral Markham should have
refused to obey the signal, but I think that Admiral Tryon infused
so much awe in most of the captains of the fleet that few would have
disobeyed him. However, he stuck to his ship to the last, and went down
in her.”
Thus was the _Victoria_ lost; less than a quarter of an hour after
being struck she was lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean, Admiral
Tryon and 400 gallant seamen going with her.
At the court-martial Captain Bourke was absolved of all blame for the
loss of the ship, the finding being that the disaster was entirely due
to Admiral Tryon’s order to turn the two lines sixteen points inward
when they were only six cables apart.
INCIDENTS IN THE SLAVE TRADE
Stories of the Traffic in Human Merchandise
We shall not here deal with the history and abolition of slavery,
because every schoolboy knows all about that, and will doubtless be
glad to have something more exciting. And of excitement there is
abundance in the annals of slavery. The trade was always attended by
risks, even before the days when it was illegal to ship slaves, for
there was ever the danger of the negroes breaking loose and running
amok on the ship; or, what was perhaps worse, the holds of the slavers
were often little less than death-holes, with fever and cholera
rampant. Altogether, it was a game with big profits--and mighty big
risks, as the following story will show:
It was back in 1769 that the slaver _Delight_ (Captain Millroy) was the
scene of an uprising of negroes, which resulted in a rousing fight and
fatal effects to a good many aboard.
About three o’clock one Sunday morning Surgeon Boulton and the men with
him in the aft-cabin were awakened by a chorus of screams and shrieks
overhead, a rushing of feet, a pandemonium of noise which told that
something serious was afoot. Boulton slipped out of his bunk and dashed
towards the captain’s cabin, half guessing what was taking place. He
reached the cabin, and, entering, shook Millroy fiercely to awaken
him. He had barely succeeded in rousing the captain when a billet of
wood came hurtling through the air and caught him on the shoulder,
and a cutlass pierced his neck. Turning, Boulton saw that a couple of
negroes had, all unseen and unheard, crept below, intent on putting the
captain _hors de combat_ while he was asleep; and, finding the surgeon
interfering with their plot, they attacked him in quick time. Millroy,
now properly aroused, joined forces with Boulton, who forgot his own
danger in the thought of what was happening above, and the pair chased
the negroes on to the deck, Boulton carrying a pistol and the captain a
cutlass.
When they reached deck they found themselves in a very inferno.
Hundreds of negroes were swarming all over the place, some armed with
wooden spars, others with cutlasses; and with these weapons they were
hard at it taking vengeance on their captors. The herd of savages flung
themselves upon the seamen, cutting off legs and arms, mutilating
bodies dreadfully, their yells making the air ring. Boulton and the
captain, realising that it was a case for prompt and vigorous action,
hurled themselves into the heaving fight with a will. Down went one
negro, killed by Millroy’s cutlass; then another; while Boulton did all
he could. But the “all” of these two men was but little, and presently
Millroy fell to the deck, overpowered by numbers, and literally hacked
to pieces. Boulton, more fortunate, escaped injury, and made a dash for
the rigging, up which he scrambled till he came to the maintop, where
he discovered the cook and a boy had already taken refuge.
Perched on their lofty platform, the three looked down upon deck,
watching as though fascinated the drama being enacted before their
eyes, seeing the now maddened negroes wreaking vengeance on the men
who were bearing them from freedom to slavery. The bloodlust was upon
them, and they searched the ship to take their fill.
Suddenly the watchers saw two men come up from below and make a rush
across the deck to the rigging. Like lightning the negroes dashed after
them, and one man was brought to deck by a dozen billets flung at him,
and his body was cut to pieces. The second man, more fortunate, managed
to reach the rigging, and clambered up like a monkey.
The negroes, having satisfied themselves that they had accounted for
all the crew with the exception of those in the maintop, whom they
decided to deal with presently, ransacked the ship, seeking arms; and
meanwhile Boulton, knowing that safety depended upon weapons, went on
a tour of exploration. He wormed his way into the foretop to see what
might be there, and luckily found a knife, with which he set out to
return to the maintop. On the way the negroes saw him, and began to
pelt him with billets of wood, all of which missed, however; so that
Boulton reached his comrades safely. The one dread in the minds of the
four survivors was that the negroes would find the arms-chest, in which
case it seemed to them hopeless to expect to escape. While the slaves
remained armed only with wooden spars and cutlasses, Boulton did not
feel particularly anxious, knowing that he and his companions would be
able to tackle any who dared to ascend the rigging to try and get them
down. One thing that kept him hopeful was the fact that another slaver,
the _Apollo_, was almost within hailing distance, and the _Delight_,
unsteered and sails untrimmed, was rapidly drifting towards her, which
would make the men on the _Apollo_ aware that something had happened.
But Boulton’s luck was out. The negroes found the arms-chest, and,
breaking it open, armed themselves with muskets, and set to work in
earnest to put the survivors out of action.
Shot after shot sang by the maintop, and one of the men there, fearing
that he would be killed if he stayed, and might be saved if he trusted
himself to the mercy of the negroes, like a madman descended to the
deck. Barely had his foot touched it when a negro fell upon him with an
axe and split his head in two; and a dozen pairs of hands seized him
and pitched him overboard to the sharks which were following the ship,
their appetites whetted by the feasts already given them by the negroes.
While this was going on, other slaves were still shooting away at the
maintop, fruitlessly; and Boulton was calling madly on the _Apollo_,
now not far away. Presently the captain of the other vessel, realising
what was afoot, gave the word, and a broadside hurtled across the deck
of the _Delight_, in the hope of frightening the slaves. They seemed
to take little notice of this, however, and Boulton began to fear that
all was over, especially as the negroes, seeing that they could not
hit the men in the maintop, ceased fire, and a giant black, cutlass
in one hand and a pistol in the other, sprang into the rigging, bent,
apparently, on storming the position. Boulton waited calmly. He had no
weapons but his knife and a quart bottle; but he felt that he was in a
good position to meet an attack. Presently the negro’s head appeared
above the platform, and then--_whack!_ The bottle fell upon it with a
sickening thud, the black lost his hold, and went hurtling into the sea.
Meanwhile, the _Apollo_ was firing at the _Delight_, and the latter was
returning the fire as well as it could, the negroes evidently knowing
that to give in was to court disaster, and to lose what they had stood
in a fair way to gaining. For four hours they fought the _Apollo_, and
at the same time kept up their fusillade on the maintop.
Then came the end. Not because the negroes were not able to keep up
any longer, but because a shot from the _Apollo_ fell into a barrel
of gunpowder and exploded it, with the result that the _Delight_ took
fire, and the slaves could not cope with the flames and their enemy
at the same time. The revolt fizzled out as quickly as it had arisen.
While the negroes rushed about seeking to put out the fire, Boulton,
taking his life in his hands, descended to the deck, at the same time
that a boat set out from the _Apollo_ with a crew to tackle the flames
and the negroes, who, filled with consternation, now stood quietly by
watching the fire-fighters. They were absolutely cowed; they had made
their bid for freedom, and had failed, and they knew it. They allowed
themselves to be driven below and secured. The result of their revolt
was that nine of the crew of the _Delight_ were butchered, one man
on the _Apollo_ was killed, and eighteen of the negroes found death
instead of liberty--perhaps death to them was better than freedom;
certainly better than the lot of those poor human cattle they left
behind them.
Such incidents as this were of frequent occurrence, and the recital of
one must suffice.
After the Abolition Act had been passed, severe measures were brought
into operation, giving the Navy a wide scope--so wide that, even
although a vessel had no slaves on board, yet, if the naval officers
had reason to suspect that slaving was her business, they could
apprehend her. Special ships were fitted out and commissioned to deal
with the traffic in the South Atlantic, both off Central America and
the West Coast of Africa. So effective were the measures taken that
the slavers resorted to all manner of disguises to turn suspicion
away from their vessels, which had hitherto been of a distinctive
kind--long, rakish craft with tall spars, the whole effect being one
of beauty, and the idea being speed. The traders changed all this by
having ships more after the fashion of the ordinary merchant vessel,
so that the hunters had a more difficult task in front of them. But
they worked energetically, and swept the seas month after month, on
the look-out for the human cattle-ships, and, as all the world knows,
succeeded in clearing them from the seas.
The subjoined account from the Sierra Leone _Watchman_ for November 15,
1846, gives a striking picture of the conditions against which the Navy
were doing such good work.
The vessel referred to is the Brazilian brigantine _Paqueta de Rio_,
captured off Sherbro:
“The 547 human beings--besides the crew and passengers (as they
styled themselves), twenty-eight in number--were stowed in a vessel
of 74 tons. The slaves were all stowed together, perfectly naked,
with nothing on which to rest but the surfaces of the water-casks.
These were made level by filling in billets of wood, and formed the
slave-deck. The slaves who were confined in the hold--it being utterly
impossible for the whole of them to remain on deck at one time--were
in a profuse perspiration, and panting like so many hounds for water.
The smell on board was dreadful. I was informed that, on the officers
of the _Cygnet_ boarding the slaver, the greater part of the slaves
were chained together with pieces of chain, which were passed through
iron collars round their necks; iron shackles were also secured round
their legs and arms. After the officers had boarded, and the slaves
were made to understand they were free, their acclamations were long
and loud. They set to work, and, with the billets of wood which had
hitherto formed their bed, knocked off each other’s shackles, and
threw most of them overboard. There were several left, which were
shown to me. We will leave it to the imagination of your readers what
must have been the feelings of these poor people when they found they
were again free--free through the energy and activity of a British
cruiser. On examining the poor creatures, who were principally of the
Kosso nation, I found they belonged to, and were shipped to, different
individuals; they were branded like sheep. Letters were burnt in the
skin two inches in length. Many of them, from the recent period it had
been done, were in a state of ulceration. Both males and females were
marked as follows: On the right breast ‘J’; on the left arm, ‘P’; over
women’s right and left breasts, ‘S’ and ‘A’; under the left shoulder,
‘P’; right breast, ‘R’ and ‘RJ’; on the right and left breasts, ‘SS’;
and on the right and left shoulder, ‘SS.’ This is the same vessel that
cleared out from here about three weeks previous to her capture for
Rio de Janeiro. The slaves were all embarked from the slave factories
at Gallinas, under the notorious Don Luiz, and the vessel under way
in five hours; and had there been the slightest breeze she would have
escaped. Among the slaves there were two men belonging to Sierra
Leone--a man named Peter, once employed by Mr. Elliott, the pilot. He
stated that he had been employed by a Mr. Smith, a Popohman, to go to
Sherbro to purchase palm-oil, and that whilst pursuing that object he
was seized and sold by a Sherbro chief named Sherry.”
A RACE TO SUCCOUR
An Incident of the United States Revenue Service
The records of the revenue men of the United States teem with heroic
deeds done in the execution of their duty. The present story is typical
of the thrilling determination of men who will not be beaten, and
incidentally shows a healthy rivalry between the revenue men and the
lifeboatmen.
On January 11, 1891, the three-masted schooner _Ada Barker_ encountered
a terrific storm which played shuttlecock with her, and after a fierce
conflict pitched her on to the Junk of Pork, the euphonious name of a
large rock near outer Green Island, off the coast of Maine. The Junk of
Pork rises a sheer fifty feet out of the water, and all round it are
reefs and boulders, a literal death-trap to any unfortunate vessel that
should get caught there. The _Ada Barker_, after having her sails torn
to shreds and her rigging hopelessly entangled, began to ship water,
and though her men worked hard and long at the pumps, they could not
save her; then she was bowled on to the outer reef at night; the bottom
dropped out of her, and she heeled over. To the men on board it seemed
that the end of all things had come, and they gave themselves up for
lost.
[Illustration: “Though her men worked hard and long at the pumps, they
could not save her”]
As the ship heeled they heard the sound of something striking against
a rock; then again, as the ship rebounded and fell forward once more.
Eager to take the most slender chance of life, they scrambled to the
side, and saw that the mast was hitting against the Junk of Pork.
“Boys!” cried the captain. “That’s our one chance!”
The sailors knew what he meant. They had looked about them. To jump
into that boiling surf was to leap into the jaws of death; they would
be smashed to pulp, or drowned like rats. They saw now, however, that
the rock before them could be reached by scrambling up the mast,
which was crashing against it. But they must hurry; and hurry they
did. Like monkeys they swarmed up the mast, caring nothing for torn
hands nor the flapping canvas, which slashed them like whipcords and
threatened to knock them off into the cauldron below. They fought
their elemental fight, and one by one six men dropped on to the Junk
of Pork; and for hours and hours they clung to their precarious perch,
buffeted by strong winds, swamped by heavy seas and crouching in terror
as a mountain wave reared its head and, as if angry that the men had
escaped, broke upon them with a thunderous roar. At other times they
were flung headlong on the rock by a gust of wind which howled at them
as if seeking to drown their voices as they yelled for help, in the
hope that some ship might be near and hear them through the noise of
the gale.
All through the long, dreadful night they remained thus, glad to have
found even so bleak a haven, but wondering whether, after all, they
would be rescued. Then their eyes were gladdened by the sight of a ship
away out on the horizon. Rising and falling as the still boisterous
seas kept up their see-saw motion, she was coming in their direction.
Would she see them? They knew that at the distance the ship was away
they could not be visible yet; yet, cold, drenched to the skin, almost
exhausted by exposure, they stripped themselves of their shirts and
waved--waved like madmen, fearing they would be passed by. Had they
but known it, the officer of the watch of the coming boat--the United
States revenue cutter, of Woodbury--thought he could see dark forms on
the flat top of the storm-wracked Junk of Pork in a state of frantic
activity. Levelling his glasses, he soon saw the forms of the six
men waving the torn and tattered shirts; and he knew that some ship
had been wrecked during the storm which the _Woodbury_ herself had
encountered and fought sternly against for hours on end since she left
Portland.
It took but a few moments for everyone on the cutter to be made aware
of the position of things.
“We’ll make her, boys” said Captain Fengar, who was in command. “We’ll
have those chaps off the Junk of Pork!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” was the chorus; and, with engines pounding out every
ounce of steam, the cutter pushed her nose through the water, fighting
hard against the storm, which was raging as fiercely as ever. Nearer
and nearer they drove, whistling anon to encourage the stranded
mariners, who, weary and exhausted, cried for very joy as they realised
that they had been seen and that help was coming. Help was coming!
Their madness of anxiety gave way to a delirium of joy. Then their
hearts sank into an abyss of despair.
The cutter was very near to them now, but the sea was too rough for her
to venture close to the rocks; the reefs were one cauldron of boiling
surf, and the stranded men knew that no boat from the cutter could hope
to live in such a sea, or hope to escape destruction on the reefs if
she ventured near.
Help had come--and had proved helpless!
They threw themselves down upon the rock and clutched at the bare
surface. They were frenzied. They wondered how much longer they could
withstand the gnawings of hunger, the agonies of thirst; how much
longer, too, they could retain enough strength to keep their footing
on the rock-top. They even thought of leaving their precious haven and
trying to reach the wreck of their once proud little ship, where there
was indeed food and water. But second thoughts showed them that certain
death lay that way, while there was hope that the cutter might be able
to get to them. They saw that she was hovering about, cruising here
and there to keep headway with the storm, her whistle shrieking out
encouragement, and letting them know that she was standing by, in the
hope that the storm would abate and enable them to launch their boats.
Night came, but the gale still raged, and Captain Fengar decided that
there was only one way to bring about the rescue he was determined to
effect, and that was to put back to Portland and bring dories with
which to land on the rock at dawn next day. He could not hope to do
much good during the night, even if the storm eased off somewhat; the
danger of the breakers was too great. So, whistling across to the
wretched men on the rock, he let them know that he was going away, but
would come back, and then save them.
The first shock of realising that they were to be left alone again
wellnigh crazed the men; they felt that they would prefer to wait there
for death with company than wait alone for salvation. But away went the
cutter, whistling as she went in answer to the wavings of the sailors;
and as the final scream died away the men sank down upon the rock in
desolation of despair, with nothing but the howling of the wind and the
roar of the breakers to keep them company.
The cutter sped through the night, passing Cape Elizabeth on her way,
and giving the bearings of the wreck to the lifeboat station there.
Reaching Portland, she took her dories and raced back to the Junk of
Pork, arriving there an hour after daybreak. The feelings of the now
almost dead mariners may be better imagined than described when they
heard the siren of the cutter calling to them, telling them of the
coming of hope and help. They forgot the raging storm, for they knew
that these men who had come back had brought the wherewithal to save
them.