backwardness, rather than impatience, to adopt the perilous and only
means of escape that offered, became generally discernible on the part
of the unhappy remnant still on board, and that made it not only
imperative on Captain Cobb to reiterate his threats, as well as his
entreaties, that not an instant should be lost, but seemed to render it
expedient for one of the officers of the troops, who had expressed his
intention of remaining to the last, to limit, in the hearing of those
around him, the period of his own stay. Seeing, however, between nine
and ten o'clock, that some individuals were consuming the precious
moments by obstinately hesitating to proceed, while others were making
the inadmissible request to be lowered down as the women had been,
learning from the boatmen that the wreck, which was already nine or ten
feet below the ordinary water mark, had sunk two feet lower since their
last trip; and calculating, besides, that the two boats then under the
stern, with that which was in sight on its return from the brig, would
suffice for the conveyance of all who seemed in a condition to remove;
the three remaining officers of the 31st regiment seriously prepared to
take their departure.
As I cannot perhaps convey to you so correct an idea of the condition of
others as by describing my own feelings and situation under the same
circumstances, I shall make no apology for detailing the manner of my
individual escape, which will sufficiently mark that of many hundreds
that preceded it. The spanker-boom of so large a ship as the _Kent_,
which projects, I should think, 16 or 18 feet over the stern, rests on
ordinary occasions about 19 or 20 feet above the water; but in the
position in which we were placed, from the great height of the sea, and
the consequent pitching of the ship, it was frequently lifted to a
height not less than 30 or 40 feet from the surface.
To reach the rope, therefore, that hung from its extremity was an
operation that seemed to require the aid of as much dexterity of hand as
steadiness of head. For it was not only the nervousness of creeping
along the boom itself, or the extreme difficulty of afterwards seizing
on and sliding down by the rope that we had to dread, and that had
occasioned the loss of some valuable lives by deterring men from
adopting this mode of escape; but as the boat, which one moment was
probably close under the boom, might be carried the next, by the force
of the waves, 15 or 20 yards away from it, the unhappy individual, whose
best calculations were thus defeated, was generally left swinging for
some time in mid-air, if he was not repeatedly plunged several feet
under water, or dashed with dangerous violence against the sides of the
returning boat--or, what not unfrequently happened, was forced to let go
his hold of the rope altogether. As there seemed, however, no
alternative, I did not hesitate, notwithstanding my comparative
inexperience and awkwardness in such a situation, to throw my legs
across the perilous spar; and with a heart extremely grateful that such
means of deliverance, dangerous as they appeared, were still extended to
me; and more grateful still that I had been enabled, in common with
others, to discharge my honest duty to my sovereign and to my
fellow-soldiers, I proceeded,--after confidently committing my spirit,
the great object of my solicitude, into the keeping of Him who had
formed and redeemed it,--to creep slowly forward, feeling at every step
the increasing difficulty of my situation. On getting nearly to the end
of the boom, the young officer whom I followed and myself were met with
a squall of wind and rain so violent as to make us fain to embrace
closely the slippery stick (without attempting for some minutes to make
any progress), and to excite our apprehension that we must relinquish
all hope of reaching the rope. But our fears were disappointed; and
after resting for a little while at the boom end, while my companion was
descending to the boat, which he did not find until he had been plunged
once or twice over head in the water, I prepared to follow; and instead
of lowering myself, as many had imprudently done, at the moment when the
boat was inclining towards us--and consequently being unable to descend
the whole distance before it again receded,--I calculated that while the
boat was retiring I ought to commence my descent, which would probably
be completed by the time the returning wave brought it underneath; by
which means I was, I believe, almost the only officer or soldier who
reached the boat without being either severely bruised or immersed in
the water.
But my good friend Colonel Fearon had not been so fortunate; for after
swinging for some time, and being repeatedly struck against the side of
the boat, and at one time drawn completely under it, he was at last so
utterly exhausted that he must instantly have let go his hold of the
rope and perished, had not some one in the boat seized him by the hair
of the head, and dragged him into it, almost senseless and alarmingly
bruised.
Captain Cobb, in his resolution to be the last, if possible, to quit his
ship, and in his generous anxiety for the preservation of every life
entrusted to his charge, refused to seek the boat until he again
endeavoured to urge onward the few still around him, who seemed struck
dumb and powerless with dismay.[8] But finding all his entreaties
fruitless, and hearing the guns, whose tackle was burst asunder by the
advancing flames, successively exploding in the hold into which they had
fallen, this gallant officer, after having nobly pursued, for the
preservation of others, a course of exertion that has been rarely
equalled either in its duration or difficulty, at last felt it right to
provide for his own safety by laying hold on the topping-lift or rope
that connects the driver boom with the mizen-top, and thereby getting
over the heads of the infatuated men who occupied the boom, unable to go
either backward or forward, and ultimately dropping himself into the
water.
The means of escape, however, did not cease to be presented to the
unfortunate individuals above referred to, long after Captain Cobb took
his departure; since one of the boats persevered in keeping its station
under the _Kent's_ stern, not only after all expostulation and entreaty
with those on board had foiled, but until the flames, bursting forth
from the cabin windows, rendered it impossible to remain without
inflicting the greatest cruelty on the individuals that manned it. But
even on the return of the boat in question to the _Cambria_, with the
single soldier who availed himself of it, did Captain Cook, with
characteristic jealousy, refuse to allow it to come alongside until he
learned that it was commanded by the spirited young officer, Mr.
Thomson,[9] whose indefatigable exertions during the whole day were to
him a sufficient proof that all had been done that could be done for the
deliverance of those individuals.
[Illustration: THE MAGAZINE EXPLODED.]
The same beneficent Providence which had been so wonderfully exerted for
the preservation of hundreds, was pleased, by a still more striking and
unquestionable display of power and goodness, to avert the fate of a
portion of those few who, we had all too much reason to fear, were
doomed to destruction. It would appear--for the poor men themselves give
an extremely confused, though I am persuaded not a wilfully false
account of themselves--that shortly after the departure of the last boat
they were driven by the flames to seek shelter on the chains, where they
stood until the masts fell overboard, to which they then clung for some
hours, in a state of horror that no language can describe; until they
were, most providentially, I may say miraculously, discovered and picked
up by Captain Bibbey, the humane commander of the _Caroline_, a vessel
on its passage from Egypt to Liverpool, who happened, to see the
explosion at a great distance, and instantly made all sail in the
direction whence it proceeded. Along with the fourteen men thus
miraculously preserved were three others, who had expired before the
arrival of the _Caroline_ to their rescue.[10]
The men on their return to their regiment expressed themselves in terms
of the liveliest gratitude for the affectionate attentions they received
on board the _Caroline_, from Captain Bibbey, who considerately remained
till daylight close to the wreck, in the hope that some others might
still be found clinging to it--an act of humanity which, it will appear
on the slightest reflection, would have been madness in Captain Cook, in
the peculiar situation of the _Cambria_, to have attempted.
But when I recollect the lamentable state of exhaustion to which that
portion of the crew were reduced, who unshrinkingly performed to the
last their arduous and perilous duties,--and that out of the three boats
that remained afloat, one was only prevented from sinking, towards the
close of the night, by having the hole in its bottom repeatedly stuffed
with soldiers' jackets, while the other two were rendered inefficient,
the one by having its bow completely stove, and the second by being half
filled with water, and the thwarts so torn as to make it necessary to
lash the oars to the boat's ribs,--I must believe that, by those who
thus laboured, all was done that humanity could possibly demand, or
intrepidity effect, for the preservation of every individual.
Quitting, for a moment, the subject of the wreck, I would advert to what
was in the meantime taking place on board the _Cambria_. I cannot,
however, pretend to give you any adequate idea of the feelings of hope
or despair that alternately flowed, like a tide, in the breasts of the
unhappy females on board the brig, during the many hours of torturing
suspense in which several of them were unavoidably held respecting the
fate of their husbands,--feelings which were inconceivably excited,
rather than soothed, by the idle and erroneous rumours occasionally
conveyed to them regarding the state of the _Kent_. But still less can I
attempt to portray the alternate pictures of awful joy and of wild
distraction exhibited by the sufferers (for both parties for the moment
seemed equally to suffer), as the terrible truth was communicated that
they and their children were indeed left husbandless and fatherless;
or as the objects from whom they had feared they were for ever severed,
suddenly rushed into their arms. But these feelings of delight, whatever
may have been their intensity, were speedily chastened, and the
attention of all arrested, by the last tremendous spectacle of
destruction.
After the arrival of the last boat the flames, which had spread along
the upper deck and poop, ascended with the rapidity of lightning to the
masts and rigging, forming one general conflagration, that illumined the
heavens to an immense distance, and was strongly reflected by several
objects on board the brig. The flags of distress, hoisted in the
morning, were seen for a considerable time waving amid the flames, until
the masts to which they were suspended successively fell like stately
steeples over the ship's side. At last, about half-past one o'clock in
the morning, the devouring element having communicated to the magazine,
the explosion was seen, and the blazing fragments of the once
magnificent _Kent_ were instantly hurried, like so many rockets, high
into the air;[11] leaving, in the comparative darkness that succeeded,
the deathful scene of that disastrous day floating before the mind like
some feverish dream.
Shortly afterwards, the brig, which had been gradually making sail, was
running at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour towards the nearest
port. I would here endeavour to render my humble tribute of admiration
and gratitude to that gallant and excellent individual, who, under God,
was undoubtedly the chief instrument of our deliverance; if I were not
sensible that testimony has been already borne to his heroic and humane
efforts, in a manner much more commensurate with, and from quarters
reflecting infinitely greater honour upon his merits, than the feeble
expressions of them which I should be able to record.[12] I trust you
will keep in mind that Captain Cook's generous intentions and exertions
must have proved utterly unavailing for the preservation of so many
lives, had they not been most nobly and unremittingly supported by those
of his mate and crew, as well as of the numerous passengers on board his
brig. While the former, only eight in number, were usefully and
necessarily employed in working the vessel, the sturdy Cornish miners
and Yorkshire smelters, on the approach of the different boats, took
their perilous stations on the chains, where they put forth the great
muscular strength with which Heaven had endowed them, in dexterously
seizing, at each successive heave of the sea, on some of the exhausted
people, and dragging them up on deck.
Nor did their kind assistance terminate there. They and the gentlemen
connected with them cheerfully opened their ample stores of clothes and
provisions, which they liberally dispensed to the naked and famished
sufferers; they surrendered their beds to the helpless women and
children, and seemed, in short, during the whole of our passage to
England, to take no other delight than in ministering to all our wants.
Although, after the first burst of mutual gratulation, and of becoming
acknowledgment of the divine mercy for our unlooked-for deliverance, had
subsided, none of us felt disposed to much interchange of thought, each
being rather inclined to wrap himself up in his own reflections; yet we
did not, during the first night, view with the alarm it warranted, the
extreme misery and danger to which we were still exposed, by being
crowded together, in a gale of wind, with upwards of 600 human beings,
in a small brig of 200 tons, at a distance, too, of several hundred
miles from any accessible port. Our little cabin, which was only
calculated, under ordinary circumstances, for the accommodation of eight
or ten persons, was now made to contain nearly eighty individuals, many
of whom had no sitting room, and even some of the ladies no room to lie
down. Owing to the continued violence of the gale, and to the bulwarks
on one side of the brig having been driven in, the sea beat so
incessantly over our deck as to render it necessary that the hatches
should only be lifted up between the returning waves, to prevent
absolute suffocation below, where the men were so closely packed
together that the steam arising from their respiration excited at one
time an apprehension that the vessel was on fire; while the impurity of
the air they were inhaling became so marked, that the lights
occasionally carried down amongst them were almost instantly
extinguished. Nor was the condition of the hundreds who covered the deck
less wretched than that of their comrades below; since they were
obliged night and day to stand shivering, in their wet and nearly naked
state, ankle deep in water:[13]--some of the older children and females
were thrown into fits, while the infants were piteously crying for that
nourishment which their nursing mothers were no longer able to give
them.[14]
Our only hope amid these great and accumulating miseries was that the
same compassionate Providence which had already so marvellously
interposed in our behalf would not permit the favourable wind to abate
or change until we reached some friendly port; for we were all convinced
that a delay of a very few days longer at sea must inevitably involve us
in famine, pestilence, and a complication of the most dreadful evils.
Our hopes were not disappointed. The gale continued with even increasing
violence; and our able captain, crowding all sail, at the risk of
carrying away his masts, so nobly urged his vessel onward, that in the
afternoon of Thursday, the 3rd, the delightful exclamation from aloft
was heard, "Land ahead!" In the evening we descried the Scilly lights;
and running rapidly along the Cornish coast, we joyfully cast anchor in
Falmouth harbour, at about half-past twelve o'clock at night.
On reviewing the various proximate causes to which so many human beings
owed their deliverance from a combination of dangers as remarkable for
their duration as they were appalling in their aspect, it is impossible,
I think, not to discover and gratefully acknowledge, in the beneficence
of their arrangement, the overruling providence of that blessed Being,
who is sometimes pleased, in His mysterious operations, to produce the
same effect from causes apparently different; and on the other hand, as
in our own case, to bring forth results the most opposite, from one and
the same cause. For there is no doubt that the heavy rolling of our
ship, occasioned by the violent gale, which was the real origin of all
our disasters, contributed also most essentially to our subsequent
preservation; since, had not Captain Cobb been enabled, by the
greatness of the swell, to introduce speedily through the gun ports the
immense quantity of water that inundated the hold, and thereby checked
for so long a time the fury of the flames, the _Kent_ must
unquestionably have been consumed before many, perhaps before any, of
those on board could have found shelter in the _Cambria_.[15]
But it is unnecessary to dwell on an insulated fact like this, amidst a
concatenation of circumstances, all leading to the same conclusion, and
so closely bound together as to force us to confess, that if a single
link in the chain had been withdrawn or withheld, we must all most
probably have perished.
The _Cambria_, which had been, it seems, unaccountably detained in port
nearly a month after the period assigned for her departure, was early on
the morning of the fatal calamity pursuing at a great distance ahead of
us the same course with ourselves; but her bulwarks on the weather side
having been suddenly driven in, by a heavy sea breaking over her
quarter, Captain Cook, in his anxiety to give ease to his labouring
vessel, was induced to go completely out of his course by throwing the
brig on the opposite tack, by which means alone he was brought in sight
of us. Not to dwell on the unexpected, but not unimportant facts of the
flames having been mercifully prevented, for eleven hours, from either
communicating with the magazine forward, or the great spirit room abaft,
or even coming into contact with the tiller ropes--any of which
circumstances would evidently have been fatal,--I would remark that,
until the _Cambria_ hove in sight, we had not discovered any vessel
whatever for several days previous; nor did we afterwards see another
until we entered the chops of the Channel. It is to be remembered, too,
that had the _Cambria_, with her small crew, been homeward instead of
outward bound, her scanty remainder of provisions, under such
circumstances, would hardly have sufficed to form a single meal for our
vast assemblage; or if, instead of having her lower deck completely
clear, she had been carrying out a full cargo, there would not have been
time, under the pressure of the danger and the violence of the gale, to
throw the cargo overboard, and certainly, with it, not sufficient space
in the brig to contain one-half of our number.
When I reflect, besides, on the disastrous consequences that must have
followed if, during our passage home, which was performed in a period
most unusually short, the wind had either veered round a few points, or
even partially subsided--which must have produced a scene of horror on
board more terrible if possible than that from which we had escaped; and
above all, when I recollect the extraordinary fact, and that which seems
to have the most forcibly struck the whole of us, that we had not been
above an hour in Falmouth harbour, when the wind, which had all along
been blowing from the south-west, suddenly chopped round to the opposite
quarter of the compass, and continued uninterruptedly for several days
afterwards to blow strongly from the north-east,--one cannot help
concluding that he who sees nothing of a Divine Providence in our
preservation must be lamentably and wilfully blind to "the majesty of
the Lord."
In the course of the morning we all prepared, with thankful and joyful
hearts, to place our feet on the shores of Old England.
The ladies, always destined to form our vanguard, were the first to
disembark, and were met on the beach by immense crowds of the
inhabitants, who appeared to have been attracted thither less by idle
curiosity than from the sincerest desire to alleviate in every possible
manner their manifest sufferings.
The sailors and soldiers, cold, wet, and almost naked, quickly followed;
the whole forming, in their haggard looks and the endless variety of
their costume, an assemblage at once as melancholy and grotesque as it
is possible to conceive. So eager did the people appear to be to pour
out upon us the full current of their sympathies, that shoes, hats, and
other articles of urgent necessity were presented to several of the
officers and men before they had even quitted the point of
disembarkation. And in the course of the day, many of the officers and
soldiers, and almost all of the females, were partaking, in the private
houses of individuals, of the most liberal and needful hospitality.
But this flow of compassion and kindness did not cease with the impulse
of the more immediate occasion that had called it forth. For a meeting
of the inhabitants was afterwards held, where subscriptions in clothes
and money to a large amount were collected for the relief of the
numerous sufferers. The women and children, whose wants seemed to demand
their first care, were speedily furnished with comfortable clothing, and
the poor widows and orphans with decent mourning. Depositories of
shirts, shoes, stockings, etc., were formed for the supply of the
officers and private passengers; and the sick and wounded in the
hospital were made the recipients, not only of all those kindly
attentions and medical assistance that could remove or soothe their
temporal suffering, but were also invited to partake freely of the most
judicious spiritual consolation and instruction. This march of charity
was conducted by the ladies of Falmouth, who were zealously accompanied
on it by the whole body, in the vicinity, of that peculiar sect of
Christians, who have ever been as remarkable for their unassuming
pretensions and consistent conduct, as for unostentatiously standing in
the front ranks of every good work. And so strong is the reason which I,
in particular, have to associate in my mind all that is sincere,
considerate, and charitable with the society of Friends, that the very
badge of Quakerism will, I trust, henceforward prove a full and
sufficient passport to the best feelings of my heart.
On the first Sunday after our arrival, Colonel Fearon, followed by all
his officers and men, and accompanied by Captain Cobb, and the officers
and private passengers of his late ship, hastened to prostrate
themselves before the throne of the Heavenly grace, to pour out the
public expression of their thanksgiving to their almighty Preserver. The
scene was deeply impressive; and it is earnestly to be hoped that many a
poor fellow who listened, perhaps for the first time in his life, with
unquestionable sincerity and humility to the voice of instruction, will
be found steadily prosecuting, in the strength of God, the good
resolutions that he may on that solemn occasion have formed, until he be
able to say, as one of the greatest generals of antiquity did, that "it
was good for him to have been afflicted; for before he was afflicted he
went astray, but that afterwards he was not ashamed to keep God's word."
In the course of a few days the private passengers and most of the
sailors of our party were dispersed in various directions; and the
troops, after having incurred to the excellent inhabitants of Falmouth,
and the adjacent towns, a debt of gratitude which none of them can ever
hope to repay, were embarked for Chatham.
I think you must be already sensible that the circumstances of our
situation on board the _Kent_ did not enable us conscientiously to save
a single article, either of public or private property, from the flames;
indeed, the only thing I preserved--with the exception of forty or fifty
sovereigns, which I hastily tied up in my pocket handkerchief, and put
into my wife's hands, at the moment she was lifted into the boat, as a
provision for herself and her companions against the temporary want to
which they might be exposed on some foreign shore--was the pocket
compass, which you yourself presented to me.[16]