The night was calm and beautiful, and as the guests left the ship,
little did they think of the fearful doom that was so soon to
overwhelm many of those whose hands they had clasped for the last
time.
The weather continued perfectly calm till the evening of the 4th of
November, when some ominous looking clouds indicated an approaching
storm.
In addition to the Sceptre there remained in the Bay the Jupiter of 50
guns, the Oldenburg, a Danish 64 gun ship, and several other vessels.
On the morning of the 5th, a strong gale blew from the north-west, but
no danger was apprehended, and the ship, dressed in flags, and with
the royal standard hoisted, fired her salute at noon in commemoration
of the Gunpowder Treason.
The gale had increased considerably by two o'clock, and as Table Bay
affords no shelter from a north-west wind, the captain took every
precaution to make all secure: the topmasts were struck, and the fore
and main-yards were lowered to ease the ship. But half-an-hour had not
elapsed before the violence of the storm was such, that the ship
parted from her best bower cable; the sheet anchor was immediately let
go, and the cable veered away to twenty-eight fathoms. The storm
gathered strength, and at half-past six the whole fury of the elements
seemed to be concentrated in one terrific blast.
Orders were given to let go the anchor, with two of the forecastle
guns attached; but even this proved insufficient to hold the ship.
One of the boats was then hoisted out, in order to communicate with
the Jupiter, and procure the end of a cable from her, but in a few
minutes the boat upset and was lost, with all her crew. For some hours
signal guns of distress had been fired, and the ensign had been
hoisted downwards, but no help could reach the vessel: in that
tempestuous sea no boat could live. Some of the officers who had gone
on shore the previous evening were standing on the beach, unable to
render any assistance to their comrades, and compelled to remain
inactive spectators of the harrowing scene, and to behold their brave
ship foundering at her anchors.
About eight o'clock, loud above the howling of the tempest and the
booming of the minute gun, arose the wild cry of _fire_: and thick
smoke was discernible from the shore, issuing from the hatches. Now
were the opposing elements of air, fire, and water combined for the
destruction of the ill-fated ship. For an instant, all stood
paralysed; but it was only for an instant. Again the voices of the
officers were raised in command, and every man was ready at his post.
The smoke came up from the hatches in such dense volumes, that all
attempts to go below to extinguish the fire were abortive. Each man
felt that his last hour was come,--there was not a shadow of hope that
their lives could be saved; it was but a choice of death by fire or
water: to quit the ship must be fatal; they had seen the boat and its
crew swallowed up by the yawning waves, when the tempest raged less
fiercely than now, and she was too far from the shore to afford even a
ray of hope that the strongest swimmer might gain the beach. On the
other hand, to remain on board was to encounter a still more terrible
death--a burning funeral pile amidst the waters. While they hesitated
in doubt and horror, one of their fears was relieved,--the heavy sea
that washed incessantly over the wreck extinguished the fire. The ship
continued to drive at the mercy of the waves till about ten o'clock,
when she stranded, broadside to the shore, heeling on her port side
towards the sea.
The captain then ordered the main and mizen masts to be cut away, and
the foremast soon afterwards went by the board. At this juncture, a
man of the name of Connolly, a favourite with both officers and crew,
volunteered to jump overboard with a deep-sea line attached to his
body, in order to form a communication between the ship and the shore.
He made but a few strokes ere he was borne away by the eddy and
drowned.
The ship being lightened by the falling of the masts, righted herself
and got clear off the ground: there appeared some slight chance of
preservation, and every heart was buoyed up with hope that she might
be thrown high enough upon the beach to enable the people on shore to
render them some assistance.
She was driven nearer and nearer to the land--voices became more and
more audible, so as even to be recognised--in a few minutes more,
the perishing crew might be safe--when a heavy sea struck the ship,
the orlop deck gave way, and the port side fell in--many were swept
away,--those who had the power to do so, retreated to the starboard
side.
A most heartrending scene must that have been! The people were so
benumbed with cold and exhaustion, and paralysed by fear, that many of
them could no longer cling to the ropes and spars for support, and
every wave that broke over the wreck, washed away its victims.
Many in despair leaped overboard, and attempted to swim to shore, but
the eddy caused by the wreck was so strong, that they were carried
out to sea; and in spite of the attempts made by those on board to
rescue them, they all perished. Mr. Tucker, a midshipman, lost his
life in the endeavour to reach the bow of the ship.
About half an hour later the poop was washed away, and carried towards
the shore. Seventy or eighty men who were upon it seemed likely to be
saved from the surrounding destruction. The people on the beach
crowded to the spot where they would probably be driven, that they
might render every possible assistance; but what was their horror to
see a tremendous wave strike the poop, capsize it, and turn it over
and over; whilst every one of those who clung to it perished!
But the terrors of that awful night were not yet exhausted. The wreck,
to which the remaining officers and men were clinging, heeled towards
the shore; but when the gale increased and blew with redoubled force,
it heeled off again, rent fore and aft, and parted in two
places--before the main-chains, and abaft the fore-chains--and then
all disappeared from the eyes of the awe-stricken spectators on the
beach.
High above the crash of timbers and the roaring of the blast, rose the
despairing cry of hundreds of human beings who perished in the waters,
and whose mutilated forms, with the fragments of the wreck, strewed
the beach for miles on the following morning.
Thirty or forty seamen and marines still clung to the bow, the sea
breaking over them incessantly; they kept their hold, however, in the
fond hope that the signal gun remaining, might by its weight prevent
the bow from being capsized; but the timbers, unable to resist the
fury of the tempest, suddenly parted,--the gun reeled from side to
side, and the unhappy men shared the fate of their companions. It has
been said that during that awful time, whilst threatened with instant
death, many of these men were in a stupor, with their hands locked in
the chain plates.
Among the incidents connected with the wreck, it is related that Mr.
Buddle, a midshipman, (one of the few who escaped,) was cast upon the
waves almost insensible. He had not strength to strike out for the
beach, and he therefore merely tried to keep himself above water. This
proved to be the means of saving his life, for he floated in a
direction parallel with the shore, and avoided the huge pieces of
wreck by which all his companions who made directly for land
(excepting three) were dashed to pieces.
Mr. Buddle was nearly exhausted, when he caught hold of a small piece
of timber that was floating near him; a nail which projected from it
wounded him on the breast; he fainted, and did not recover his senses
until he found himself lying on the beach upon a heap of dead bodies.
He attempted in vain to rise; for though he felt no pain, his left leg
was broken, his knee cut almost half through, and his body much
bruised. In this state he was discovered, and carried by some persons
to a large fire until further assistance could be obtained, and he was
then conveyed to the hospital.
One of the officers of the Sceptre, who is still alive, and who
happened to be on shore at the time this terrible catastrophe
occurred, declares, that nothing imagination could conceive ever
equalled the horrors of that night. When the first signals of distress
were made from the Sceptre, the whole population of Cape Town, with
the officers and soldiers of the garrison, crowded down to the beach,
in the vain hope of being able to afford some assistance. The night
was bitterly cold; the wind blew with terrific violence, and the sea,
lashed into fury, broke with a deafening roar upon the beach. As night
approached, and darkness hid the vessel from their sight, the
feelings of the agonized spectators became almost insupportable. The
booming of the guns alone told that the ship still lived among the
raging waters; whilst ever and anon a piercing shriek announced that
the work of death had begun.
All along the beach large fires were lighted, as beacons to guide
those who might be cast upon the shore. At length the ship was driven
nearer, and again she became visible from the land. She appeared, says
an eye-witness (before mentioned), like a huge castle looming in the
distance. The hopes of the spectators revived as she heeled on towards
them, and they all stood ready to give assistance whenever it should
be available. At one moment, a fearful crash was heard--next, a
piercing shriek, and the flash of the torches waved in the air
displayed the struggling forms of the drowning seamen, tossed to and
fro upon the waves amongst masses of the wreck, which, in many
instances, killed those whom the waters would have spared.
The only help that the people on shore could render to the unhappy
sufferers was, to watch the opportunity when the waves brought a body
near to the land, and then to rush into the water, holding one another
at arm's length, and to grasp the exhausted creature before he was
borne back by the receding wave.
In this manner forty-seven men were saved, together with Mr. Shaw, a
master's mate, and two midshipmen, of the names of Spinks and Buddle,
before-mentioned. Six officers had fortunately been on shore at the
time; all the others, with the captain, were lost on the wreck,
together with about three hundred and ninety-one seamen and marines.
The people of Cape Town and the troops were employed the whole night
in searching for the dead, amongst whom they discovered the son of
Captain Edwards, with one hand grasping an open Bible, which was
pressed to his bosom, the parting gift, perhaps, of a fond mother, who
had taught the boy to revere in life that sacred volume, from which he
parted not in death.
Three waggon-loads of the dead were next morning taken to a place near
the hospital, and there buried. About one hundred bodies, shockingly
mangled, were buried in one pit on the beach. The remains of all the
officers (with the exception of Captain Edwards) were found, and were
interred the following Sunday with military honours.
The reader may be interested by being informed of a few of the
providential escapes which were experienced by Lieutenant Jones (now
Rear-Admiral Jones), one of the few survivors of the catastrophe above
described. This officer had been midshipman of the Providence,
discovery-ship, commanded by Captain William Broughton, which vessel,
after many dangerous vicissitudes, was finally wrecked among the
Japanese islands. Mr. Jones having faced all the dangers consequent on
such a trying position, with difficulty escaped a watery grave, by
taking refuge, with the rest of the officers and crew, on board the
tender which accompanied this ill-fated ship. This great addition to
her small complement, and her want of accommodation, produced a
virulent disease amongst the crew, from which Sir. Jones did not
escape. On arrival at Macao, Mr. Jones was ordered a passage, with his
surviving shipmates and crew of the Providence, to England, in the
Swift, sloop of war, selected to convoy a large fleet of Indiamen. The
evening before their departure, it was found that the accommodation in
the Swift was not sufficient for the supernumeraries, and,
consequently, Mr. Jones and Lord George Stuart (also a midshipman of
the Providence) were, by order of Captain Broughton, distributed among
the merchant ships, the former to the Carnatic, the latter to the
Duke of Buccleugh. The Swift and her convoy sailed on the morrow. They
had not proceeded far, before a succession of violent typhoons
overtook them, which scattered and disabled the Indiamen, most of
which were obliged to return to India; but the Swift foundered: she
was seen for a short time struggling with the elements, and making
signals of distress--a moment more, and she disappeared for ever.'
Mr. Jones, arriving at the Cape of Good Hope, was detained by Rear
Admiral Pringle, and employed to communicate with his flag-ship, the
Tremendous, then in a state of mutiny, the mutineers having put her
officers ashore. His courage on this occasion was much lauded, as it
was believed by all, and expected by himself, that he would have been
thrown overboard. Harmony was at length restored on board the
Tremendous, and six of the mutineers were executed. As a reward for
his services, Mr. Jones was appointed acting lieutenant of the
Sceptre: his preservation, and the part he acted on that occasion,
have already been described.
When lieutenant of the Ajax, attached to the fleet under Sir J.
Borlase Warren, lying in Vigo Bay, he was sent with a boat's crew to
the assistance of the Tartarus, sloop of war, which ship was then
driving to leeward in a gale on a rocky shore. So inevitable appeared
her destruction, that the officers and crew had abandoned her, after
letting go an anchor, to retard her expected crash against the rocks.
At this critical moment, whilst held by only one strand of the cable,
Lieutenant Jones's boat (although nearly swamped by the frequent
shipping of seas) neared the ship; and this officer, watching an
opportunity, sprung on board with his intrepid crew, and, by almost
superhuman exertions, succeeded in hauling her ahead. She had just
reached the point of safety, when her officers and crew, who
witnessed her more favourable position, brought about by Lieutenant
Jones's courage and perseverance, returned on board, and Lieutenant
Jones and his gallant followers rejoined their ship amidst the cheers
of the fleet. For this service Lieutenant Jones was sent for by the
commander-in-chief, and thanked by him on the quarter-deck of his
flag-ship.
As lieutenant of the Naiad, this officer had the misfortune to be
involved in a serious quarrel with his superior officer (Lieutenant
Dean), and on that person using very abusive, and unofficer-like
language, Lieutenant Jones struck him. A court martial being held,
Lieutenant Jones was sentenced to be hanged; but, in consideration of
the very provoking language used by Lieutenant Dean, and Lieutenant
Jones's previous irreproachable conduct, his Majesty George the Third
was graciously pleased to pardon him, and restore him to his former
position in the Navy, while Lieutenant Dean was dismissed the service.