The Invincible, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Totty,
and commanded by Captain Rennie, sailed from Yarmouth on the morning
of the 16th of March, 1801, to join the fleet of Admiral Sir Hyde
Parker in the Baltic.
The master and the pilot were both considered very skilful mariners of
those seas, and their orders were to navigate the ship into the North
Sea, and to put her in the way of joining the fleet to the northward,
as soon as she had cleared all the shoals.
About half-past two o'clock, P.M., of the same day, the Invincible,
going at the rate of nine knots an hour, struck violently upon a
sand-bank, and before the sails could be furled, she was fast aground
in little more than three fathoms water.
The pilot and master assured Captain Rennie that there was no danger,
and that the ship must have struck upon a lately formed knowl. In
order to lighten her as much as possible, the yards and topmasts were
struck, and some of the provisions thrown overboard, and then strong
hopes were entertained that she would float off the bank with the next
tide.
During this time she lay tolerably quiet, and the water gained but
little upon the pumps. Every means was used to draw the attention of
vessels passing near--guns were fired, and signals hoisted; but they
remained unanswered until about five o'clock, P.M., when a cutter was
observed scudding towards Yarmouth Roads, as if to inform Admiral
Dickson of the situation of the Invincible. As the ship remained easy,
neither the officers nor men suspected that the danger was imminent,
and they performed their duty with the same regularity as if the ship
were proceeding under ordinary circumstances.
All went on well until about half-past five, P.M., when the wind
freshened, and the vessel began to beat the ground with such violence,
that it was thought necessary to cut away the masts. The ship at this
time dropped from three and a half into seventeen fathoms. She was
then brought to with her bower anchor, and there appeared every
probability of her getting safely off till about nine o'clock, when
the flood-tide was making; she then lost her rudder, became
unmanageable, and was driven back upon the rock.
Fortunately a fishing-smack had come near the Invincible a short time
before, and Admiral Totty learnt from her master that the ship had
struck upon Hammond's knowl; whereupon the admiral requested that the
smack might be anchored as near as possible, so as to be ready in case
of emergency.
In the meantime, the ship continued to strike with increasing
violence, and the water gained considerably upon the pumps. At ten
o'clock, the wind rose, and again the ship swung off into deep water,
and the only prospect of saving her was by pumping and baling till
daylight. Both officers and men laboured incessantly at the pumps, but
all to no purpose, for unfortunately the Invincible was an old ship
(built in the year 1766), and the water gained fast upon them in spite
of all their efforts. Admiral Totty, seeing there was no hope of
saving the ship, ordered Captain Rennie to send all the boys, and the
least able of the crew and passengers, on board the smack, and to make
arrangements for the rest of the crew to leave the ship at daybreak,
or sooner, if possible.
A boat was lowered, into which the admiral and his secretary
immediately descended, with as many others as she would carry, and
they reached the smack in safety. Two other boats were also lowered
and filled with people, but they were less fortunate than the
admiral's, for before they reached the smack, the tide being to
windward and against them, they were carried out to sea, and all on
board would inevitably have perished, if they had not been picked up
by a collier, which conveyed them in safety to Yarmouth.
The fishing-smack, with the admiral on board, remained at anchor
during the night, without being able to afford the slightest
assistance to the crew of the Invincible. At daybreak, as soon as the
tide permitted, the cable of the smack was cut, and she stretched
under the stern of the ship, endeavouring by all possible means to get
alongside of her, but before that could be accomplished, the ill-fated
vessel began to sink. About sixty men jumped into the launch, but they
had only just time to clear the poop, when the gallant ship went down
with four hundred men.
And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder, and then all was hush'd,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows: but at intervals there gushed,
Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
LORD BYRON.
'The horror of the scene,' writes Admiral Totty, 'and the screams of
the unhappy sufferers, at the moment the ship went down, exceed all
power of description. Numbers who were struggling with the waves
attempted to lay hold of the launch, but the boat was already
overladen, and, for the safety of those who were in her, the drowning
wretches were beaten off, and, soon exhausted, they perished in the
waves.'
Captain Rennie remained in his ship till she sank. He then attempted
to swim to the launch, and by great exertion got within reach of her
oars, when, too much exhausted to make any further effort, he was seen
to raise his hands as if in supplication to Heaven, then putting them
before his face, sank into his watery grave. All the other
commissioned officers, with the exception of Lieutenants Robert Tucker
and Charles Quart, perished.
Captain Rennie had distinguished himself, when a lieutenant, at the
Helder; and Admiral Mitchell had mentioned him in such high terms of
commendation in his public despatches, that he was made a
post-captain. After remaining for some time unemployed, he was
appointed to the Invincible, and proud of his first command, full of
life and hope, he had just put to sea when this melancholy catastrophe
closed a career that held out such bright prospects for the future.
We must not be supposed to have more feeling for an officer than for
the men before the mast. If we dwell with peculiar sorrow upon the
loss of a brave commander, like Captain Rennie, it is not that we are
indifferent to the fate of the four hundred gallant men who perished
with him; but there is something in human nature that compels even the
most generous spirit to speak more of the loss of a man in a
responsible station than others; and one reason for this may be, that
our hopes under God, for the safety of our fleets and our armies, rest
on our brave and efficient commanders.
No one can read such records of British seamen, as appear in this
volume, without joining heart and soul in the sentiment expressed by
the poet:--
To them your dearest rights you owe;
In peace, then, would you starve them?
What say ye, Britain's sons? Oh, no!
Protect them and preserve them;
Shield them from poverty and pain;
'Tis policy to do it:
Or when grim war shall come again,
Oh, Britons! ye may rue it.
Lieutenant Robert Tucker, who was saved in the launch, accompanied
Rear-Admiral Totty to the Baltic and West Indies in the Zealous, 74.
He was subsequently promoted, and appointed to the Surinam in 1803.
Whilst the Surinam was on the West India station, Captain Tucker
rendered good service to the French garrison at Jacquemel; and on
returning from thence, his ship sprung her foremast, and was in other
respects so much damaged, that he was obliged to put in at Curaçoa.
Whilst refitting, he received private information that Great Britain
and Holland would ere long be declared enemies. He therefore made
every effort to hasten his departure, and get his ship ready for sea;
and he had warped her to the head of the harbour, when a prize
schooner which he had despatched to Commodore Hood returned from that
officer, with orders for his future guidance. The officer on board the
schooner incautiously permitted his vessel to touch at the government
wharf, when some of the crew, having the opportunity imprudently
afforded them, jumped on shore, and reported that the British had
already commenced hostilities.
Upon this the Surinam was detained, and Captain Tucker was ordered on
shore, and informed that he must consider himself a prisoner of war.
At first he was not put under strict surveillance, and he therefore
employed the weary hours in taking plans of the forts and batteries of
the island. His occupation, however, was soon discovered, and highly
disapproved by the authorities, who immediately placed him in close
confinement in a room of the barracks.
On the first night of his captivity two musket-balls were fired into
his room, one of which struck a table at which he had been seated a
few moments before. These murderous attempts were frequently repeated
during his imprisonment, and he must inevitably have been shot in his
bed, had he not taken the precaution of constantly moving its
position, and thus baffled the treacherous designs of his cowardly
assailants.
A friendly warning was given to him, that where bullets failed,
_poison_ might succeed; and he was thenceforth obliged to watch most
narrowly, lest it should be administered in his food. In this wretched
state of suspense, he lingered for four months, when happily he and
his officers were released in exchange for nine Dutch clergymen.
We regret that our pen should have to record such treachery as that we
have described. We ask, and others have asked, were these soldiers and
gaolers free men and Christians, or were they slaves and heathens? It
must, however, be remembered that politics ran very high at that time;
and in this particular instance, at the outbreak of a war, men's minds
were half frantic, and we must not judge of the character of a nation
by the isolated acts of a petty colonial government.