DANGERS OF A NOVA SCOTIA FOG.
On the 9th of May, we reached Halifax, off which port we were detained
in a very disagreeable way; for we had the misfortune to be kept three
whole days off the harbour, in one of those Nova Scotia fogs, which
are celebrated all over the world. I can hardly give by description an
idea of how gloomy they are; but I think their effects can be compared
to those of the sirocco; with the further annoyance, that, while they
last, we are not able to see far beyond our noses. They are even worse
than rain, for they seem to wet one through sooner; while they make
every thing appear dreary, and certainly render all the world lazy and
discontented.
On the day we made the land, we had great hopes of being able to
enter the harbour, as the wind was fair: when, all at once, we were
surrounded by so thick a mist, that, for the three succeeding days, we
could not see above twenty yards on any side.
There are few things, indeed, more provoking than these fogs off
Halifax; for, as they happen to be companions of that very wind, the
south-east, which is the best for running in, the navigator is plagued
with the tormenting consciousness, that if he could be allowed but
a couple of hours’ clear weather, his port would be gained, and his
troubles over. The clearing up, therefore, of these odious clouds or
veils is about the most delightful thing I know; and the instantaneous
effect which a clear sight of the land, or even of the sharp horizon,
when far at sea, has on the mind of every person on board, is quite
remarkable. All things look bright, fresh, and more beautiful than
ever. The stir over the whole ship at these moments is so great, that
even persons sitting below can tell at once that the fog has cleared
away. The rapid clatter of the men’s feet, springing up the hatchways
at the lively sound of the boatswain’s call to “make sail!” soon
follows. Then comes the cheerful voice of the officer, hailing the
topmen to shake out the reefs, trice up the staysails, and rig out the
booms. That peculiar and well-known kind of echo, also, by which the
sound of the voice is thrown back from the wet sails, contributes, in
like manner, to produce a joyous elasticity of spirits, greater, I
think, than is excited by most of the ordinary occurrences of a sea
life.
A year or two after the time I am speaking of, it was resolved to
place a heavy gun upon the rock on which Sambro light-house is built;
and, after a good deal of trouble, a long twenty-four pounder was
hoisted up to the highest ridge of this prominent station. It was then
arranged that, if, on the arrival of any ship off the harbour, in a
period of fog, she chose to fire guns, these were to be answered from
the light-house; and in this way a kind of audible, though invisible,
telegraph might be set to work. If it happened that the officers of the
ship were sufficiently familiar with the ground, and possessed nerves
stout enough for such a groping kind of navigation, perilous at best,
it was possible to run fairly into the harbour, notwithstanding the
obscurity, by watching the sound of these guns, and attending closely
to the depth of water.
I never was in any ship which ventured upon this feat; but I perfectly
recollect a curious circumstance, which occurred, I think, to His
Majesty’s ship Cambrian. She had run in from sea towards the coast,
enveloped in one of these dense fogs. Of course they took for granted
that the light-house and the adjacent land, Halifax included, were
likewise covered with an impenetrable cloud or mist. But it so chanced,
by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog, on that day, was
confined to the deep water; so that we, who were in the port, could see
it, at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying on the ocean
like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt face, fronting the shore.
The Cambrian, lost in the midst of this fog bank, supposing herself to
be near the land, fired a gun. To this the light-house replied; and so
the ship and the light went on, pelting away, gun for gun, during half
the day, without ever seeing one another. The people at the light-house
had no means of communicating to the frigate, that, if she would only
stand on a little further, she would disentangle herself from the
cloud, in which, like Jupiter Olympus of old, she was wasting her
thunder.
At last the captain, hopeless of its clearing up, gave orders to pipe
to dinner; but as the weather, in all respects except this abominable
haze, was quite fine, and the ship was still in deep water, he directed
her to be steered towards the shore, and the lead kept constantly
going. As one o’clock approached, he began to feel uneasy, from the
water shoaling, and the light-house guns sounding closer and closer;
but, being unwilling to disturb the men at their dinner, he resolved
to stand on for the remaining ten minutes of the hour. Lo and
behold! however, they had not sailed half a mile further before the
flying-jib-boom end emerged from the wall of mist—then the bowsprit
shot into daylight—and, lastly, the ship herself glided out of the
cloud into the full blaze of a bright and ‘sunshine holyday.’ All hands
were instantly turned up to make sail; and the men, as they flew on
deck, could scarcely believe their senses when they saw behind them the
fog bank, right ahead the harbour’s mouth, with the bold cliffs of Cape
Sambro on the left, and, farther still, the ships at their moorings,
with their ensigns and pendants blowing out, light and dry in the
breeze.
A far different fate, alas! attended His Majesty’s ship Atalante,
Captain Frederick Hickey. On the morning of the 10th of November, 1813,
this ship stood in for Halifax harbour in very thick weather, carefully
feeling her way with the lead, and having look-out men at the jib-boom
end, fore-yardarms, and every where else from which a glimpse of the
land was likely to be obtained. After breakfast, a fog signal-gun was
fired, in the expectation of its being answered by the light-house
on Cape Sambro, near which it was known they must be. Within a few
minutes, accordingly, a gun was heard in the N.N.W. quarter, exactly
where the light was supposed to lie. As the soundings agreed with the
estimated position of the ship, and as the guns from the Atalante,
fired at intervals of fifteen minutes, were regularly answered in the
direction of the harbour’s mouth, it was determined to stand on, so
as to enter the port under the guidance of these sounds alone. By a
fatal coincidence of circumstances, however, these answering guns were
fired, not by Cape Sambro, but by His Majesty’s ship Barrossa, which
was likewise entangled by the fog. She, too, supposed that she was
communicating with the light-house, whereas it was the guns of the
unfortunate Atalante that she heard all the time.
There was, certainly, no inconsiderable risk incurred by running in
for the harbour’s mouth under such circumstances. But it will often
happen that it becomes an officer’s duty to put his ship, as well as
his life, in hazard; and this appears to have been exactly one of those
cases. Captain Hickey was charged with urgent despatches relative to
the enemy’s fleet, which it was of the greatest importance should be
delivered without an hour’s delay. But there was every appearance of
this fog lasting a week; and as he and his officers had passed over
the ground a hundred times before, and were as intimately acquainted
with the spot as any pilot could be, it was resolved to try the
bold experiment; and the ship was forthwith steered in the supposed
direction of Halifax.
They had not, however, stood on far, before one of the look-out men
exclaimed, “Breakers ahead! Hard a-starboard!” But it was too late,
for, before the helm could be put over, the ship was amongst those
formidable reefs known by the name of the Sisters’ Rocks, or eastern
ledge of Sambro Island. The rudder and half of the sternpost, together
with great part of the false keel, were driven off at the first blow,
and floated up alongside. There is some reason to believe, indeed,
that a portion of the bottom of the ship, loaded with 120 tons of iron
ballast, was torn from the upper works by this fearful blow, and that
the ship, which instantly filled with water, was afterwards buoyed up
merely by the empty casks, till the decks and sides were burst through,
or riven asunder by the waves.
The captain, who, throughout the whole scene, continued as composed
as if nothing remarkable had occurred, now ordered the guns to be
thrown overboard; but before one of them could be cast loose, or a
breeching cut, the ship fell over so much that the men could not stand.
It was, therefore, with great difficulty that a few guns were fired
as signals of distress. In the same breath that this order was given,
Captain Hickey desired the yard tackles to be hooked, in order that
the pinnace might be hoisted out; but as the masts, deprived of their
foundation, were tottering from side to side, the people were called
down again. The quarter boats were then lowered into the water with
some difficulty; but the jolly-boat, which happened to be on the poop
undergoing repairs, in being launched overboard, struck against one
of the stern davits, bilged, and went down. The ship was now falling
fast over on her beam ends, and directions were given to cut away the
fore and main-mast. Fortunately, they fell without injuring the large
boat on the booms—their grand hope. At the instant of this crash, the
ship parted in two, between the main and mizen-masts; and, within a few
seconds afterwards, she again broke right across, between the fore and
main-masts: so that the poor Atalante now formed a mere wreck, divided
into three pieces, crumbling into smaller fragments at every send of
the swell.
By this time a considerable crowd of the men had got into the pinnace
on the booms, in hopes that she might float off as the ship sunk; but
Captain Hickey, seeing that the boat, so loaded, could never swim,
desired some twenty of the men to quit her; and, what is particularly
worthy of remark, his orders, which were given with the most perfect
coolness, were as promptly obeyed as ever. Throughout the whole of
these trying moments, indeed, the discipline of the ship appears
to have been maintained, not only without the smallest trace of
insubordination, but with a degree of cheerfulness which is described
as truly wonderful. Even when the masts fell, the sound of the crashing
spars was drowned in the animating huzzas of the undaunted crew, though
they were then clinging to the weather gunwale, with the sea, from time
to time, making a clean breach over them, and when they were expecting
every instant to be carried to the bottom!
As soon as the pinnace was relieved from the pressure of the crowd,
she floated off the booms, or rather, was knocked off by a sea, which
turned her bottom upwards, and whelmed her into the surf amidst the
fragments of the wreck. The people, however, imitating the gallant
bearing of their captain, and keeping their eyes fixed upon him,
never, for one instant, lost their self-possession. By dint of great
exertions, they succeeded not only in righting the boat, but in
disentangling her from the confused heap of spars, and the dash of the
breakers, so as to place her at a little distance from the wreck, where
they waited for further orders from the captain, who, with about forty
men, still clung to the poor remains of the gay Atalante—once so much
admired!
An attempt was next made to construct a raft, as it was feared the
three boats could not possibly carry all hands; but the violence of
the waves prevented this, and it was resolved to trust to the boats
alone, though they were already, to all appearance, quite full. It
was now, however, absolutely necessary to take to them, as the wreck
was disappearing rapidly; and in order to pack close, most of the men
were removed to the pinnace, where they were laid flat in the bottom,
like herrings in a barrel, while the small boats returned to pick off
the rest. This was no easy matter in any case, while in others it was
impossible; so that many men had to swim for it; others were dragged
through the waves by ropes, and some were forked off by oars and other
small spars.
Amongst the crew there was one famous merry fellow, a black fiddler,
who was discovered, at this critical juncture, clinging to the main
chains, with his beloved Cremona squeezed tightly but delicately
under his arm—a ludicrous picture of distress, and a subject of some
joking amongst the men, even at this moment. It soon became absolutely
necessary that he should lose one of two things—his fiddle or his life.
So, at last, after a painful struggle, the professor and his violin
were obliged to part company!
The poor negro musician’s tenacity of purpose arose from sheer love of
his art. There was another laugh raised, however, about the same time,
at the expense of the captain’s clerk, who, stimulated purely by a
sense of duty, lost all recollection of himself, in his anxiety to save
what was intrusted to his care, and thus was very nearly being drowned.
This zealous person had general instructions, that whenever guns
were fired, or any other circumstance occurred likely to shake the
chronometer, he was to hold it in his hand, to prevent the concussion
deranging its works. As soon, therefore, as the ship was dashed
against the rocks, the clerk’s thoughts naturally turned exclusively
on the time-piece. He caught the watch up, and ran on deck; but as he
was no swimmer, he was obliged to cling to the mizen-mast, where he
stuck fast, careless of every thing but his important charge. When
the ship fell over, and the mast became nearly horizontal, he managed
to creep along till he reached the mizen-top, where he seated himself
in some trepidation—grinning like a monkey that has run off with a
cocoa-nut—till the spar gave way, and he was plunged, chronometer and
all, right overboard. Every eye was turned to the spot, to see whether
this most public-spirited of scribes was ever to appear again; when, to
the great joy of all hands, he emerged from the waves—watch still in
hand! and was with great difficulty dragged into one of the boats, half
drowned.
With the exception of this fortunate chronometer, and the Admiral’s
despatches, which the captain had secured when the ship first struck,
every thing on board was lost.
The pinnace now contained seventy-nine men and one woman, the cutter
forty-two, and the gig eighteen, with which cargoes they barely
floated. Captain Hickey was, of course, the last man who left the
wreck; though, such were the respect and affection felt for him by
his crew, that those who stood along with him on this last vestige of
the ship, evinced the greatest reluctance at leaving their commander
in such a perilous predicament. So speedy, indeed, was the work of
destruction, that by the time the captain was fairly in the boat, the
wreck had almost entirely ‘melted into the yest of waves.’ The crew,
however, gave her three hearty cheers as she went down, and then
finally abandoned the scattered fragments of what had been their house
and home for nearly seven years.
The fog still continued as thick as ever; the binacles had both been
washed overboard, and no compass could be procured. As the wind was
still light, there was great difficulty in steering in a straight line.
Had there been a breeze, it would perhaps have been easier to have
shaped a course. In this dilemma a resource was hit upon, which, for
a time, answered pretty well to guide them. It being known, loosely,
before leaving the wreck, in what direction the land was situated, the
three boats were placed in a row pointing that way. The sternmost boat
then quitted her station in the rear, and pulled ahead till she came
in a line with the other two boats, but took care not to go so far as
to be lost in the fog; the boat which was now astern then rowed ahead,
as the first had done; and so on, doubling along, one after the other.
This tardy method of proceeding, however, answered only for a time; and
at length they were completely at a loss which way to steer. Precisely
at this moment of greatest need, an old quarter-master, Samuel Shanks
by name, recollected that at the end of his watch-chain there hung a
small compass-seal. This precious discovery was announced to the other
boats by a joyous shout from the pinnace.
The compass being speedily handed into the gig, to the captain, was
placed on the top of the chronometer, so nobly saved by the clerk; and
as this instrument worked on jimbles, the little needle remained upon
it sufficiently steady for steering the boats within a few points.
This was enough to insure hitting the land, from which they had been
steering quite wide. Before reaching the shore, they fell in with an
old fisherman, who piloted them to a bight called Portuguese Cove,
where they all landed in safety, at the distance of twenty miles from
the town of Halifax.
The fishermen lighted great fires, to warm their shivering guests,
most of whom were very lightly clad, and all, of course, dripping wet;
many of them, also, were miserably cramped by close packing in the
boats. Some of the men, especially of those who entered the boats last,
having been obliged to swim for their lives, had thrown off every
thing but their trousers; so that the only respectably-dressed person,
out of the whole party was Old Shanks, the owner of the watch and
compass-seal—a steady, hard-a-weather sailor, who took the whole affair
as deliberately as if shipwreck had been an every-day occurrence. He
did not even take off his hat, except, indeed, to give his good ship a
cheer as she went to the bottom.
The future measures were soon decided upon. The captain carried
the three boats round to the harbour, taking with him the men who
had suffered most from fatigue, and those who were worst off for
clothes. The officers then set out with the rest, to march across the
country to Halifax, in three divisions, keeping together with as much
regularity as if they had been going upon some previously-arranged
piece of service. Very few of the party had any shoes, an inconvenience
which was felt more severely than it would otherwise have been, from
their having to trudge over a country but partially cleared of wood.
Notwithstanding all this, there was not a single straggler; and the
whole ship’s company, officer, man, and boy, assembled in the evening
at Halifax, in as exact order as if their ship had met with no accident.
I have been more particular in describing this shipwreck, from its
appearing to offer several uncommon and some useful details, well
worthy, I think, of the notice of practical men.
It is rather an unusual combination of disasters for a ship to be so
totally wrecked, as to be actually obliterated from the face of the
waters, in the course of a quarter of an hour, in fine weather, in the
day-time, on well-known rocks, and close to a light-house; but without
the loss of a single man, or the smallest accident to any one person on
board.
In the next place, it is highly important to observe, that the lives
of the crew, in all probability, would not, and perhaps could not,
have been saved, had the discipline been, in the smallest degree, less
exactly maintained. Had any impatience been manifested by the people
to rush into the boats, or had the captain not possessed sufficient
authority to reduce the numbers which had crowded into the pinnace,
when she was still resting on the booms, at least half of the crew must
have lost their lives.
It was chiefly, therefore, if not entirely, to the personal influence
which Captain Hickey possessed over the minds of all on board, that
their safety was owing. Their habitual confidence in his talents and
professional knowledge had, from long experience, become so great,
that every man in the ship, in this extremity of danger, instinctively
turned to him for assistance, and, seeing him so completely master of
himself, they relinquished to his well-known and often tried sagacity,
the formidable task of extricating them from their perils. It is at
such moments as these, indeed, that the grand distinction between
man and man is developed, and the full ascendency of a powerful and
well-regulated mind makes itself felt. The slightest hesitation on the
captain’s part, the smallest want of decision, or any uncertainty as
to what was the very best thing to be done, if betrayed by a word or
look of his, would have shot, like an electric spark, through the whole
ship’s company—a tumultuous rush would have been made to the boats—and
two out of the three, if not all, must have been swamped, and every man
drowned!
Captain Hickey and his crew had been serving together in the same ship
for many years before, in the course of which period they had acquired
so thorough an acquaintance with one another, that this great trial,
instead of loosening the discipline, only augmented its compactness,
and thus enabled the commander to bring all his knowledge, and all the
resources of his vigorous understanding, to bear at once, with such
admirable effect, upon the difficulties by which he was surrounded.
There are some men who actually derive as much credit from their
deportment under the severest losses, as others earn by brilliant
success; and it may certainly be said that Captain Hickey is one of
these: for, although he had the great misfortune to lose his ship,
he must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing, that his skill and
firmness, rendered effective by the discipline he had been so many
years in perfecting, enabled him, in this last extremity, to save the
lives of more than a hundred persons, who, but for him, in all human
probability, must have perished.