FOOTNOTES:
[1] Captain Cobb, with great forethought, ordered the deck to be scuttled forward, with a view to draw the fire in that direction, knowing that between it and the magazine were several tiers of water-casks; while he hoped that the wet sails, etc., thrown into the after-hold, would prevent the fire from communicating with the spirit-room abaft.
[2] The late Lady MacGregor, and the late Mrs. Pringle, of Yair, Whytbank, Selkirk, N.B., who are also mentioned in the letter on page [23].
[3] This bottle, left in the cabin, was cast into the sea by the explosion that destroyed the Kent. About nineteen months afterwards the following notice appeared in a Barbadoes (West Indian) newspaper:—
"A bottle was picked up on Saturday, the 30th September, at Bathsheba (a bathing-place on the west of Barbadoes), by a gentleman who was bathing there, who, on breaking it, found the melancholy account of the fate of the ship Kent, contained in a folded paper written with pencil, but scarcely legible." The words of the letter were then given, and a facsimile of it will be found on the next page. The letter itself, taken from the bottle thickly encrusted with shells and seaweed, was returned to the writer when he arrived, shortly after its discovery, at Barbadoes, as Lieut.-Colonel of the 93rd Highlanders, and the interesting relic is still preserved by his son (at that time called "little Rob Roy"), who is not mentioned in the letter, but was saved as related in page [33].
[4] Two shipwrights, dismissed from their situation because they would not work on Sunday, were employed by the father of a friend of the writer. He engaged them to build their first vessel, the Cambria, and this was her first voyage, starting from Deptford before the Kent sailed from Gravesend.
Captain Cook many years afterwards commanded in the disastrous "Niger Expedition." He was a splendid sailor, and a humble Christian, whose death-bed, long years after, was attended by the youngest passenger he had helped to save from the burning Kent.
[5] I was afterwards informed by one of the passengers on board the Cambria—for from the great height of the Indiaman we had not the opportunity of making a similar observation—that when both vessels happened to be at the same time in the trough of the sea, the Kent was entirely concealed by the intervening waves from the deck of the Cambria.
[6] "The Rob Roy Canoe on the Jordan" (Murray) gives some other experiences of watery dangers in after life.
[7] This narrative has been translated into the French, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, German, and Russian languages, and the author (born March 16, 1787) still enjoys good health (1880) while writing the preface to this edition, of which a facsimile is given at the beginning of the book.
[8] Some of those men who were necessarily left behind, having previously conducted themselves with great propriety and courage, I think it but justice to express my belief that the same difficulties which had nearly proved fatal to Captain Cobb's personal escape were probably found to be insurmountable by landsmen, whose coolness, unaccompanied with dexterity and experience, might not be available to them in their awful situation.
[9] I ought to state that the exertions of Mr. Muir, third mate, were also most conspicuous during the whole day.
[10] See page [83].—One of the men saved after the explosion (which had burned off both his feet) was met thirty years afterwards by the individual who was first saved in the Cambria. This man was wheeling himself in a go-cart on the race-ground at Lanark, dressed in sailor's costume, and selling papers with a picture of the Kent upon them and some doggerel verses below. As honorary secretary of the "Open-Air Mission" (which provides preachers for streets in towns, and for races and fairs in the country), the "first saved" from the wreck and burning then preached the Gospel to the "last saved" from the scorched embers, and to a large and motley crowd, all of whom will assuredly meet once more "at that day."
[11] Besides 500 barrels of gunpowder, there was on board several hundredweight of highly explosive percussion powder. The brig was about three miles distant when the Kent exploded.
[12] Captain Cook afterwards rendered distinguished services in the Niger expedition, and died in London a true Christian sailor, after several visits from one he had helped to save.
[13] In addition to those who were naked on board the Kent at the moment the alarm of fire was heard, several individuals afterwards threw off their clothes to enable them the more easily to swim to the boats.
[14] One of the soldiers' wives was delivered of a child about an hour or two after her arrival on board the brig. Both survived, and the child received the appropriate name of "Cambria."
[15] There were lost in the destruction of the Kent, 54 soldiers, 1 woman, and 20 children, belonging to the 31st Regiment; 1 seaman and 5 boys—total, 81 individuals.
[16] A little Testament was also saved. Only one officer's sword was saved, and that belonged to him who afterwards led the 31st regiment in the battles on the Sutlej.
[17] From All the Year Round.