One of the officers thus rescued was Lieutenant Durham, who fortunately was the officer of the watch and upon deck when he observed the vessel going down. He had just time to throw off his coat and scramble on the beam from which, as the ship sank, he was soon washed and left floating about among men and hammocks. A drowning marine caught him by the waistcoat and held him fast, so that he was several times drawn under water. It was in vain to reason with the man: he therefore clung with his legs round a hammock, with one hand unbuttoned his waistcoat, and, sloping his shoulders, committed it, together with the unfortunate marine, to the waves. He then got to some of the top rigging; a boat came to him, but he nobly declined the assistance offered by those on board her, pointing out to them where Captain Waghorne was in great danger, and desiring them to go to his relief, after which the gallant youth was taken up and brought in safety to the shore.
Mr. Henry Bishop, a young man about nineteen years of age, experienced a very extraordinary preservation. Being on the lower deck at the time of the fatal accident, as the vessel filled the force of the water hurried him almost insensibly up the hatchway, when at that instant he was met by one of the guns which had fallen from the middle deck. Striking him on his left hand it broke three of his fingers; he, however, found himself a few seconds later floating on the surface of the water, where he was ultimately taken up by a boat.
By this sudden and dreadful catastrophe nearly nine hundred persons perished. Among the rest, the loss of Admiral Kempenfeldt, whose flag was then flying on board the Royal George, was universally lamented. He was the son of Lieutenant-colonel Kempenfeldt, a native of Sweden, whose character is preserved in the Spectator, under the name of Captain Sentry. He entered very early into the service of the navy, for which profession he soon discovered uncommon talents. In the year 1757 he was appointed captain of the Elizabeth, and proceeded with Commodore Stevens to the East Indies, where he distinguished himself in three several actions against the French squadron, being always opposed to a ship of superior force. His skill was of the utmost importance during the blockade of Pondicherry as well as at the subsequent reduction of Manilla by Admiral Cornish in 1761. After serving a considerable time in the West Indies he obtained leave to return to England. During the peace he constantly spent part of the year in France, not in the pursuit of pleasure, but in search of professional knowledge, in which, if he did not excel, he at least equalled any naval officer in Europe. At the commencement of the American war he was appointed to the Buckingham, and served as first captain under the Admirals Hardy, Geary, and Darby; and his gallant conduct contributed in no small degree to the capture of the convoy under M. Guichen. His character in private life rendered his acquaintance an enviable acquisition, and as an officer his death was a very severe loss to his country.
The Lark sloop victualler, which was lying alongside the Royal George, was swallowed up in the vortex occasioned by the sinking of the vessel, and several of the people on board her perished.
The Royal George was the oldest first-rate in the service. She was built at Woolwich; her keel was laid down in 1751 and she was hauled out of the dock in July 1755, it being unusual, at that time, to build such large ships on slips to launch. She was pierced for one hundred guns, but having recently had two additional ports, including the carronades, mounted one hundred and eight guns; she was rather short and high, like all the old first-rates, but sailed so well that she had more flags on board her than any vessel then in the service. Lord Anson, Admiral Boscawen, Lord Hawke, Lord Rodney, Lord Howe, and several other principal officers, repeatedly commanded in her. She carried the tallest masts and squarest canvas of any English built ship in the navy, and originally the heaviest metal—namely, fifty-two, forty, and twenty-eight pounders—but they had been changed, on account of her age, to forty, thirty-two and eighteen pounders.
[THE MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY.]
The circumstances detailed in the following narrative are altogether of so singular and romantic a character that but for the undeniable authenticity of every particular, the whole might be considered as the production of the ingenious brain of a Defoe. Some of the incidents indeed surpass in impressive interest anything to be met with in the fictitious history of Alexander Selkirk's solitary existence and adventure.
In December 1787 the Bounty sailed from Spithead for Otaheite under the command of Lieutenant Bligh, who had previously accompanied Captain Cook in his exploiting voyages in the Pacific Ocean. The object of the present expedition was to convey from Otaheite to our West Indian colonies the plants of the bread-fruit tree which Dampier, Cook, and other voyagers had observed to grow with the most prolific luxuriance in the South Sea Islands, and which furnished the natives with a perpetual and wholesome subsistence without even the trouble of cultivation.