Fragments of voyages and travels, including anecdotes of a naval life

by Basil Hall

This character, indeed, gives the navy of England its peculiar distinction, and mainly contributes to its success. We do truly make the ship our home; we have no other thoughts of professional duty or of happiness but what are connected with the vessel in which we swim; we take a pride in her very looks, as we might in those of a daughter; and bring up her crew to honourable deeds, as we should wish to instruct our sons. The rate of sailing of each ship in a fleet, is a subject of never-ending discussion amongst all classes of the officers, midshipmen, and crews, every one of whom considers his own individual honour involved in all that his ship does, or is capable of doing. This is true, almost universally; but it is most striking, no doubt, in our first ship, which, like our first love, is supposed to drink up, from the opening flower of our young feelings, the richest drops of sentiment, never to be outdone, or even equalled, by future attachments! I owe, indeed, much good companionship and many sincere obligations to other vessels; yet I am sure that, if I live to be Lord High Admiral, the old Leander must still remain nearest and dearest to my nautical heart. I remember every corner about her—every beam—every cabin—every gun. I even look back to the strict school on board of her, with much of that affectionate sort of interest with which I observe Eton men regard the place of their education. Whenever any of the old set meet, who were shipmates together at the happy time I speak of, every other topic is swept from the board, and, for hours together, the boyish adventures, and even the most ordinary events of the dear old ship, form, out of all sight, the most delightful subject of conversation. It signifies nothing, that every one of the party has gone over the same round of stories and jokes, in the same company, fifty times; they invariably come back again, recommended by increasing interest, and by that genuine freshness of spirits, so ‘redolent of joy and youth, it breathes a second spring.’

Most of the survivors, indeed, have experienced, that the summer of life which succeeded to this opening season of our professional existence in the Leander, has been as full of enjoyment as we had hoped for, and that life has gone on to furnish us only with more extensive views and higher motives to action. It has also taught us, to discover that the real and permanent pleasures of life lie close alongside of its duties, and that as very much of our success certainly depends upon ourselves, so does very nearly all our happiness likewise.

On the 6th of December, we sailed from Halifax, with a fresh north-westerly wind, in a bitter cold day, so that the harbour was covered with a vapour called ‘the barber,’ a sort of low fog, which clings to the surface of the water, and sweeps along with these biting winter blasts, in such a manner as to cut one to the very bone. It is evidently caused by the condensation of the moisture close to the water in the severe cold. The thermometer, when we sailed, was eleven degrees below zero; and nothing but the violence of the wind, which broke the surface into a sheet of foam, prevented our being frozen in, like the north-western voyagers at Melville Island.

As we shot past one of the lower wharfs of the town of Halifax, just before coming to the narrow passage between George’s Island and the main land, on the south side of this magnificent harbour, a boat put off with a gentleman, who, by some accident, had missed his passage. They succeeded in getting alongside the ship; but, in seizing hold of a rope which was thrown to them from the main-chains, the boatmen, in their hurry, caught a turn with it round the after-thwart, instead of making it fast somewhere in the bow of the boat. The inevitable consequence of this proceeding was, to raise the stern of the boat out of the water, and, of course, to plunge her nose under the surface. Even a landsman will comprehend how this happened, when it is mentioned that the ship was running past at the rate of ten knots. In the twinkling of an eye, the whole party, officer, boatmen, and all, were seen floating about, grasping at the oars or striking out for the land, distant, fortunately, only a few yards from them; for the water thereabouts is so deep, that a ship, in sailing out or in, may safely graze the shore.

As the intensity of the cold was great, we were quite astonished to see the people swimming away so easily; but we afterwards learned from one of the party, that, owing to the water being between forty and fifty degrees warmer than the air, he felt, when plunged into it, as if he had been soused into a hot bath. The instant, however, he reached the pier, and was lugged out, like a half-drowned rat, he was literally enclosed in a firm case of ice from head to foot! This very awkward coat of mail was not removed without considerable difficulty; nor was it till he had been laid for some hours in a well-warmed bed, between two other persons, that he could move at all, and, for several months afterwards, he was not well enough to leave his room.

For us to stop, at such a time and place, was impossible; so away we shot like a spear—past Chebucto Head, Cape Sambro, and sundry other fierce-looking black capes of naked rock, smoothed off, apparently, by the attrition of some huge deluge, that must, I think, have submerged all that part of America, as far as I have examined it, between the shores of Lake Erie on the west, and Boston and New York on the south and east.

But we had no time, on the day I speak of, for any such speculations. The breeze rapidly rose to a hard gale, which split our main-topsail to threads, and sent the fragments thundering to leeward in the storm, in such grand style, that, to this hour, I can almost fancy I hear the noise in my ears. I know few things more impressive than the deep-toned sounds caused by the flapping of a wet sail, in such a fierce squall as this, when the sheets are carried away, and the unconfined sail is tugging and tearing to get clear of the yard, which bends and cracks so fearfully, that even the lower mast sometimes wags about like a reed. I certainly have heard thunder far louder than the sounds alluded to; but have seldom known it more effective or startling than those of a sail going to pieces in such a tempest of wind and rain.

I was standing, where I had no business to be, on the weather side of the quarter-deck, holding on stoutly by one of the belaying pins, and wondering where this novel scene was to end, but having an obscure idea that the ship was going to the bottom. The admiral was looking up at the splitting sail as composedly as possible, after desiring that the main-top-men, whose exertions were quite useless, should be called down, out of the way of the ropes, which were cracking about their heads. Every now and then I could see the weather-wise glance of the veteran’s eye directed to windward, in hopes that matters would mend. But they only became worse; and at last, when the foremast seemed to be really in danger, for it was bending like a cane, though the foresail had been reefed, he waited not to run through the usual round of etiquettes by which an admiral’s commands generally reach the executive on board ship, but exclaimed, with a voice so loud, that it made me start over to the lee side of the deck:—

“Man the fore-clue garnets!”

In the next minute the sail rose gradually to the yard, and the groaning old ship, by this time sorely strained to her innermost timber, seemed to be at once relieved from the pressure of the canvass which had borne her headlong, right into the seas, and made her tremble from stem to stern, almost as if she were going to pieces.