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.