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

by Basil Hall

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!