After making several voyages to Africa, which had been attended with much difficulty, trouble and loss, I received orders, in the month of June 1785, from Mons. le Marechal de Castries, Minister and Secretary of the Marine Department, to embark for the island of St Louis, in Senegal, in the Ship St Catherine, Captain le Turc commander, the same officer who gained so great a character last war, when commander of the Flessinguois.
Having examined all the coasts from France to the Canary Islands, on the 10th of July following, we passed between these isles and that of Palma, about three o'clock in the afternoon.
Previous to our leaving France, I had taken care to apprise the Captain of the danger to which we should be exposed, in these latitudes, from the violence of the currents. I remarked to him, that every time I had passed that way, I found cause to fear our being windbound on the coasts of Barbary. This advice, the result of experience, should have met with attention from Captain le Turc; I therefore again repeated it, the moment I perceived the sea began to assume a clearer tinge, and inquired if he did not intend to sound. What are you afraid of? said he, the land! we are more than eighty leagues from it.
Allow me here to express my disapprobation of that immoderate self-conceit and confidence, for which the captains of trading vessels, especially those who visit these coasts, are so remarkable. However important an advice may be, they are not disposed to pay any regard to it; and of whatever kind the impending dangers appear, so much confidence have they in their own abilities, that they are better pleased to repair damage than prevent it.
The under captain made me a very similar reply with his superior. Alas! too soon they experimentally found my fears were far from groundless!
At midnight, I was awakened by a violent motion of the ship, and, thinking we were aground, I immediately leaped on deck. Judge my surprise, when I observed a kind of creek formed by the rocks. The mariners were all sound asleep. I quickly awaked them:—Save yourselves, cried I, we are near the shore! The captain got up in great consternation; and in his alarm, in which his officers partook, ordered them to steer towards the rocks. The vessel thus directed, and hurried at the same time by the force of contending currents, struck thrice on the sands, and remained immoveable.
Suddenly a horrid cry was heard; the masts were shaken; and the sails being violently shattered, were torn to pieces. The terror became universal, and the cries of the mariners were blended with the horrid noise of the roaring waves, enraged as it were that their course should be stopped by the rocks and the vessel, between which they were to pass. So great was the consternation that no one thought of doing any thing for his preservation. O, my wife!—O, my children!—they cry to one another, raising their hands to heaven. Meantime, they cut the masts by the board, in order, if possible, to right the ship. Vain trouble—the cabin is already filled with water.
In this dismal situation, I made up to the Captain, who, in his perplexity, could pay attention to nothing. It was but eighteen months before, that Captain Cassin had experienced a similar accident near Cape Blanc. In his desperation, he had occasioned the loss of many unhappy wretches by blowing out his own brains. I began to fear that Captain le Turc might act in the same manner, and that we should lose him too. I therefore besought him to have patience, and endeavoured to raise his spirits and courage, but in vain. We had without doubt perished, if M. Yan, his first lieutenant, M. Suret, a passenger, three English sailors and some others, encouraged by my example, had not assisted in throwing over the long boat into the sea, and preventing it afterwards from being broken to pieces against the ship, or sunk. We were compelled to struggle the whole night with a boisterous sea, in hopes that, when day appeared, we might effect a landing on the coast, and shun the rocks which surrounded us on every side.
Having taken every precaution, I went into the boat with a few of the sailors, and desired they would throw to us some ropes from the ship, to moor our boat, by which means they might pull the boat again to the vessel, in case we were lucky enough to get a safe landing. This was the only method we could think of for preserving the Captain, his mate, and about three-fourths of the hands, who did not incline to hazard themselves in the boat, for the first trial.
Scarcely had we made two strokes with the oars, when the ebbing and flowing of the waves tore them from the hands of the rowers, and the boat was overset; the waves parted us, and cast us all on the shore, except the Sieur Devoise, brother of the Consul of Tripoli, in Syria. I plunged again into the sea, and was lucky enough, at that instant, to snatch him from the grave.