Soon after we fell in with Mr. Rous, who gave us the bearing of the wreck, and the apparent distance. We, of course, immediately cast adrift our tow, and after many hours of tacking, wearing, and diligent search, in various directions, with every telescope in the ship in requisition, in the earnest and anxious expectation of discovering the unfortunate poor fellow, were, at noon, about to relinquish all hope, when our second lieutenant (Hood) imagined he had discovered a something astern of us, which proved to be the wreck, and very soon we perceived the object of our anxiety on it.
We instantly wore round, and in a moment, although the sea was running very high, and it was a dangerous service, I had a boat’s crew of volunteers, and picked him up.
He had managed to secure himself with a piece of rope to one of the timber heads on the upper gunwale, from which, owing to extreme weakness and languor, he had great difficulty to extricate himself. The judicious means resorted to by our skilful surgeon (William Lodge Kidd), together with the attention bestowed on him by all on board, restored the patient in a short time to, at least, a sense of his ameliorated situation.
He informed us that, at daylight, he had perceived the ship advancing towards the wreck, and was overjoyed, being confident that we must have observed him; but, when he saw us about to depart, he thought his heart would instantly break. Considering the size of a large frigate, and the wreck of a comparatively small vessel, occasionally covered with the sea, it is easy to account for the difference in our optics.
All of our prizes arrived in safety except two, which I grieve to say were never heard of. They were commanded by very promising young men, Dobson and Mason. Mr. Few, of whom I have had occasion already to make honourable mention, commanded one of the captured vessels, which was without any ground tackling, and finding that she was drifting rapidly before the gale on the enemy’s coast, he adopted the ingenious contrivance of slinging a twelve-pound gun and letting it go as an anchor, and by this means the vessel rode out the gale and was saved from destruction. Another midshipman, Mr. Richardson, by getting his cables out abaft, and letting go his anchors from the stern, though in very deep water, contrived to retard the drifting of his vessel until the gale abated, and thus did he save his prize. This youth had but just commenced his naval career.
It was at this period that a truly dreadful accident occurred on board of the Bacchante, and which plunged all our officers and crew into the profoundest melancholy. On anchoring, a light vessel was brought alongside of us, in order that we might load her with some of the oil-casks that we had saved out of the sinking prizes. A remarkably fine youth, the son of Viscount Anson, had just quitted my side, and had descended into the vessel, to see the process employed in loading her. He had not been two minutes on board, and was apparently at play with another youth about his own age, a Mr. William Barnard, when one of our main-deck guns, by some inexplicable cause, went off, and killed him on the spot, without hurting his companion or any other person whatever. The ball, however, was very nearly killing Captain Duff Markland, of the admiral’s ship, the Milford, for it whizzed close by his head as he was looking out of the quarter-gallery window.
How this fatal gun had so unhappily gone off was inscrutable. The lanyards and leaden apron over the lock and touch-hole were secured in the best and usual manner. No fire or means of ignition were near it; and as to any vibration or concussion of the decks, caused by our removing the casks, if such existed, it must have been very slight, and equally effective in the adjacent guns. Be the cause what it may, we had to consign to its last long resting-place the mutilated body of a young officer, suddenly cut off in all the promise of youth, at a moment of sportive innocence, and amidst the affections of all around him. Our brave captain was deeply affected, for poor young Anson had been entrusted by his parents to his special care and superintendence.
On the 25th we again stood over to the Apulian coast, and vainly endeavoured to gain some intelligence of our lost shipmates and prizes. Our ultimate object was the blockade of Venice. We had heard, however, of the most tragical fate of the Danaë, French frigate, lying off Trieste.
A seaman who had been punished (and his miscreant nature affords a presumption that his punishment had been merited), had by some contrivance or other procured access to the magazine. Having everything in readiness, he waited only for the captain’s returning on board. This officer had been at the opera—from the refined and luxurious enjoyment and splendour of which he had returned to his rougher quarters, and could scarcely have got into his cot, when the diabolical assassin applied his match to the powder, and the noble vessel, with her full complement of (I doubt not) brave men, was in an instant blown to atoms; for only four of them were left to tell this wretched tale.
The Flore frigate, that had so shamefully made her escape after she had struck to us, had been wrecked some time back off the coast of Venice; and all that remained of the fine squadron, of which Napoleon had formed such high expectations, was the Carolina. What could be a better compliment to our noble captain?