On the first Sunday after our arrival, Colonel Fearon, followed by all his officers and men, and accompanied by Captain Cobb, and the officers and private passengers of his late ship, hastened to prostrate themselves before the throne of the Heavenly grace, to pour out the public expression of their thanksgiving to their almighty Preserver. The scene was deeply impressive; and it is earnestly to be hoped that many a poor fellow who listened, perhaps for the first time in his life, with unquestionable sincerity and humility to the voice of instruction, will be found steadily prosecuting, in the strength of God, the good resolutions that he may on that solemn occasion have formed, until he be able to say, as one of the greatest generals of antiquity did, that "it was good for him to have been afflicted; for before he was afflicted he went astray, but that afterwards he was not ashamed to keep God's word."
In the course of a few days the private passengers and most of the sailors of our party were dispersed in various directions; and the troops, after having incurred to the excellent inhabitants of Falmouth, and the adjacent towns, a debt of gratitude which none of them can ever hope to repay, were embarked for Chatham.
I think you must be already sensible that the circumstances of our situation on board the Kent did not enable us conscientiously to save a single article, either of public or private property, from the flames; indeed, the only thing I preserved—with the exception of forty or fifty sovereigns, which I hastily tied up in my pocket handkerchief, and put into my wife's hands, at the moment she was lifted into the boat, as a provision for herself and her companions against the temporary want to which they might be exposed on some foreign shore—was the pocket compass, which you yourself presented to me.[16]
But I would have you to be assured, that the total abandonment of individual interests on the part of the officers of the ship, and of the 31st regiment, was occasioned by no want of self-possession, nor even, in all cases, of opportunities to attend to them; but to a sincere desire to avoid even the appearance of selfishness, at moments when the valuable lives of their sailors and soldiers were at stake. And this observation applies with still greater force to the senior officers in both services, whose cabins being upon the upper deck were accessible during the whole day; and where many portable articles of value were deposited, which could have been very easily carried off, had those officers been disposed to devote to their own concerns even a portion of that precious time, and of those active exertions, which they unremittingly applied to the performance of their professional duty.
Notwithstanding the unexpected length to which I have already extended this narrative, I cannot allow myself to close it without offering to my late companions on board the Kent, into whose hands it may possibly fall, a few very plain and simple observations, which I think worthy of their serious consideration, and the importance of which I desire to have deeply impressed upon my own mind. None of those soldiers who were in the habit of reading their Bibles can have failed to notice that faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is therein made the great pivot on which the salvation of man hinges; that the whole human race, without distinction of rank, nation, age, or sex, being justly exposed to the wrath of Almighty God, nothing but the precious blood of Christ, which was shed on the cross, can possibly atone for their sins; and that faith in this atonement can alone pacify the conscience, and awaken confidence towards God as a reconciled Father. If, therefore, "he that believeth in Christ shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," be the unequivocal language of Jehovah, either expressly declared or obviously implied in every page of that record which He has vouchsafed to us of His Son; is it not a question of the deepest concernment to every one professing any regard for divine revelation, whether he really understands and believes that record, and whether he is able to give, not only to others, but to himself, a reason of this hope that is in him?
From the influence of education or example, the absence of serious reflection, an attention to the outward ordinances of religion, a regard to many of the proprieties and decencies of life, and a forgetfulness that the religion of the Bible is a religion of motives rather than one of observances, minds easily satisfied on such subjects may persuade themselves that they are spiritually alive while they are dead—that they are amongst the sincere disciples of the blessed Redeemer, and fully interested in His salvation, while they may have neither part nor lot in the matter. But if, at the hour of death, when all external support shall slide away, the soul shall be awakened to the consciousness of its real condition; if it should be made to see, on the one hand, the spirituality and exceeding breadth of the divine law, and be quickened, on the other, to a sense of its unnumbered transgressions; if the mercy of God out of Christ, in which so many vainly and vaguely trust, should become obscured by the inflexible justice and spotless holiness of His character and if the solitary spirit, as it is dragged towards the mysterious precipice, is made to hear, from a voice which it can no longer mistake, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,"—how unspeakably miserable must be the condition of the man who thus discovers, for the first time, that the sand which he had all his lifetime been mistaking for the "Rock of Ages" is now giving way under his feet, and that his soul must speedily sink into that state in which, "where the tree falleth, there it shall be;" where "he that is unjust, let him be unjust still;" and where there is "no work, nor device, nor knowledge," nor repentance.
But that I may not be misunderstood, or be supposed to favour principles of barren speculation, more delusive and dangerous to their possessors, and to the best interests of society, than absolute ignorance itself—I would remind the gallant men to whom I am now more especially addressing myself, that that faith which saves the soul not only "worketh" invariably "by love," and gradually "overcometh the world," but that "it is the gift of God," implanted in the heart by His Holy Spirit, even by that Spirit which is freely given to every one that earnestly asketh. And however unable the simple soldier may be to explain either the nature or the manner of its operation, he must not deceive himself into the persuasion that he is possessed of this precious grace unless he feels it bringing forth in his life and conversation the abundant fruits that necessarily spring from it, and that cannot indeed be produced without it. He will be steady and zealous in the performance of duty, patient under fatigue and privation, sober amid temptation, calm but firm in the hour of danger, and respectfully obedient to his officers; he will honour his king, be content with his wages, and do harm to no man. His piety will be ardent but sober, his prayers will be earnest and frequent, but rather in secret than before men; he will not be contentious or disputatious, but rather desirous of instructing others by his example than by his precepts; letting his light so shine before them, in the simplicity of his motives, the uprightness of his actions, in his readiness to oblige, and by the whole tenor of his life, that they, seeing his good works, may be led, by the divine blessing, to acknowledge the reality and power and beauty of religion, and be induced in like manner to glorify his heavenly Father. In short, in comparison with his thoughtless comrades, he must not only aspire to become a better man, but, from the constraining motives of the gospel, struggle to be also in every essential respect a better soldier.
In conclusion, I would observe that if any class of men, more than another, ought to be struck with awe and gratitude by the goodness and providence of God, it is they who go down to the sea in ships, and see His wonders in the great deep; or if any ought to familiarize their minds with death and its solemn consequences, it is surely soldiers, "whose very business it is to die." May all those then, especially, who thus possessed the privilege, but rarely granted, of being allowed, in the full vigour of health, and in the absence of all the bustle and excitement of battle, to contemplate, from the very brink of eternity, the awful realities that reign within it, as many of their departing comrades were hurried through its dreadful portals, be now led, in the respite which has been given them, to remember that this alone is the accepted time, and this the day of salvation; for while some may defer the subject "to a more convenient season," the message may come forth, at an hour when it is least expected, "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." The foregoing narrative may be fitly supplemented by some particulars[17] of the events occurring after the departure of the Cambria from the scene of the wreck:—
"About twelve o'clock the watch of the barque Caroline, on her passage from Alexandria to Liverpool, observed a light on the horizon, and knew it at once to be a ship on fire. There was a heavy sea on, but the captain, instantly setting his maintop-gallant-sail, ran down towards the spot. About one, the sky becoming brighter, a sudden jet of vivid light shot up; but they were too distant to hear the explosion. In half-an-hour the Caroline could see the wreck of a large vessel lying head to the wind. The ribs and frame timbers, marking the outlines of double ports and quarter-galleries, showed that the burning skeleton was that of a first-class Indiaman. Every other external feature was gone; she was burnt nearly to the water's edge, but still floated, pitching majestically as she rose and fell on the long rolling swell of the bay. The vessel looked like an immense cage of charred basket-work filled with flame, that here and there blazed brighter at intervals. Above, and far to leeward, there was a vast drifting cloud of curling smoke spangled with millions of sparks and burning flakes, and scattered by the wind over the sky and waves.
"As the Caroline approached, part of a mast and some spars, rising and falling, were observed grinding under the weather-quarter of the wreck, having got entangled with the keel or rudder irons, and thus attaching it to the hull of the vessel. The Caroline, coming down swift before the wind, was in a few minutes brought across the bows of the Kent. At that moment a shout was heard as if from the very centre of the fire, and the same instant several figures were observed clinging to a mast. The sea was heavy, and the wreck threatened every moment to disappear. The Caroline was hove-to to leeward, in order to avoid the showers of flakes and sparks, and to intercept any boats or rafts. The mate and four seamen pushed off in the jolly-boat, through a sea covered with floating spars, chests, and furniture, that threatened to crush or overwhelm the boat. When within a few yards of the stern, they caught sight of the first living thing—a wretched man clinging to a spar close under the ship's counter. Every time the stern-frame rose with the swell he was suspended above the water, and scorched by the long keen tongues of pure flame that now came darting through the gun-room ports. Each time this torture came the man shrieked with agony; the next moment the surge came and buried him under the wave, and he was silent. The Caroline's men, defying the fire, pulled close to him, but just as their hands were stretching towards him (latterly the poor wretch had been silent), the rope or spar was snapped by the fire, and he sank for ever.