“The last thing that was seen was the admiral refusing to try to save himself, whilst his coxswain was entreating him to go. Another instance of pluck was exhibited by the boatswain of signals, who was making a general semaphore until the water washed him away. Unfortunately the poor chap was drowned. Many of the survivors are in a dreadful state of mental prostration. Most people say that Admiral Markham should have refused to obey the signal, but I think that Admiral Tryon infused so much awe in most of the captains of the fleet that few would have disobeyed him. However, he stuck to his ship to the last, and went down in her.”
Thus was the Victoria lost; less than a quarter of an hour after being struck she was lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean, Admiral Tryon and 400 gallant seamen going with her.
At the court-martial Captain Bourke was absolved of all blame for the loss of the ship, the finding being that the disaster was entirely due to Admiral Tryon’s order to turn the two lines sixteen points inward when they were only six cables apart.
INCIDENTS IN THE SLAVE TRADE
Stories of the Traffic in Human Merchandise
WE shall not here deal with the history and abolition of slavery, because every schoolboy knows all about that, and will doubtless be glad to have something more exciting. And of excitement there is abundance in the annals of slavery. The trade was always attended by risks, even before the days when it was illegal to ship slaves, for there was ever the danger of the negroes breaking loose and running amok on the ship; or, what was perhaps worse, the holds of the slavers were often little less than death-holes, with fever and cholera rampant. Altogether, it was a game with big profits—and mighty big risks, as the following story will show:
It was back in 1769 that the slaver Delight (Captain Millroy) was the scene of an uprising of negroes, which resulted in a rousing fight and fatal effects to a good many aboard.
About three o’clock one Sunday morning Surgeon Boulton and the men with him in the aft-cabin were awakened by a chorus of screams and shrieks overhead, a rushing of feet, a pandemonium of noise which told that something serious was afoot. Boulton slipped out of his bunk and dashed towards the captain’s cabin, half guessing what was taking place. He reached the cabin, and, entering, shook Millroy fiercely to awaken him. He had barely succeeded in rousing the captain when a billet of wood came hurtling through the air and caught him on the shoulder, and a cutlass pierced his neck. Turning, Boulton saw that a couple of negroes had, all unseen and unheard, crept below, intent on putting the captain hors de combat while he was asleep; and, finding the surgeon interfering with their plot, they attacked him in quick time. Millroy, now properly aroused, joined forces with Boulton, who forgot his own danger in the thought of what was happening above, and the pair chased the negroes on to the deck, Boulton carrying a pistol and the captain a cutlass.
When they reached deck they found themselves in a very inferno. Hundreds of negroes were swarming all over the place, some armed with wooden spars, others with cutlasses; and with these weapons they were hard at it taking vengeance on their captors. The herd of savages flung themselves upon the seamen, cutting off legs and arms, mutilating bodies dreadfully, their yells making the air ring. Boulton and the captain, realising that it was a case for prompt and vigorous action, hurled themselves into the heaving fight with a will. Down went one negro, killed by Millroy’s cutlass; then another; while Boulton did all he could. But the “all” of these two men was but little, and presently Millroy fell to the deck, overpowered by numbers, and literally hacked to pieces. Boulton, more fortunate, escaped injury, and made a dash for the rigging, up which he scrambled till he came to the maintop, where he discovered the cook and a boy had already taken refuge.
Perched on their lofty platform, the three looked down upon deck, watching as though fascinated the drama being enacted before their eyes, seeing the now maddened negroes wreaking vengeance on the men who were bearing them from freedom to slavery. The bloodlust was upon them, and they searched the ship to take their fill.