“Jos. Soanes.“
The disasters caused by this terrible gale extended over the English coasts. At Bristol the tide filled the merchants’ cellars, spoiling 1,000 hogsheads of sugar, 1,500 hogsheads of tobacco, and any quantity of other produce, the damage being estimated at £100,000. Eighty people were drowned in the marshes and river. Among the shipping casualties, the Canterbury store-ship went ashore, and twenty-five men were drowned from her. The Severn overflowed the country, doing great damage at Gloucester; and 15,000 sheep were drowned on the levels and marshes. Four merchant ships were lost in Plymouth Roads, and most of the men were drowned. At Portsmouth a number of vessels were blown to sea, and some of them never heard of more. About a dozen ships were driven from our coasts to Holland, the crews, for the most part, being saved. At Dunkirk, twenty-three or more vessels were dashed to pieces against the pier-head.
Mr. Peter Walls, master or chief lighthouse-keeper of the Spurn Light at the mouth of the Humber, was present on the 26th of November, the fatal night of the storm. He thought that his lighthouse must have been blown down, and the tempest made the fire in it burn so fiercely that “it melted down the iron bars, on which it laid, like lead,” so that they were obliged when the fire was nearly extinguished to put in fresh bars, and re-kindle the fire, keeping it up till the morning dawn, when they found that some six or seven-and-twenty sail of ships were driving helplessly about the Spurn Head, some having cut, and others broken their cables. These were a part of two fleets then lying in the Humber, having put in there by stress of weather a day or two before. Three ships were driven on an island called the Don. The first no sooner touched bottom than she completely capsized, turning keel up; strange to say, out of six men on board, only one was drowned, the other five being rescued by the boat of the second ship. They landed at the Spurn Lighthouse, where Mr. Walls got them good fires and all the comforts they needed. The second ship, having nobody on board, was driven to sea and never seen or heard of more. The third broke up, and next morning some coals that had been in her were all that was to be seen. Of the whole number of vessels in the Humber, few, if any, were saved.
Defoe estimates that 150 sea-going vessels of all sorts were lost in this terrific gale; but this is, in all probability, a very low estimate. And it is as nothing to the fearful loss of life, which amounted to 8,000 souls.
The townspeople of Deal, in particular, were blamed for their inhumanity in leaving many to their fate who could have been rescued. Boatmen went off to the sands for booty, some of whom would not listen to poor wretches who might have been saved. Many unfortunate shipwrecked persons could be seen, by the aid of glasses, walking on the Goodwin [pg 204]Sands in despairing postures, knowing that they would, as Defoe puts it, “be washed into another world” at the reflux of the tide. The Mayor of Deal, Mr. Thomas Powell, asked the Custom House officers to take out their boats and endeavour to save the lives of some of these unfortunates, but they utterly refused. The mayor then offered, from his own pocket, five shillings a head for all saved, and a number of fishermen and others volunteered, and succeeded in bringing 200 persons on shore, who would have been lost in half an hour afterwards. The Queen’s agent for sick and wounded seamen would not furnish a penny for their lodging or food, and the good mayor supplied all of them with what they required. Several died, and he was compelled to bury them at his own expense; he furnished a large number with money to pay their way to London. He received no thanks from the Government of the day, but some long time after was re-imbursed the large sums he had expended.
THE STORM IN THE THAMES AT WAPPING.
“Nor,” says Defoe, “can the damage suffered in the river of Thames be forgot. It was a strange sight to see all the ships in the river blown away, the Pool was so clear, that, as I remember, not above four ships were left between the upper part of Wapping and Ratcliffe Cross, for the tide being up at the time when the storm blew with the greatest violence, no anchors or landfast, no cables or moorings, would hold them, the chains which lay across the river for the mooring of ships, all gave way.
“The ships breaking loose thus, it must be a strange sight to see the hurry and confusion of it; and, as some ships had nobody at all on board, and a great many had none but a man or boy just to look after the vessel, there was nothing to be done but to let every vessel drive whither and how she would.
“Those who know the reaches of the river, and how they lie, know well enough that the wind being at south-west-westerly, the vessels would naturally drive into the bite [pg 205]or bay from Ratcliffe Cross to Limehouse Hole, for that the river winding about again from thence towards the new dock at Deptford runs almost due south-west, so that the wind blew down one reach and up another, and the ships must of necessity drive into the bottom of the angle between both.