With boystrous shocks and rores each other rudely greet,
Which fiercely when they charge and sadlie make retreat,
Upon the bulwark forts of Hurst and Calsheet beat."
Drayton.
There are several shipwrecks which have occurred here and at the other side of the island which may be said to have become classic. The best known of all was the terrible loss of the Royal George off Ryde in 1782. This was one of the most extraordinary accidents that ever befell our navy. It was just before the Peace of Versailles, while England needed every ship she had. It had been feared that Gibraltar was in danger, and the Royal George of 100 guns, one of the finest ships then in the navy, was ordered out to relieve the place. While still in the Solent it was found she needed a slight operation of careening, and she was inclined over a little to enable the workmen to get at their job without putting her back into dock. There were over nine hundred men in the crew, and besides them at least three hundred women and children who had come to see them off and take a last farewell. The ship was in command of Admiral Kempenfeldt, who was writing in his cabin at the time. A sudden squall struck the vessel and sent her far over first to one side and then to the other, and before anyone had time to realize the danger she swung upright and went down like a stone. Only about four hundred souls out of all on board were saved, the Admiral himself perishing with the majority. Afterwards bodies came ashore at Ryde in great numbers. This dreadful catastrophe would certainly have lived for ever in the annals of English naval history, but it was made still better known by the poem which the poet Cowper wrote on it, familiar to every school child, beginning:
"Toll for the brave, the brave that are no more."
A somewhat similar catastrophe happened just about a hundred years later on the other side of the island. In 1878 the Eurydice was passing along by the Undercliff under full sail. She was a training-ship, full of young lads, and the strong wind which could be felt in all its fury on the Downs above hardly touched her in the shelter below. Owing to some dreadful carelessness, however, she turned the corner still under canvas, was caught suddenly by a frightful squall, and thrown on her beam-ends. She never recovered, but went down straight in an awful tempest of sleet and snow which added to the horror and confusion. Of all the promising boys on board only three were picked up by a passing boat, and two alone survived.
St. Catherine's lighthouse stands not far from here, on the most southerly point of the island; its flashlight, said to be the most powerful in the world, throws a beam equal to 15,000,000 candles, and warns ships afar off of the dangerous coast. It is peculiarly appropriate that there should be a lighthouse here, for, so long ago as 1323, Walter de Goelyton built a chapel on Chale Down dedicated to St. Catherine, assigning certain rents to a chantry priest to say mass, and also to provide lights for "the safety of such vessels as chanced to come on that dangerous coast during the night." At the Dissolution the whole income was seized by the Crown.
