Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

It was then found that one pump constantly working would keep the vessel free. In distributing the provisions, one of the conger eels was allowed to each man in twenty-four hours, which was cooked on a fire made in a half tub filled with earth; and the water was sucked out of a cask by means of a musket barrel. The people on board were all uncomfortably crowded together and lying on the bundles of eels, and in this manner was the voyage resumed.

The plans of Captain George Shelvocke were direct and simple—to steer for the Bay of Concepción as the nearest port, in the hope of capturing some vessel larger and more comfortable than his own. In a moderate sea the bark “tumbled prodigiously,” and all hands were very wet because the only deck above them was a grating covered with a tarpaulin; but the captain refused to bear away and ease her. At some distance from the South American coast a large ship was sighted in the moonlight. The desperate circumstances had worn the line between privateering and piracy very thin, but in the morning it was discovered that the ship was Spanish and therefore a proper prize of war. She did not like the looks of the little bark and its wild crew, and edged away with all canvas set. Captain Shelvocke crowded the Recovery in chase of her, and when it fell calm, his men swung at the oars.

The audacious bark had no battery of guns, mind you, for they had been left behind in the wreck of the Speedwell. One small cannon had been hoisted aboard, but the men were unable to mount it, and were therefore obliged to let it lie on deck and fire it, jumping clear of the recoil and hitching it fast with hawsers to prevent it from hopping over the side. For ammunition they had two round shot, a few chain-bolts and bolt-heads, the clapper of the Speedwell’s brass bell, and some bags of stones which had been gathered on the beach. It appeared that they would have to carry the big Spanish ship by boarding her, if they could fetch close enough alongside, though they were also in a very bad way for small arms. A third of the muskets lacked flints, and there were only three cutlasses in the crew.

Captain Shelvocke ignored these odds, and held on after the ship until a four-hour chase brought him within a few hundred feet of her, so near that the Spanish sailors could be heard calling them English dogs and defying them to come on board. Along with the curses flew a volley of great and small shot, which killed the Recovery’s gunner and almost carried away her foremast.

So warm a reception staggered many of Captain Shelvocke’s men and those who before seemed the most forward now lay upon their oars, insomuch that he had difficulty to make them keep their way. But recovering themselves, they rowed up and engaged the enemy until all their small shot was expended, which done they fell astern to whittle more leaden slugs.

In this manner they made three attempts, all equally unsuccessful; and they found it impossible to board the ship, she was so lofty, especially from the want of pistols and cutlasses which are the only weapons for close fighting. It was calm the whole night during which the people of the Recovery were busy making slugs, and having provided a great quantity against morning, they came to the desperate resolution of either carrying the ship or of submitting to her. At daybreak Captain Shelvocke ordered twenty men into the yawl to lay athwart the ship’s hawse whilst he boarded in the dark. The people in the boat put off, giving him repeated assurances of their determination; but just at this very juncture of coming to action, a breeze sprung up and the ship gained on them. As the gale freshened, the captain expected the ship would have run him down, which she could have easily done; however, she bore away, probably for some port on the coast, Valparaiso or Coquimbo. The Recovery chased her all that day and the following night, and at daylight of the succeeding morning saw her close to the land and she continued her course along shore until out of sight.

With several officers and men wounded, the errant little bark wandered northward, raiding the coast for provisions and riding out one gale after another, until another large ship was encountered. This was the stately merchantman, St. Francisco Palacio of seven hundred tons. By way of comparison, Captain Shelvocke estimated his bark as measuring about twenty tons. The Recovery rowed up to her in a calm and fought her for six hours, when the sea roughened, and there was no hope of closing in. It was a grievous disappointment, for the St. Francisco Palacio was so deeply laden with rich merchandise that as she rolled the water ran through her scuppers across the upper deck, and her poop towered like a wooden castle.

The second failure to take a prize made the unsteady crew discontented, and several of them stole the best boat and ran away with it. Mutiny was forestalled by an encounter with a Spanish vessel called the Jesus Maria in the roadstead of Pisco. Preparations were made to carry her by storm, as Captain Shelvocke concluded that she would suit his requirements very nicely and his bark was unfit to keep the sea any longer. The Recovery was jammed alongside after one blast of scrap-iron and other junk from the prostrate cannon, and the boarders tumbled over the bulwarks, armed with the three cutlasses and such muskets as could be fired. The Spanish captain and his officers had no stomach to resist such stubborn visitors as these. Doffing their hats, they bowed low and asked for quarter, which Captain Shelvocke was graciously pleased to grant. The Jesus Maria was found to be laden with pitch, tar, copper, and plank, and her captain offered to ransom her for sixteen thousand dollars.

Captain Shelvocke needed the ship more than he did the money, so he transferred his crew to the stout Jesus Maria and bundled the Spaniards into the Recovery and wished them the best of luck. The shipwreck at Juan Fernandez and all the other misfortunes were forgotten. The adventurers were in as good a ship as the lost Speedwell and needed only more guns to make a first-class fighting privateer of her. They now carried out the original intention of cruising to Mexico, and in those waters captured a larger ship, the Sacra Familia of six guns and seventy men. Again Captain Shelvocke shifted his flag and left the Jesus Maria to his prisoners. On board of his next capture, the Holy Sacrament, he placed a prize crew, but the Spanish sailors rose and killed all the Englishmen, and the number of those who had sailed from England in the Speedwell was now reduced to twenty-six.

Off the coast of California sickness raged among them until only six or seven sailors were fit for duty. Then Captain Shelvocke did the boldest thing of his career, sailing the Holy Sacrament all the way across the Pacific until he reached the China coast and found refuge in the harbor of Macao. Then this short-handed crew worked the battered ship to Canton, where the captains of the East Indiamen expressed their amazement at the ragged sails, the feeble, sea-worn men, and the voyage they had made. Captain George Shelvocke by this feat alone enrolled himself among the great navigators of the eighteenth century. He had found no Spanish galleons to plunder, and his adventure was a failure, but as a master of men and circumstances he had won a singular success.