Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

This was the project of a “Swede, a stout, brave fellow that had unhappily lost the use of both his feet from frost since he came upon the rock.” It was his idea that two men might be able to paddle and sail this contrivance to the mainland and so effect a deliverance. At the first endeavor to get the raft clear of the breakers it upset and nearly drowned the Swede and another sailor who had offered to go with him. The latter was dragged out almost dead, but the Swede swam to the rocks and was for righting the raft and setting out again, although the mast and sail had been lost. The incident is worth describing in the words of Captain Deane.

The master then desired the Swede to assist in getting the raft out of the water in order to wait a more favorable opportunity; but the Swede, persisting in his resolution although unable to stand upon his feet, and as he was kneeling on the rock, caught hold on the master’s hand and with much vehemency beseeching him to accompany him, said,

“I am sure I must die; however, I have great hopes of being the means of preserving your life, and the rest of the people’s. If you will not go with me, I beg your assistance to turn the raft and help me upon it, for I am resolutely bent to venture, even though by myself alone.”

The master used farther dissuasives, representing the impossibility of reaching the mainland in twice the time they might have done before they were disarmed of their mast and sail, but the Swede remained inflexible, affirming, “I had rather perish in the sea than continue one day more in this miserable condition.” By this time another man, animated by his example and offering to go with him, the master consented and gave them some money that accidentally was in his pocket, fixed them on the raft, and helped them to launch off from the rock, committing them to the mercy of the seas. Their last words at parting were very moving and delivered in a pathetic accent, “Pray, Sir, oblige all the people to join in prayers for us as long as you can see us.”

All to a man crept out of the tent at this doleful separation and performed the request with much devotion. About sunset they judged the raft to be half way to land and hoped they might gain the shore by two in the morning, but in the night the wind blew very hard, and two days later the raft was found on the shore of the mainland, about a mile distant from the body of the other man, driven likewise on shore with his paddle still fast to his wrist, but the bold Swede was never seen more.

The ship’s carpenter died of hunger at the end of a fortnight, during which rock-weed and mussels had kept the breath of life in them. Inevitably men in their condition were bound to turn to thoughts of preserving their own existence a little longer by eating the body of the carpenter. How they discussed it and with what results is told by the unhappy Captain Deane.

The master returning to his tent with the most acute sense of the various miseries they were involved in, was ready to expire with faintness and anguish; and placing himself so as to receive some refreshment from sleep, he observed an unusual air of intentness in the countenances of all the people; when, after some pause, Mr. Whitworth, a young gentleman, his mother’s darling son, delicately educated, amidst so great an affluence as to despise common food, began in the name of the assembly to court the master’s concurrence in converting the human carcass into the matter of their nourishment; and was immediately seconded by a great majority, three only opposing on account of their esteeming it a heinous sin.

This affair had been thus consulted and concluded upon in the master’s absence, and the present method concerted of making it known by a gentleman reputed to be much in his favor. The master remained in his former posture, observing an invincible silence, while they were urging their desires with irresistible vehemence; for nothing that ever befell him from the day of his birth, not even the dread and distress of his soul upon quitting the wreck when he did not expect to live a minute, was so amazingly shocking as this unexpected proposal. But after a short interval, he maturely weighed all circumstances and pronounced in favor of the majority, arguing the improbability of its being a sin to eat human flesh in a case of such necessity, providing they were in no ways accessory to the taking away of life.

The body of the carpenter was their sustenance until a shallop, sailing out of Portsmouth, discovered the fragments of a tent among the rocks and snow of Boon Island and a few figures of men feebly crawling out of the shelter. The crew of the Nottingham Galley were carried to the little seaport at the mouth of the Piscataqua, and there all of them recovered, although seriously crippled because of frozen hands and feet. At the end of Captain Deane’s story is the following note:

At the first publication of this narrative, Mr. Whitworth and the mate were then living in England, and the master survived until the 19th of August, 1761. And out of sincere regard to the memory of Captain Deane, and that such an instance of Divine Providence should not be buried in oblivion, Mr. Miles Whitworth, son of the above Mr. Whitworth, now republishes this narrative, hoping (with a Divine blessing) that it may prove of service to reclaim the unthinking part of seafaring men trading in and to New England.