Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

The Ramillies, a majestic seventy-four-gun ship, was almost overwhelmed before daylight, mainmast gone by the board, all her upper spars splintered, rudder torn away, and the seas washing clean over her. The admiral took it with unruffled courage, although he was flooded out of his cabin, and arrived on deck with one leg in his breeches and his boots in his hand. For all he knew, the ship was about to go to the bottom,

but he ordered two of the lieutenants to examine into the state of the affairs below, and to keep a sufficient number of people at the pumps, while he himself and the captain kept the deck to encourage the men to clear away the wreckage which, by beating against the sides of the ship, had stripped off the copper sheathing and exposed the seams so much to the sea that the decayed oakum washed out and the whole frame became at once exceedingly porous and leaky.

The situation of the Ramillies seemed bad enough, but dawn disclosed other ships which were much worse off. Close to leeward was a large vessel, the Dutton, which had been a famous East Indiaman. She was lying flat upon her side, while the crew struggled to cut away the masts. Presently the naval lieutenant in command was seen to jump into the sea, which instantly obliterated him. A few of the crew slid one of the boats off the deck, and were whirled away in the foam and spray which soon engulfed them. Presently the ship dived under and was seen no more, and the last glimpse, as she miserably foundered, was the ensign hoisted union down, which gleamed like a bit of flame. Of the ninety-odd ships which had been seen in the convoy only a dozen hours earlier, no more than twenty could be counted. Some had been whirled away like chips before the storm, while others had gone down during the night and left no trace.

Hull down was descried the Canada; the Centaur reeled far to windward; and the Glorieux was a distant hulk, all three of them dismasted and apparently sinking. Of these stout British men-of-war only the Canada survived, and brought her people safely through. The Ville de Paris was still afloat and loomed lofty and almost uninjured, but a few hours later she filled and sank, carrying eight hundred men to the bottom with her. Of the merchantmen, not one within sight of the Ramillies had all her masts standing. They were almost helpless survivors, still battling for very existence.

Admiral Graves had no intention of losing his flag-ship and his life without fighting in the last ditch. Long lines of sailors passed buckets to assist the laboring pumps, and storm-sails were rigged upon the jagged stumps of the masts. The sturdy old Ramillies, with six feet of water in the hold, was somehow brought around before the wind, and ran as fast as the merchant vessels that fled on each side of her. After spending all day in pumping and baling until they were ready to drop in their tracks, the officers, through the captain as spokesman, suggested to the admiral that some of the guns be thrown overboard in order to lighten the ship. To this he vigorously objected on the ground that a man-of-war was a sorry jest without her battery, but they argued that a man-of-war in Davy Jones’ locker was of no use at all, wherefore the admiral consented to heaving over the lighter guns and some of the shot.

After another night of distress and increasing peril, the officers raised the question again, and

the admiral was prevailed upon, by the renewed and pressing remonstrances, to let six of the forward-most and four of the aftermost guns of the main deck be thrown overboard, together with the remainder of those on the quarterdeck; and the ship still continuing to open very much, he ordered tarred canvas and hides to be nailed fore and aft from under the sills of the ports on the main deck under the fifth plank above, or within the waterways, and the crew, without orders did the same on the lower deck.

The ship was sinking in spite of these endeavors, and the admiral now let them throw all the guns over, which grieved him very much, “and there being eight feet of water in the magazine, every gentleman was compelled to take his turn at the whips or in handling the buckets.”

These six hundred British seamen and officers were making a very gallant effort of it, and infusing them with his ardent spirit was the cheery, resourceful Admiral Graves, whose chief virtue was never to know when he was whipped. Under his direction the ship was now frapped, and if you would know how ancient was this method of trying to save a ship in the last extremity, please turn to St. Paul’s story of his own shipwreck and read as follows:

And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat;