The Yankee seamen were more cordially received than other and later visitors. Six years after the voyage of the Margaret the English sloop-of-war Phaeton appeared off the coast of Nagasaki. It happened that the inhabitants of that city had been expecting the arrival of one of the Dutch vessels from Batavia, and were delighted when a ship was signaled from the harbor entrance. When the mistake was discovered the city and surrounding country were thrown into great excitement. Troops were called out to repel the enemy, who disappeared after taking fresh water aboard. As a tragic result of the incident the Governor of Nagasaki and five military commanders who had quite upset the province during this false alarm, committed suicide in the most dignified manner as the only way of recovering their self-respect.
Again in 1811, the Russian sloop-of-war Diana lay off the Bay of Kunashiri to fill her water casks. Cannon shot from a neighboring fort and the hasty arrival of troops were followed by a series of protracted explanations between ship and shore, after which the commander and five of his crew were invited to a conference. First they were entertained with tea and saki and later made prisoners and led in chains to Hakodate. After some delay they were released and put on board the Diana to continue the cruise without apology of any kind from the Japanese.
The Salem shipmasters, under the Dutch flag, were fortunate enough to be welcomed when the French, Russian and English were driven from the coasts of Japan as foemen and barbarians. They were the first and last Americans to trade with the Japanese nation until after Perry had emphasized his friendly messages with the silent yet eloquent guns of the Susquehanna, Mississippi, Saratoga and Plymouth.
The Margaret, “than which a finer, better fitted or better manned ship never left the port of Salem,” deserved to win from the seas whose distant reaches she furrowed, a kindlier fate than that which overtook her only eight years after her famous voyage to Japan. Her end was so rarely tragic that it looms large, even now, in the moving annals of notable shipwrecks. There exists a rare pamphlet, the title page of which, framed in a heavy border of black, reads as follows:
“Some Particulars of the Melancholy Shipwreck of the
Margaret, William Fairfield, Master, on her
Passage from Naples to Salem.
Having on board Forty-six Souls.
To which is Added a Short Occasional Sermon
and a Hymn
Printed for the Author 1810.”
The little pamphlet, frayed and yellow, makes no pretence of literary treatment. It relates events with the bald brevity of a ship’s log, as if the writer had perceived the futility of trying to picture scenes that were wholly beyond the power of words. The Margaret left Naples on the 10th of April, 1810, with a crew of fifteen, and thirty-one passengers. These latter were the captains, mates or seamen of American vessels which had been confiscated by Napoleon’s orders in the harbors of the Mediterranean.
Aboard the Margaret were masters and men from Salem and Beverly, Boston and Baltimore, all of them prime American sailors of the old breed, shorn of all they possessed except their lives, which most of them were doomed to lose while homeward bound as passengers. “They passed the Gut of Gibraltar the 22nd of April,” says the pamphleteer, “—nothing of importance occurred until Sunday the 20th of May, when about meridian, in distress of weather, the ship was hove on her beam ends and totally disabled. Every person on board being on deck reached either the bottom or side of the ship and held on, the sea making a continual breach over her. During this time their boats were suffering much damage, being amongst the wreck of spars; they were with great difficulty enabled to obtain the long-boat, which by driving too the butts, and filling the largest holes with canvas, rendered it possible for them to keep her above water by continual bailing, still keeping her under the lee of the ship. It was now about 7 o’clock in the evening, the boat being hauled near the ship for the purpose of getting canvass, oakum, etc., to stop the leak, as many men as could reach the long boat jumped into her, and when finding the boat would again be sunk if they remained near the ship they were obliged to veer her to the leeward of the ship about 15 or 20 fathoms. They had not lain there long before one man from the ship jumped into the sea and swam for the boat, which he reached and was taken in. But finding at the same time that all were determined to pursue the same course they were obliged to veer the boat still further from the ship.
“They remained in this situation all night. The morning following was moderate and the sea tolerable smooth, at which time the people on the wreck were about half of them on the taff rail and the remainder on the bowsprit and windlass, every other part being under water. And they kept continually entreating to be let come into the boat. At this time casks of brandy and other articles of the cargo were drifting among the spars, etc., from amongst which they picked up a mizzen top gallant sail, 2 spars, 5 oars, 1 cask of Oil, 1 (drowned) pig, 1 goat, 1 bag of bread, and they hove from the wreck a gallon keg of brandy. They then fixed a sail for the boat from the mizzen top gallant sail.
“It was now about eleven o’clock when the people on the wreck had secured 2 quadrants, 2 compasses, 1 hhd. of water, bread, flour and plenty of provisions, as they frequently informed those in the boat, but would not spare any to them unless they consented to come alongside the ship, which they refused to do fearing their anxiety for life would induce them to crowd in and again sink the boat. One of them jumped into the sea and made for the small boat which he reached, but finding they would not take him in, he returned to the wreck.
“At about meridian, finding they were determined to come from the wreck to the long boat, they cut the rope which held them to the wreck. The wind being to the southward and westward and moderate, they made their course as near as possible for the islands of Corvo or Flores, having two men continually employed in bailing the boat. In this situation they proceeded by the best of their judgment (having neither compass nor quadrant) for five days until they fell in with the brig Poacher of Boston, Captain Dunn from Alicante, who took them on board, treated them with every attention, and landed them in their native land on the 19th of June.