Dirty weather now for several days, the little vessel rolling and straining, and withal beginning to leak to an extent which caused no small anxiety to those in command. Still, however, she was quite up to mischief, and on the 8th December, the Ebenezer Dodge, twelve days from New Bedford, bound to the Pacific on a whaling voyage, was added to the fatal list. Forty-three prisoners were now on board, cooped up with the crew in the narrow berth deck, when the weather forbade their appearance on deck, and the little Sumter was beginning to feel herself overcrowded.
It became necessary to adopt precautions, and one-half the prisoners were now kept constantly in single irons, taking it turn and turn about to submit to the necessary but disagreeable infliction. The wind, too, hung perseveringly in the east, and things were getting uncomfortable. They were destined, as the following extracts will show, to be yet more so.
Wednesday, December 11th.—As ugly-looking a morning as one could well conceive. Thick, dark, gloomy weather, with the wind blowing fresh from the east, and threatening a gale (bar. 29.70 and falling) and a steady but moderate rain falling. Put the ship under short sail. Our large number of prisoners renders the crew very uncomfortable during this bad weather. At meridian, gale blowing, with thick, driving rain. Lat. 32° 48' N., Long. 49° 32' W.D.R. At 2 P.M., dense clouds hanging very low all around the horizon in every direction. Wind about E.S.E., inclined to haul to the southward. Bar. 29.59. The pall of clouds is not so dense as at noon, and the rain comes only occasionally in squalls. The clouds are rifted, and appear to be on the point of rapid motion. Wore ship to the northward and eastward. The wind soon after backed to the northward and eastward, and we had to run the ship off N.W. for a while. Towards night, however, the wind went back to E., and blew very fiercely, raising very heavy and irregular sea-squalls of rain. The lightning was very vivid. It blew very heavily until about 1 A.M., when it abated for more than two hours, blowing only in puffs, and then not very hard. Near the centre of the cyclone, lowest barometer. A little past midnight a quartermaster entered with the report that the starboard-bow port had been stove in! It was then blowing furiously. I immediately despatched the first lieutenant to barricade the port and stop out the water as effectually as possible, in which he succeeded pretty well. This report gave me considerable anxiety, as the ports in the gun-deck and the uppermost works of the ship are her weak points at which the gale would assault her with most effect. In the meantime the barometer has been gradually settling, settling, settling—sometimes remaining stationary for several hours and then going down as before. At 8 P.M. it was 29.53. We had an awful night—no one able to sleep.
Thursday, December 12th.—Thick, gloomy weather, with the gale raging as fiercely as ever. It blew very heavily all the morning. The barometer continued to sink until it reached 29.32—at 6 A.M. its lowest point. The wind has hauled to the south. We are evidently in a cyclone, having taken it in its northern quarter, the gale travelling north. On the starboard tack, its centre has passed to the west of us. Ordered the donkey engine to be got ready for use last night, in case the ship should make more water than the small bilge pumps could throw out. Carried away the flying jibboom at 7.30 A.M.—saved the sail. As the gale progressed the wind hauled to the south and west; and at 4 P.M., judging that the strength of the gale had passed us, I kept the ship on her course, E. by S., which gave a quartering wind and sea; and although the sea was heavy, and the wind yet blowing a gale, she made beautiful weather of it, scudding as well as she had lain to. The wind blew fresh all night, with a slowly rising barometer.
Escaped the "cyclone," a fresh danger threatened, and from the element more feared by the sailor than either wind or water in their wildest moods. It was about midnight of December the 14th that the watch on deck were startled by the smell of fire, soon followed by the appearance of smoke pouring out of the ventilator leading up from the berth deck. The alarm was immediately given; hands turned up and sent to quarters, and a strict investigation made. Fortunately no damage was done except to a mattress and pea-jacket which were partly consumed; but the escape was a narrow one, and the sentries on duty below no doubt considered themselves well off, to escape with no other punishment for their carelessness than a week's stoppage of their grog.
On went the Sumter with varying fortune, now running pleasant races with some huge whale, that left a track upon the water almost as broad as her own; now rolling and tumbling in a gale, with ports barricaded to keep the water out, and donkey engine ringed to keep it under. And at last the continued bad weather and consequent confinement to the crowded lower deck, began to tell upon the health of the crew, and no less than twelve were at one time upon the sick list. The little vessel herself, too, was getting rapidly invalided. The leak increased terribly, and fully half the day was taken up at the pumps. The Christmas-tide entries in the Journal are as follows:—
Tuesday, December 24th.—An unpropitious Christmas-eve; the gale of last night continuing, with rain and a densely overcast sky. The barometer is rising, however, which is a portent that the gale will not last long. I have abandoned the idea of attempting to run into Fayal. These Azores seem to be so guarded by the Furies of the storm, that it would appear to be a matter of great difficulty to reach them in the winter season. We have thirty-eight days of water on board, allowing a gallon to a man; but still I have put the officers and crew on the allowance of three quarts per day. I will run for the Straits of Gibraltar, which will carry me in the vicinity of Madeira, should I have occasion to make a port sooner.
Weather breaking somewhat at noon, but still thickly overcast. No observation. Lat. 37° 31' N., Long. 31° 71' W. by computation. It freshened up from the N. at 2 P.M., and blew a gale of wind all night from N.N.E. to N.N.W. Running off with the wind a little abaft the beam very comfortably; but the two small pumps were kept going nearly all night. They do little more than keep her free.
Wednesday, December 25th.—Christmas-day! Bringing with it, away here in mid-ocean, all the kindly recollections of the season and home, and church and friends. Alas! how great the contrast between these things and our present condition. A leaky ship filled with prisoners of war, striving to make a port through the almost constantly recurring gales of the North Atlantic in mid-winter! Sick list—ten of the crew, and four prisoners. Wind fresh from the N.W. We are making a good run these twenty-four hours. Lat. 36'08 N., Long. 28-42 W. Weather cloudy, and looking squally and ugly, with a falling barometer, it being at noon 29.70; 29.80 is the highest it has been since the last gale. A series of gales commenced on the 19th inst. Altered our course from S.E. by E. to S.E. to avoid the St. Mary's bank; a Captain Livingstone having reported, about forty years ago, that he saw white waters hereabouts, and no nation having thought it worth while to verify the report. Thermometer 63°. Heavy rain-squalls. The weather during the night was dirty and squally, with lightning all around the horizon by turns, and heavy rain.. Spliced the main-brace.
The 26th December brought the Sumter off Cape Flyaway, and once more she was rapidly approaching the ordinary track of commerce.