This last circumstance was indeed a most terrible accumulation to the other extraordinary distresses of the Gloucester, and required, if possible, the most speedy and vigorous assistance; which captain Mitchel begged the commodore to send him: But the debility of our people, and our own immediate preservation, rendered it impossible for the commodore to comply with his request. All that could be done was to send our boat on board for a more particular condition of the ship; and it was soon suspected that the taking her people on board us, and then destroying her, was the only measure that could be prosecuted in the present emergency, for the security of their lives and our own.
Our boat soon returned with a representation of the state of the Gloucester, and of her several defects, signed by Captain Mitchel and all his officers; by which it appeared, that she had sprung a leak by the stern-post being loose, and working with every roll of the ship, and by two beams a midships being broken in the orlope; no part of which the carpenters reported was possible to be repaired at sea. That both officers and men had worked twenty-four hours at the pump without intermission, and were at length so fatigued, that they could continue their labour no longer; but had been forced to desist, with seven feet of water in the hold, which covered their cask, so that they could neither come at fresh water, nor provision: That they had no mast standing, except the fore-mast, the mizen-mast, and the mizen top-mast, nor had they any spare masts to get up in the room of those they had lost: That the ship was besides extremely decayed in every part, for her knees and clamps were all worked quite loose, and her upper works in general were so loose, that the quarter-deck was ready to drop down: And that her crew was greatly reduced, for there remained alive on board her no more than seventy-seven, men, eighteen boys, and two prisoners, officers included; and that of this whole number, only sixteen men and eleven boys were capable of keeping the deck, and several of these very infirm.
The commodore, on the perusal of this melancholy representation, presently ordered them a supply of water and provisions, of which they seemed to be in immediate want, and at the same time sent his own carpenter on board them, to examine into the truth of every particular; and it being found, on the strictest enquiry, that the preceding account was in no instance exaggerated, it plainly appeared, that there was no possibility of preserving the Gloucester any longer, as her leaks were irreparable, and the united hands on board both ships, capable of working, would not be able to free her, even if our own ship should not employ any part of them. What then could be resolved on, when it was the utmost we ourselves could do to manage our own pumps? Indeed there was no room for deliberation; the only step to be taken was, the saving the lives of the few that remained on board the Gloucester, and getting out of her as much as was possible before she was destroyed. And therefore the commodore immediately sent an order to Captain Mitchel, as the weather was now calm and favourable, to send his people on board the Centurion as expeditiously as he could; and to take out such stores as he could get at, whilst the ship could be kept above water. And as our leak required less attention, whilst the present easy weather continued, we sent our boats with as many men as we could spare, to Captain Mitchel's assistance.
The removing the Gloucester's people on board us, and the getting out such stores as could most easily be come at, gave us full employment for two days. Mr Anson was extremely desirous to have gotten two of her cables and an anchor, but the ship rolled so much, and the men were so excessively fatigued, that they were incapable of effecting it; nay, it was even with the greatest difficulty that the prize-money, which the Gloucester had taken in the South-Seas, was secured, and sent on board the Centurion: However, the prize-goods on board her, which amounted to several thousand pounds in value, and were principally the Centurion's property, were entirely lost; nor could any more provision be got out than five casks of flour, three of which were spoiled by the salt-water. Their sick men, amounting to near seventy, were removed into boats with as much care as the circumstances of that time would permit; but three or four of them expired as they were hoisting them into the Centurion.
It was the 15th of August, in the evening, before the Gloucester was cleared of every thing that was proposed to be removed; and though the hold was now almost full of water, yet, as the carpenters were of opinion that she might still swim for some time, if the calm should continue, and the water become smooth, she was set on fire; for we knew not how near we might now be to the island of Guam, which was in the possession of our enemies, and the wreck of such a ship would have been to them no contemptible acquisition. When she was set on fire, Captain Mitchel and his officers left her, and came on board the Centurion: And we immediately stood from the wreck, not without some apprehensions (as we had now only a light breeze) that if she blew up soon, the concussion of the air might damage our rigging; but she fortunately burnt, though very fiercely, the whole night, her guns firing successively, as the flames reached them. And it was six in the morning, when we were about four leagues distant, before she blew up; the report she made upon this occasion was but a small one, but there was an exceeding black pillar of smoke, which shot up into the air to a very considerable height.
Thus perished his majesty's ship the Gloucester. And now it might have been expected, that, being freed from, the embarrassments which her frequent disasters had involved us in, we would proceed on our way much brisker than, we had hitherto done, especially as we had received some small addition to our strength, by the taking on board the Gloucester's crew; but our anxieties were not yet to be relieved; for, notwithstanding all that we had hitherto suffered, there remained much greater distresses, which we were still to struggle with. For the late storm, which had proved so fatal to the Gloucester, had driven us to the northward of our intended course; and the current setting the same way, after the weather abated, had forced us still a degree or two farther, so that we were now in 17° 1/4 of north latitude, instead of being in 13° 1/2, which was the parallel we proposed to keep, in order to reach the island of Guam: And as it had been a perfect calm for some days since the cessation of the storm, and we were ignorant how near we were to the meridian of the Ladrones, and supposed ourselves not to be far from it, we apprehended that we might be driven to the leeward of them by the current, without discovering them: In this case, the only land we could make would be some of the eastern parts of Asia, where, if we could arrive, we should find the western monsoon in its full force, so that it would be impossible for the stoutest best-manned ship to get in. And this coast being removed between four and five hundred leagues farther, we, in our languishing circumstances, could expect no other than to be destroyed by the scurvy, long before the most favourable gale could carry us to such a distance: For our deaths were now extremely alarming, no day passing in which we did not bury eight or ten, and sometimes twelve of our men; and those, who had hitherto continued healthy, began to fall down apace. Indeed we made the use we could of the present calm, by employing our carpenters in searching after the leak, which was now considerable, notwithstanding the little wind we had: The carpenters at length discovered it to be in the gunner's fore store-room, where the water rushed in under the breast-hook, on each side of the stein; but though they found where it was, they agreed that it was impossible to stop it, till we should get into port, and till they could come at it on the outside: However, they did the best they could within board, and were fortunate enough to reduce it, which was a considerable relief to us.
We had hitherto considered the calm which succeeded the storm, and which continued for some days, as a very great misfortune; since the currents were driving us to the northward of our parallel, and we thereby risqued the missing of the Ladrones, which we now conceived ourselves to be very near. But when a gale sprung up, our condition was still worse; for it blew from the S.W. and consequently was directly opposed to the course we wanted to steer: And though it soon veered to the N.E. yet this served only to tantalize us, for it returned back again in a very short time to its old quarter. However, on the 22d of August we had the satisfaction to find that the current was shifted; and had set us to the southward: And the 23d, at day-break, we were cheered with the discovery of two islands in the western board: This gave us all great joy, and raised our drooping spirits; for before this an universal dejection had seized us, and we almost despaired of ever seeing land again: The nearest of these islands we afterwards found to be Anatacan; we judged it to be full fifteen leagues from us, and it seemed to be high land, though of an indifferent length: The other was the island of Serigan; and had rather the appearance of a high rock, than a place we could hope to anchor at. We were extremely impatient to get in with the nearest island, where we expected to meet with anchoring-ground, and an opportunity of refreshing our sick: But the wind proved so variable all day, and there was so little of it, that we advanced towards it but slowly; however, by the next morning we were got so far to the westward, that we were in view of a third island, which was that of Paxaros, though marked in the chart only as a rock. This was small and very low land, and we had passed within less than a mile of it, in the night, without seeing it: And now at noon, being within four miles of the island of Anatacan, the boat was sent away to examine the anchoring-ground and the produce of the place; and we were not a little solicitous for her return, as we then conceived our fate to depend upon the report we should receive: For the other two islands were obviously enough incapable of furnishing us with any assistance, and we knew not then that there were any others which we could reach. In the evening the boat came back, and the crew informed us that there was no place for a ship to anchor, the bottom being every where foul ground, and all, except one small spot, not less than fifty fathom in depth; that on that spot there was thirty fathom, though not above half a mile from the shore; and that the bank was steep, and could not be depended on: They farther told us, that they had landed on the island, but with some difficulty, on account of the greatness of the swell; that they found the ground was every where covered with a kind of cane, or rush; but that they met with no water, and did not believe the place to be inhabited; though the soil was good, and abounded with groves of cocoa-nut trees.
This account of the impossibility of anchoring at this island, occasioned a general melancholy on board; for we considered it as little less than the prelude to our destruction; and our despondency was increased by a disappointment we met with the succeeding night; for, as we were plying under top-sails, with an intention of getting nearer to the island, and of sending our boat on shore to load with cocoa-nuts for the refreshment of our sick, the wind proved squally, and blew so strong off shore, as to drive us so far to the southward, that we dared not to send off our boat. And now the only possible circumstance, that could secure the few that remained alive from perishing, was the accidental falling in with some other of the Ladrone islands, better prepared for our accommodation; and as our knowledge of these islands was extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for our guidance; only as they are all of them usually laid down near the same meridian, and we had conceived those we had already seen to be part of them, we concluded to stand to the southward, as the most probable means of falling in with the next. Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of our approaching destruction, we stood from the island of Anatacon, having all of us the strongest apprehensions (and those not ill founded) either of dying of the scurvy, or of perishing with the ship, which, for want of hands to work her pumps, might in a short time be expected to founder.
Footnote 1: [(return)]
Some remarks respecting the nature and treatment of this disease are now given in the original, but being imperfect and conjectural, are omitted here.E.