CHAPTER X. UNCLE THOMAS TELLS ABOUT THE WRECK OF THE ALBION NEW YORK PACKET.
Many of the tales of shipwrecks which have happened on our shores, are extremely distressing; none more so, perhaps, than that of the Albion packet, which was wrecked on the Irish coast, in 1822.
The Albion was one of the first-class packet ships between New York and Liverpool, and sailed from the former place on the first of April, having on board twenty-three cabin and six steerage passengers, her crew consisting of twenty-five persons; making the entire number who embarked fifty-four. For the first twenty days the voyage was prosperous and pleasant. About two o'clock on Sunday the 21st, they made Cape Clear, and the weather, which had, during the earlier part of the voyage, been moderate and favorable, now became thick and foggy, the wind blowing fresh, with heavy squalls from the southward. The ship had been carrying all her canvass, but as the gale increased they were obliged to shorten sail. At four o'clock, they were under double-reefed topsails, foresail, and mainsail, when a sudden squall carried away the fore-yard and split the fore-topsail. They therefore got the broken yard down, and prepared to replace it by another.
As night came on, the decks were cleared for working the ship; the wind, however, lulled, and it was supposed that the storm of the day was over. As they were near the coast, all hands flattered themselves they should, in a short time, reach their destined harbor, and be once more secure from the dangers of the deep. About nine o'clock, the ship was struck by a tremendous sea, which threw her on her beam-ends, and carried away the mainmast by the board, the heads of the mizenmast and fore-topmast, sweeping the deck clear of everything, including boats, caboose-house, and bulwarks, and staving in all the hatches, and state-rooms, and nearly filling the cabin with water. It also carried away six of the crew and one of the cabin passengers, and, in short, so destructive was its influence, that it left the Albion in the state of a wreck.
As the ship now became unmanageable, and the sea continued to make a complete breach over her, both crew and passengers were obliged to lash themselves to the pumps, in order to keep themselves from being washed away while working them. All who were unnecessary or unable to afford assistance on deck retired below, but the water was knee-deep in the cabin, and the furniture floating about rendered their situation dangerous and dreadful. On deck they were in total darkness, and having no correct compasses, they could not tell how the ship's head lay.
About one o'clock in the morning of the 22d, they made the light of the Old Head of Kinsale, a light-house on the Irish coast, but could not ascertain its bearing, and at two o'clock they found the ship embayed. All night long the wind had blown directly on shore, towards which the vessel was drifting at the rate of about three miles an hour. The complete hopelessness of their situation was known to few on board; but to Captain Williams the coast was familiar, and he must have seen, in despair and horror, throughout the night, the certainty of their fate. At length the noise of the ocean roaring and dashing upon the rocky and precipitous shore, spoke too plainly of the fate that awaited them. The captain, seeing that the crisis was now close at hand, and that the wreck of the vessel was inevitable, summoned all the passengers on deck, and briefly told them that each must prepare to save himself, as the ship must soon strike—it was impossible to preserve her. The scene was one of the most touching description; many of them had received considerable injury when the sea first struck the ship, and were scarcely able to come on deck; others were completely exhausted from having been incessantly assisting at the pumps; and one gentleman, who had been extremely ill during the voyage, Mr. William Everhart, of Chester, Pennsylvania, was too feeble to crawl to the deck without assistance, though, strange to say, he was the only cabin passenger who was saved.
The situation of the passengers on board the Albion was, at this moment, one of peculiar agony, as they watched, without the power of resistance, the deadly and relentless blast impelling them to destruction—the ship a wreck—and the raging of the billows against the precipice on which they were driving, sending back from the rocky caverns the hoarse and melancholy warnings of death. In such a situation, the stoutest heart must have quailed with utter despair.