After completing his college course, Douglas received a lieutenant’s commission, and in 1795 assumed the command of a small artillery corps in the north of England. His headquarters were in Tynemouth Castle, and he had detachments at Sunderland, Hartlepool, and Berwick-upon-Tweed. His entire force in gunners fell short of fifty men; yet this was at a time when the risk of invasion appeared to be imminent, and Douglas and his gunners were necessarily exposed to bear the brunt of it. The young lieutenant felt how perfectly inefficient his force was, and cast about to devise some means of increasing it. He asked first for a reinforcement of artillerymen, which could not be afforded. He then suggested to the general officer of the district the propriety of drilling a portion of his infantry to the great-gun exercise; and himself, with unwearied diligence, instructed thirty men from each of the regiments quartered within many miles of Tynemouth. He was not, however, satisfied even with this—the thought struck him that he might enlist the sympathies of the fishermen and coasting sailors in the cause which he had at heart; and having obtained through General Balfour the sanction of the Government, he invited them to form themselves into companies of volunteer artillery. Upwards of five hundred fine fellows answered to the call; and the thoughtful lad had soon the satisfaction of knowing that danger, if it did come, would not find him unprepared, and that the merit of having provided a remedy for a great and acknowledged evil was entirely his own.
It is not to be supposed that the young man was so given up to serious matters as to turn away from the recreations common to his age and profession: on the contrary, Douglas seems to have been at Tynemouth the gayest of the gay. He danced well, rode well, established a yacht in which he made many adventurous cruises, and won the hearts of young and old by his frank and graceful manners. But sterner work awaited him, and the romance of his existence began.
Early in August 1795 he received orders to take charge of a detachment of troops, which, with women and children, were to proceed from Woolwich to Quebec. He joined the Phillis transport at Gravesend, and found himself the senior officer, with six subalterns besides himself on board. To him the prospect of a voyage across the Atlantic was a positive delight. What cared he about the inadequacy of accommodation, or the wretched nature of the food which was then issued to soldiers embarked? His thoughts were entirely given up to the great object of his boyish fancy—the actual navigation of a ship out of sight of land, and all the enterprise and excitement incident thereto. Never neglecting his own proper duties, he accordingly found time to make himself one of the crew, and, sharing their labours, and evincing perfect intelligence of all that was required, he won more than the goodwill, the confidence and respect of every one on board.
The Phillis was a slow sailer. She encountered various changes of weather, behaving, upon the whole, tolerably well, though sometimes uneasy and always uncomfortable. At last, however, a tempest overtook her about forty leagues to the east of the southern entrance of the Gulf of St Lawrence, and the sea swept over her decks, knocking the boats from their fastenings. The gale lasted all that day and throughout the night; but a lull came in the morning, and the women and children, who had been kept below, were allowed to come on deck. The same evening the officers entertained the skipper, and all were rejoicing in the prospect of escape from danger, when the mate suddenly broke into the cabin and requested the captain to follow him. Douglas guessed from the manner of the two men that something must be wrong. He ran up the companion-stair, and heard—for he could see nothing—the roar of breakers close ahead. The ship had drifted before the wind, and was already in imminent danger. Immediately the soldiers were ordered up, and, with their assistance, the best bower anchor was let go. But though it seemed to check the vessel for a moment, it soon began to drag; and, with breakers on the bow, practised eyes discovered that there was land on both quarters—that the ship was embayed.
It was evident, under such circumstances, that the single chance of saving the lives of those on board was to force the Phillis, if possible, round a projecting reef on her lee bow. But this could be done only by making more sail, and to go aloft at that moment and shake out reefs was a service of the utmost hazard. The seamen ordered to do so hung back, whereupon Douglas sprang into the shrouds, and, followed by two cabin-boys, accomplished the operation. The consequence was that the Phillis bore up and cleared the point, though very narrowly; but it was a mere respite from danger. The storm grew more and more tremendous. The boats could with difficulty be moved, and one of them (the long-boat) was scarce got over the side ere she went to pieces. The ship was now upon the rocks, and another boat was lowered chiefly by the exertions of the soldiers. But she in her turn seemed in danger of being broken to pieces; whereupon Douglas, followed by two officers, sprang in, hoping to fend her off from the ship’s side. Already she was more than half full of water, which compelled the three youths to spring back, in doing which Douglas missed his footing and fell into the sea. Happily he had divested himself of most of his clothing, and his skill as a swimmer stood him in good stead, for he rose upon the top of a wave, and one of his friends, seizing his collar at the moment, dragged him on to the deck.
Shipwreck under any circumstances is an awful thing. The wreck of the Phillis went on, so to speak, through two days and as many nights. Men and women went overboard; children died from exposure in their mothers’ arms. One poor fellow struck out in despair for the land, and was lost among the breakers. The first raft which the survivors constructed carried two of their number to the shore, who, regardless of the fate of their companions, immediately deserted. A second raft was put together, and on that Mr Douglas reached the land. He had carried a rope with him, and began immediately to construct a bridge. Fortunately the wind lulled at this moment, and the wreck was cleared of its living occupants. But scarcely was this done ere the Phillis went to pieces without an opportunity having been afforded of securing the means of subsistence even for a single day.
The sufferings of these poor people on the barren cliff to which they escaped were dreadful. Happily the waves brought ashore some pieces of cloth as well as a cask of wine and a quantity of smoked pork. But the sailors seized the wine and drank it; and the first night was spent in cold and misery, for the snow lay deep on the ground, and there was no fuel with which to make a fire. All lay down and slept—a sleep from which they would probably never have wakened had not Douglas been roused by a fearful scream, to which the wife of his servant gave utterance. She had gone mad from privations and excitement, and died shrieking to the last, so that her voice was heard over the wind and rain. She had outlived all the women who went on board at Gravesend, and not a child survived.
Mr Douglas was at this time barely nineteen years of age, yet such was the force of his character that all about him, seamen as well as soldiers, looked to him for instructions. He rescued a second cask of wine from being broached this time by soldiers, though not without a struggle. “We are all equals now,” said the leader of the mutineers; “we’ll take no orders from you or anybody else.” “Won’t you!” cried Douglas, springing at his throat with a knife; “you are under my command; and if you don’t obey, by heavens, I’ll kill you!” The man yielded; the small stock of provisions and wine was secured, and after a vain attempt to penetrate through the forest, the whole party returned again to the cliff—there to wait till either help should come from the sea, or famine do its work and destroy them.
A feeling of despair was beginning to gain the mastery, when one day the cry was heard, “A sail! a sail!” They had already set up a spar, and hoisted a piece of cloth upon it; but the object was small, and might not be discerned from a distance, and then what a fate awaited them! It was not, however, so ordered. The sail approached; she was a small schooner trading between St John and Great Jarvis; and the crew gave back the cheer which the poor castaways raised in their agony, crowding at the same time to the beach. They were all taken off and carried to the place whither the schooner was bound, and spent the winter, roughly but not unhappily, among the honest fishermen who had there established themselves.
The winter seemed long, the days being very short in that latitude. Not ungrateful, but tired of the monotony, Douglas purchased a whale-boat, and, having fitted it with a deck, determined, as soon as the season should advance a little, to risk a voyage to the West Indies. Several of his brother officers agreed to share the danger with him, and they got a St Lawrence pilot and a seaman from Newfoundland to join them. But a succession of heavy gales hindered them from starting till April was far spent. At last, just as their preparations were completed, there arrived in the harbour a schooner bound from Halifax to St John, the commander of which had heard of their misfortunes, and gone out of his way to offer them assistance. Adventurous as they were, Douglas and his friends did not hesitate to abandon their own project, and to avail themselves of the superior accommodation thus placed at their disposal. They were accordingly conveyed in the first instance to St John, Mr Douglas doing seaman’s duty throughout the voyage, and by-and-by to Halifax, whither, after discharging cargo, the schooner returned.