Lough Swilly, a harbour in the north of Ireland, is celebrated for the beauty of its scenery; but though, when inside the lough, the anchorage is safe, the entrance to the harbour is a very difficult and dangerous one, the coast being what is called iron-bound, and there being several reefs of rocks near the shore quite or partially covered by the sea.
The entrance to Lough Swilly is now protected by lighthouses, one on Fannet Point, and another on Dunree Head; and the various reefs and shoals are marked by buoys in such a manner as to render the entrance to the harbour safe. Formerly it was not so.
In the year 1811 the Saldanha frigate, Captain Packenham, was stationed in Lough Swilly as guardship; her usual anchorage was off the little town or rather village of Buncrana; but from time to time she weighed anchor, and cruised for a few days round the coast of the County Donegal. She had been stationed in Lough Swilly so long that some of the officers' wives had come to reside at Buncrana; one or two of the officers and several of the men had even married in the neighbourhood, and all had made friends with the gentry and other inhabitants of the surrounding country.
Early on the morning of the 11th of November the Saldanha left the moorings off Buncrana for a three days' cruise round the coast; but though the morning was fine and bright, about noon the weather became dark and lowering; and before the short November day closed, a fearful tempest raged over sea and land. That storm is still remembered as the 'Saldanha Storm;' and some old folks can recount the sad story of the anxious hearts that beat, and eyes that watched through blinding spray and rain for the lights of the returning ship. They were seen at last, not from Buncrana, but from the opposite shore, nearer the mouth of the lough, rapidly drifting into Ballymastocker Bay, along the strand of which the Fannet people eagerly thronged. In this bay there is a dangerous reef of rocks, and on it the ship was seen to strike. If a mighty cry went up, or if any effort was made to save the doomed vessel, no one can now tell. Of that gallant crew, one man only reached the shore alive. Him, the wild people (half-wreckers) placed across a horse, after giving him a draught of whisky; but whether it was done in ignorance or in order to hasten his end, could not be proved; suffice it to say, that before he could be taken from the strand to one of the country cabins, he died. Many bodies came ashore from time to time, and were reverently buried in the old churchyard of Rathmullan, where the grave and monument can still be seen. It is told that there were three widows that night in one house in Buncrana, two ladies and their servant.
Years passed by; and when the winter storms swept Lough Swilly, part of the sunken wreck of the Saldanha would burst up, and the yellow sands of Ballymastocker Bay be strewn with fragments of her planks and various relics of the unhappy crew. The night of the 6-7th January 1839 was marked by another mighty hurricane, as bad, the old men said, as the 'Saldanha Storm;' and in the morning, when the coast-guards made their rounds, the shores of the bay were strewn from end to end with timbers and broken chests, the last of the Saldanha.
Among other articles, one of the coast-guardsmen found and brought to his officer's wife a little worked case, such as ladies used to call a thread-paper. It was beautifully made and stitched, and still contained some skeins of sewing-silk and a few rusty needles. On the back were embroidered three initials. I remember the lady, Mrs H——, shewing it to me; and child as I was at the time, I grieved for the sad heart of the embroideress whose loving fingers had set the stitches.
More than twenty years passed away; Mrs H——, who had returned to live in Scotland, and had been left a widow, was spending a few days in the country-house of friends in one of the southern shires. Among the guests was a young gentleman to whom she took a particular fancy. One evening the conversation turned on Ireland and Irish scenery, and Lough Swilly was mentioned. Her young friend seemed much interested, asked some questions about it, and presently said that his mother had lost a brother many years before in Lough Swilly by the wreck of the Saldanha. Mrs H—— related all she knew of the circumstances, and finally said she had in her workbox at the moment a relic of the ship; and taking out the thread-paper, asked the uncle's name; which, strangely enough, was found to agree with the three initials embroidered on the little case. It further transpired that her young friend's uncle had been a midshipman on board the ill-fated ship, and was his mother's favourite brother.
Mrs H—— then put the little thread-case into his hand, and told him how she had become possessed of it. 'And now,' she added, 'take that home to your mother; shew it to her, and ask her if she ever saw it before. Should she recognise it, she is very welcome to keep it. If it did not belong to her brother, let me have it again.' The gentleman left next morning for his home; and a few days afterwards Mrs H—— had a letter from him, saying that his mother had at once recognised it as her own work, given to her darling brother when he last had left his home. Surely this relic of one so loved and lost, thus restored after more than fifty years, must have been as precious as though it had been some costly jewel.