At the precise moment of the explosion on board the "Donna Maria," we were probably as near as it would have been possible to have been in our relative moorings, lying broadside on, but a little astern of her; our starboard battery could have been brought to bear a point forward of the beam; and this very proximity was doubtless the cause of our escaping serious injury. Two of her heavy guns passed entirely over us, clearing our royal masts, and falling into the water about twenty feet on our port beam. Our main deck awning was spotted, as if a shower of blood had passed over it. Some shot, pieces of lead, fragments of spars, and the brains and entrails of the sufferers were lodged in the tops, and other parts of our ship. The gig was stove, but her keeper escaped without injury; another boat-keeper was not so fortunate, an iron bolt striking him on the knee, and maiming him for life.
A gun carriage was thrown past us into the fort, breaking through the roof, and falling directly in the place where an officer had been seated writing, but a few moments before.
After the explosion a number of smaller ones took place, and then the remains of the ill-fated frigate burned to the water's edge.
Her magazine was said to have contained eighteen thousand pounds of powder. Three hundred barrels of sixty pounds each, for which orders came out a few days later, to be stowed in the magazine in Macào, and the frigate to proceed to Lisbon.
The disaster was attributed to design. The gunner was said to have fired the magazine for revenge.
It was said that only a few days previous, he had been severely reprimanded by the Captain, for some neglect of duty, and that the Captain had pulled his beard.
Afterwards he told his messmates that he could not survive such an indignity, that he was an old man, and had not long to live, but when he died, others should die too.
This is the way the Portuguese account for the loss of the vessel and her crew.
Out of all those picked up, but one survived! Our own escape can only be attributed to the protecting hand of that Providence, without whose knowledge not even the smallest sparrow can fall to the ground unnoticed.