‘Plymouth, Jan. 28, 1796.
‘We have had a terrible succession of stormy weather of late. Tuesday, immediately after dinner, I went to the Hoe to see the Dutton East Indiaman, full of troops, upon the rocks, directly under the flag-staff of the citadel. She had been out seven weeks on her passage to the West Indies as a transport, with 400 troops on board, besides women and the ship’s-crew; and had been just driven back by distress of weather, with a great number of sick on board. You cannot conceive any thing so horrible as the appearance of things altogether, which I beheld when I first arrived on the spot. The ship was stuck on sunken rocks, somewhat inclining to one side, and without a mast or the bowsprit standing; and her decks covered with the soldiers as thick as they could possibly stand by one another, with the sea breaking in a most horrible manner all around them; and what still added to the melancholy grandeur of the scene was the distress-guns which were fired now and then directly over our head from the Citadel.
‘When I first came to the spot, I found that they had by some means got a rope with one end of it fixed to the ship, and the other was held by the people on shore, by which means they could yield as the ship swung. Upon this rope they had got a ring, which they could by means of two smaller ropes draw forwards and backwards from the ship to the shore: to this ring they had fixed a loop, which each man put under his arm; and by this means, and holding by the ring with his hands, he supported himself, hanging to the ring, while he was drawn to the shore by the people there; and in this manner I saw a great many drawn on shore. But this proved a tedious work; and though I looked at them for a long time, yet the numbers on the deck were not apparently diminished; besides, from the motion which the ship had by rolling on the rocks, it was not possible to keep the rope equally stretched, and from this cause, as well as from the sudden rising of the waves, you would at one moment see a poor wretch hanging ten or twenty feet above the water, and the next you would lose sight of him in the foam of a wave, though some escaped better.
‘But this was not a scheme which the women and many of the sick could avail themselves of.
‘I observed with some admiration the behaviour of a Captain of a man-of-war, who seemed interested in the highest degree for the safety of these poor wretches. He exerted himself uncommonly, and directed others what to do on shore, and endeavoured in vain with a large speaking-trumpet to make himself heard by those on board: but finding that nothing could be heard but the roaring of the wind and sea, he offered any body five guineas instantly who would suffer himself to be drawn on board with instructions to them what to do. And when he found that nobody would accept his offer, he gave an instance of the highest heroism: for he fixed the rope about himself and gave the signal to be drawn on board. He had his uniform coat on and his sword hanging at his side. I have not room to describe the particulars; but there was something grand and interesting in the thing: for as soon as they had pulled him into the wreck, he was received with three vast shouts by the people on board; and these were immediately echoed by those who lined the shore, the garrison-walls and lower batteries. The first thing he did was to rig out two other ropes like the first: which I saw him most active in doing with his own hands. This quickened the matter a good deal, and by this time two large open row-boats were arrived from the Dock-yard, and a sloop had with difficulty worked out from Plymouth-pool. He then became active in getting out the women and the sick, who were with difficulty got into the open boats, and by them carried off to the sloop, which kept off for fear of being stove against the ship or thrown upon the rocks. He suffered but one boat to approach the ship at a time, and stood with his drawn sword to prevent too many rushing into the boat. After he had seen all the people out of the ship to about ten or fifteen, he fixed himself to the rope as before and was drawn ashore, where he was again received with shouts. Upon my enquiry who this gallant officer was, I was informed that it was Sir Edward Pellew, whom I had heard the highest character of before, both for bravery and mercy.
‘The soldiers were falling into disorder when Sir Edward went on board. Many of them were drunk, having broke into the cabin and got at the liquor. I saw him beating one with the flat of his broad-sword, in order to make him give up a bundle he had made up of plunder. They had but just time to save the men, before the ship was nearly under water. I observed a poor goat and a dog amongst the crowd, when the people were somewhat thinned away. I saw the goat marching about with much unconcern; but the dog showed evident anxiety, for I saw him stretching himself out at one of the port-holes, standing partly upon the port and partly upon a gun, and looking earnestly towards the shore, where I suppose he knew his master was. All these perished soon after, as the ship was washed all over as the sea rose—she is now in pieces.’
CONVERSATION THE TWENTIETH
N.—Have you seen the Life of Sir Joshua just published?
H.—No.
N.—It is all, or nearly all, taken from my account, and yet the author misrepresents or contradicts every thing I say, I suppose to show that he is under no obligation to me. I cannot understand the drift of his work; nor who it is he means to please. He finds fault with Sir Joshua, among a number of other things, for not noticing Hogarth. Why, it was not his business to notice Hogarth any more than it was to notice Fielding. Both of them were great wits and describers of manners in common life, but neither of them came under the article of painting. What Hogarth had was his own, and nobody will ever have it again in the same degree. But all that did not depend on his own genius was detestable, both as to his subjects and his execution. Was Sir Joshua to recommend these as models to the student? No, we are to imitate only what is best, and that in which even failure is honourable; not that where only originality and the highest point of success can at all excuse the attempt. Cunningham (the writer of the Life), pretends to cry up Hogarth as a painter; but this is not true. He moulded little figures and placed them to see how the lights fell and how the drapery came in, which gave a certain look of reality and relief; but this was not enough to give breadth or grace, and his figures look like puppets after all, or like dolls dressed up. Who would compare any of these little, miserable, deformed caricatures of men and women, to the figure of St. Paul preaching at Athens? What we justly admire and emulate is that which raises human nature, not that which degrades and holds it up to scorn. We may laugh to see a person rolled in the kennel, but we are ashamed of ourselves for doing so. We are amused with Tom Jones; but we rise from the perusal of Clarissa with higher feelings and better resolutions than we had before. St. Giles’s is not the only school of art. It is nature, to be sure; but we must select nature. Ask the meanest person in the gallery at a play-house which he likes best, the tragedy or the farce? And he will tell you, without hesitation, the tragedy—and will prefer Mrs. Siddons to the most exquisite buffoon. He feels an ambition to be placed in the situations, and to be associated with the characters, described in tragedy, and none to be connected with those in a farce; because he feels a greater sense of power and dignity in contemplating the one, and only sees his own weakness and littleness reflected and ridiculed in the other. Even the poetry, the blank verse, pleases the most illiterate, which it would not do if it were not natural. The world do not receive monsters. This was what I used to contest with Sir Joshua. He insisted that the blank verse in tragedy was purely artificial—a thing got up for the occasion. But surely every one must feel that he delivers an important piece of information, or asks a common question in a different tone of voice. If it were not for this, the audience would laugh at the measured speech or step of a tragic actor as burlesque, just as they are inclined to do at an Opera. Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of the famous Pulteney—‘My Lord Bath always speaks in blank verse!’ The stately march of his ideas, no doubt, made it natural to him. Mr. Cunningham will never persuade the world that Hogarth is superior to Raphael or Reynolds. Common sense is against it. I don’t know where he picked up the notion.