TRAGEDIES OF THE SEA.

NZ Truth, Issue 135, 18 January 1908, Page 8

TRAGEDIES OF THE SEA.

— »i. THE CENTAUR AND HER XREW, Storm Swept and Staggering, — *'- SINK TO DEPTHS jfe^THOMED. • ■ * <' ■ Eleven Survivors m Their Last Extremity.

But to hear The roar of the raging elements ; iTo know all human skill,' all human strength. 'Avail not ; to look round and only see . , ,The mountain wave incumbent with its weight Ol bursting waters o'er the reeling ' bark— ' This is indeed a, dread and awful - ■ • ■ thing ! ■ "-• And he who hath endured the horror once Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm Howl round his home, but he remembers it, •And thinks upon the suffering mariner. — 'Scuthey. ' After the decisive engagement m the West Indies, on April 12, 1782, when the French fleet under Count de Grasse was defeated by Admiral Sir George Rodney, several of the captured ships, besides many others, Were either lost or disabled on their homeward passage, with a large convoy. Among the lost was the Centaur, of 74 guns, whose Commander (Captain Inglefield), with the master and but ten of the crew, escaped narrowly ffom the general fate. The Centaur, says , Captain. Inglefield, left Jamaica m. rather, a leaky condition, keeping two" •hand-pumps going, and when it blew fresh, sometimes a spell with a chain-pump was necessary. But I had no apprehension that the ship was not able to encounter A COMMON GADE OF WJND. " In the evening of September 16,' when the fatal gale came on, the ship was prepared for the worst weather usually miet in ..those" latitudes.. The' mainsail was reefed and set, the topgffllant masts struck, and the mizzenyard lowered down, though at that time it did not blow very strong. wards midnight Ht blew a gale- of wind, and the ship made so much. wa-. ter that I turned all hands up to spell the pumps. The leak still increasing, I had thoughts " to- try 'the 1 ship before the sea ; but the impropriety ;of leaving the convoy ,, ■ m the last extremity, and the hopes of the . , weather growing moderate,, weighed against the opinion ,that it ' was : right. About 2 a.mv the wind lulled, and we flattered ourselves -/the gale was breaking. Soon after we had mpch thunder and lightning from the S.E., with rain, when it began ' to . blow , strong m gusts of wind, which obliged me to haul the mainsail up, the ship, being -then under bare poles. rThis .was scarcely done when a gust of wind,-. .'_ „ . >■:■-. . - EXCEEDING- IN VIOLENCE anything of the kind I have ever seen ; or had any conception :of, laidjtfce.ship on her beam-ends. The water forsook the holds and 'appeared between decks, so as to fill the men's hammocks to "leeward ; the ship lay mo* Itionless, to all appearances irrecoverably overset. The water increasing fast, forced through the cells of the ports, and scuttled m the ports from tlie pressure of the ship. I then gave orders to cut away the masts, hoping when the ship righted to wear her. The mainmast went first, upon cutting one or two of the lanyards ; the nlizz-en-imast followed, and the forero/ast and bowsprit also went. Upon (this the ship righted with violence, and the motion was so quick that 'it was difficult to keep the pumps going. Three guns broke loose on the .main deck, and several men weje maimed before they were secured, everything moveable being destroyed.. The officers, who had left their beds naked when the ship overturned m the morning, were still unclad, nor could their friends supply them. The miasts bad not been, over • the sides ten minutes before tbe tiller broke short m th© rudder-head ; and before the fchocks could be placed, the rudder/

itself, was gone. Thus we were as much distressed as possible, lying at the " '" \ ■ -.'.'. MERCY OF THE WIND AND SEA. At daylight' l saw two line-of^hat-tle ships' to - leeward, one having lost hei" foremast and bowsprit and the other her mainmast. It was the Granada, the other the Glorieux. The Rdmilies'was not m sight, nor more than fifteen sail of the merchant shipsAbout' 7 a.m. I saw another line-of-battle ship ahead of us, which was made out as the Ville de Paris, with all her masts standing. We hoisted the Ensign on the stum<p of the mdz-zen-nnast, union downwards, and fired one of the forecastle guns. The ensign blew away soon after it was hoisted, and it was the only one we had remaining ; but I bad the satisfaction of seeing the Ville de Paris wear and stand towards us. I had not the smallest doubt that the Ville de Paris was coming to us, but, approaching within two miles., she passed us to windward. •Towards the morning of the ljth I was informed that there was 7ft. of water upon the kelson ; that one of the winches was broken ; that the two spare . ones would not fit, and that the hand-pumps were choked. At daylight there was no vessel m sight, and flashes from guns having been seen m the night, we f _aj:ed the only ship we had seen on the preceding day .had '-foundered. . By 10 o'clock the weather had grown more moderate, the, water . diminished m the hold, '.#_!_■ the irt'en were encouraged to redouble their "efforts to clear the ship, of water. On the morning of the 20th'. the forehqld was clear, and "we had'' the ~ PROMISE OP A FINE DAY. * jTihis, night', ihe" mien/got some rest by 'relieving the watches ; /but early next day we had the mortification to find that the weather again threatened, and by J noon it .'. blew a . storm. The Centaur labored greatly, and the water appeared m the fore and after hold, and increased. A large' leak was discoyered, and stopped m the foiehold," and another m the lady's compartment, but the ship appeared so weak from her laboring that it was clear- she could not last long. The stern-post was so loose, that, as the ship .rolled, the water rushed m on either side m great streams, which ; we could not stop. The sailors, till this period, had labored without a murmur, as if determined to conquer their difficulties ; but now, seeing, their efforts useless, many of them burst into tears and wept like children. Every time I visited the- hatchway 1,, observed ,t;he water increased, and at' noon washed even the orlop deck. The carpenter assured me the ship could not swim- long, and proposed "making rafts to float the ship's company, Whom it was not m my power to encou'rge any longer with a prospect of their safety. Some appeared perfectly resigned, went^ to their' hamtaocks, and desired their messmates to lash them m ; others were lashing themselves to gratings and small rafts ; but the most predominant idea was that . of putting on their best and cleanest clothes. The weather, about noon, had been moderate, and as rafts had been mentioned, I made the attempt, though I knew our booms could not float half our ship's company m fine weather ; but we were m a situation to CATCH AT A STRAW. While the preparations were being made, the Centaur was gradually sinking, the orlop deck having been blown up by the -water m the hold, and the cables floated to the gun '. deck. The men had quitted bailing, and -the ship was left to her fate. In the, afternoon of the 23rd the weather again threatened and blew strong -m 'squalls ?j the; sea ran high, and the yawl was staved alongside and sunk. As theftveuingi approached, the ship

seemed little more than, suspended m water. There was no certainty that she would swim from one minute to another, and the love of life began now to level all. distinctions. It was impossible, indeed, for any man to. deceive himself with the hope of being saved upon a raft m such a sea ; besides that, the ship m sinking, it .was probable, would carry everything down with her m a vortex to a certain distance. , It was near 5 o'clock, when, coming fr&m my cabin, I observed a number of men looking very anxiously over the side, and, looking myself, I saw that several men^ha-d forced the pinnace, and that more were attempting to get m. There appeared not a moment for further consideration; to remain and perish with the ship's company, to whom I could not he of use any linger, or seize the opportunity, which was the only way of escape—this, indeed, was a painful conflict. 4 THE LOVE OF LIFE j prevailed. I called, to Rainy, the only officer upon the deck, and immediately desoended into the boat, at the after-part of the chains, hut not without great difficulty did we get the boat clear of the ship, twice the numiber that the boat would carry pushing to get m, and many jumping into the waiter. Tho bioat, fallinjg a_tern, became exposed to the sea, and we endeavored to p.ull her bow round to keep -her to the break of the sea, and to pass to windward of the ship, but m the attempt she nearly filled. The sea ran too high, and the only probability of living was to keep her before the wind. Our condition was then very little, if any, better than those who remained m the ship ; at the best, it seemed onlj* a prolongation of a miserable existence. We were altogether twelve m number, m a leaky boat, with oiie of the gunwales staved, m nearly the middle of the Western Ocean, without a compass, without a quadrant, without sail, all very thinly clothed, m a gale 'of wind, with a great sea running. It was now 5 o'clock m the evening, and m half an hour we lost sight of the ship. Before it was dark a blanket was bent to one of the stretchers, and uncler it, as a sail, we scudded all night, -m cxv pectation of • BEING SWALLOWED UP by every wave, it being with great difficulty that we sometimes cleared the boat of the water before the return ,of the next big sea. All of us were half-drowned, and sitting, except those who bailed, at the bottom of the boat, no people ever endured more without having really perished. In the morning toe weather grew moderate,' the wind having shifted to the southward, as we discovered by the sun, and we 1 began to think of our future preservation. To subsist on we had a bag of bread, .a, ham, a niece of pork, two quart bottles of water, and a few French cordials. The wind continued to be southward for e-ieiit or; nine days, and providentially never blew so strong but. that we could keep the side of the boat to the sea ; but we were always most miserably wet and cojd. Our condition began to be pitiable, both frdm hunger and cold, for on the fifth day our bread was nearly all spoilt by salt water, and it was necessary to go on allowance. One biscuit was divided into twelve morsels for breakfast, and the same for dinner; the neck 'of a bottle foro-^ ken off, with a cork m, served for a glass, and this filled iwdth water was the allowance for twenty-four hours for each man.. But we must have perished ere this had we not caught six quarts of rain water by spreading a pair of sheets when it, rained. Tjftth this starvation wo grew very Mble, and, 'our clothes being wet, our bodies were m many places chaf ed with sores. On the 15th day wp had only one day's bread left, and ONE BOTTLE OF WATER remaining of a. second supply of rain. •But we . were convinced that, good spirits were a better support than any great bodily strength, for on this 'day Thomas Matthews, quartermaster, the stoutest man m the boat, perished from hunger and cokl. The -day before he had complained of want of strength m the throat, as he expressed it, to swallow his morsel, and m the night he drank salt water, grew delirious, and 'died without a groan. As it tiecame next to a certainty that we should all perish m the samemanner m a 4ay or two, it was somewhat comfortable 'to reflect that dying of 'hunger was not so dreadful as our imagination had represented. Others had complained of these symp.toms m their throats ; some had drunk their own urine, and all but myself had -drunk salt water. As soon as dawn came next day we found the wind exactly as we had wished, and, spreading our sail, we ran before the sea at the rate oi four miles an hour. Our last breakfast had been served with the bread and waller remaining, when John Gregory, quartermaster, swore that he saw land m the S.E. We had so often seen fogbanks having the appearance of land that I DID NOT TRUST MYSELF to believe it. But the nien were elated, and at length one of them broke out into a most immoderate, swearing fit of joy, and declared he had never seen land m his life if what he now saw was not land. We shaped our course for it, and, the wind freshening, we wont through the water at the rate of six miles an hour, and m two hours' time the land was plainly seen by everyone m the boat. It was at a great distance, so that we did not reach it until 10 o'clock at night. As we reared the shore, our belief was strengthened that it was Fayal, one of the Azores, a Portuguese possession off the African coast. The island of Pico, which might have revealed it to us, had the weather been clear, was capped with clouds. At length a fishing canoe bore down upon us, and afterwards conducted us into the road of Fayal about mid- j night. However, the regulations of the pott did not permit us to land till examined by the health officer, and we again slept m the boat without demur, the pilot having brought us refreshment of bread and wine, and water. In the morning we were visited by Mr Grahame, the British Consul, .whose humane attention made ample