A Portuguese Brig on the Sands—Futile Attempts to get her off—Sudden Break-up—Great Danger to the Life-boat—Great Probability of being Crushed—An Old Boatman’s Feelings—The Life-boat herself on the Goodwin—Safe at Last—Gratitude of the Portuguese Crew—A Blaze of Light seen from Deal—Fatal Delay—Twenty-eight Lives Lost—A Dark December Night—The almost-deserted Wreck of the Providentia—A Plucky Captain—An Awful Episode—The Mate beaten to Death—Hardly saved—The poor little Cabin-boy’s Rescue—Another Wreck on the Sands—Many Attempts to rescue the Crew—Determination of the Boatmen—Victory or Death!—The Aid Steamer nearly wrecked—A novel and successful Experiment—Anchoring on Board—The Crew Saved.
The emigrant ship mentioned in the preceding chapter was eventually got off the Sands; but although similar efforts are often made, they are by no means usually attended by similar results. The danger of waiting by the ship is very considerable. Gilmore gives us a good example of this in his account of a Portuguese brig on the Sands, of which there were, at first, strong hopes of saving. Her masts and rigging, as at first seen by the Ramsgate men, were all right, and her clean new copper was intact. “A grand thing for all hands—for owners, underwriters, crew, and boatmen—the men think, if they can only get her safely off when the tide rises, and bring her into harbour; a fine vessel and perhaps valuable cargo saved, and a pretty piece of salvage, which will be well earned, and nobody should grudge, for the boatmen have to live, as well as to save life.” The captain had at first refused to employ the services offered by the crews of two Broadstairs luggers, but at last was glad to avail himself of their assistance, coupled with that of the life-boat men and the steam-tug Aid. The boatmen got an anchor out astern as quickly as possible, the vessel being head on to the Sands, and used other means to assist the steamer’s work. They hoped that the Aid would be able to back close enough to them, to get a rope on board fastened to the flukes of the brig’s anchor, and to drag the anchor out, and drop it about one hundred fathoms astern of the vessel. All hands would then have gone to the windlass, keeping a strain upon [pg 226]the cable, and, each time the vessel lifted, heaved with a will—the steamer, with a hundred and twenty fathoms of nine-inch cable out, towing hard all the time. By these means they expected to be able gradually to work the vessel off the Sands. But they soon lost hope of doing this. The gale freshened about one o’clock in the morning; the heavy waves rolled in over the sands, and she lifted and fell with shocks that made the masts tremble and the decks gape open. The life-boat remained alongside, afloat in the basin that the brig had worked in the sands, and it took all the efforts of the men on board to prevent her getting under the side of the vessel, and being crushed. The Portuguese captain still refused to desert his vessel, while the boatmen, who knew the danger, were almost ready to force the crew to leave the ship.
Suddenly a loud sharp crack, like a crash of thunder, pealed through the ship. One of her large timbers had snapped like a pipe-stem, and now the Portuguese sailors were only too anxious to leave. Even then, however, they made a rush to get their things, and soon eight sea-chests hampered the life-boat. The captain did not like to refuse the poor fellows, although every moment was of consequence. The surf flew over the brig, and boiled up all around her; the life-boat, deluged with spray, had all her lights washed out. The snapping and rending of the brig’s timbers was heard over the fury of the storm; she was breaking up fast. The boy was handed to the boat, the sailors following, and the brig was abandoned. But the danger was far from over.
The steamer and the luggers, exposed to the full fury of the increasing gale, were outside, the former head to wind, steaming half-power. The steamer endeavoured to keep in the neighbourhood of the wreck and of the life-boat. One of the luggers had to cut her cable, without attempting to save her anchor, and make with all speed for Ramsgate; the second sprung her mast, which was fished with great difficulty, and she too made the best of her way for the harbour. The crew of the steamer could see nothing of the boat—Was she swamped or stove, and all lost? They made signals, but to no purpose; and the Aid cruised up and down the edge of the dangerous sands as near as might be, hoping against hope. The night was pitchy dark, and the storm remained at its worst. Through the thick darkness the bright light of the Goodwin light-vessel shone out like a star. With a faint hope, the crew of the steamer wrestled their way through the storm, and spoke the light-ship. Nothing had been seen of the life-boat. They hastened to their old cruising-ground. How they longed for the light! All hands were still on watch, and as the faint grey light of dawning came, they sought with straining eyeballs to penetrate the twilight, and find some sign of their lost comrades. It was almost broad daylight before they could find the place where the wreck was lying, and when they discovered it, lost all hope, for the brig was found completely broken up, actually torn to pieces. They could see great masses of splintered timber and tangled rigging, but not a sign of life. Sadly they turned from the fatal Goodwin, and made for the harbour.
To return to the life-boat, afloat within the circle of the bed worked by the brig in her wild careering. She could not by any possibility leave, though the wreck threatened to roll over her every moment, for outside were the shallow sands, and she was grounding every few moments. “Crash! the brig heaves, and crushes down upon her bilge; again and [pg 227]again,” says the narrator, “she half lifts upon an even keel, and rolls and lurches from side to side; each time that she falls to leeward she comes more and more over, and nearer to the boat.
“This is the danger that may well make the stoutest heart quail. The boat is aground—helplessly aground; her crew can see through the darkness of the night the yards and masts of the brig swaying over their heads, now tossing high in the air as the brig rights, and now falling nearer and nearer to them, sweeping down over their heads, swaying and rending in the air, the blocks, and ropes, and torn fragments of sails flying wildly in all directions. Let but one of the swaying yards hit the boat, she must be crushed, and all lost. The men crouch down closer and closer, clinging to the thwarts as the brig falls to them, casting dread glances at the approaching yards; all right once more; another pull at the cable—hard, men, hard; over again comes the brig; stick to it, stick to it, my men; crushed or drowned, it will be soon over if we cannot move the boat; another pull, all together; again and again they make desperate efforts to stir the boat, but she will not move one inch; they must wait, and, if needs be, wait their doom.” And so through hours of fearful suspense, half dead with cold and the ceaseless rush of surf over them, watching in the shadowy darkness the swaying masts and flying blocks, expecting each moment to be their last.
But at length a dawn of hope arrived; the boat lifted on the swell of the tide that was beginning to reach her, and though she immediately grounded again, the men knew that all was not lost. After desperate hauling on the cable they at last were able to ride to their anchor a few yards clear of the brig. But to get away from the sand in the face of the fierce gale and tide was impossible, and so there was no alternative, they must beat right across the sands, and this in the wild fearful gale, and terrible sea, and pitch-dark night. Breaker after breaker rushed furiously towards and over them; the men were nearly washed out of the boat; and, worse, the anchor began to drag, and every moment they drifted nearer to the wreck again. There might now be water enough to take them clear; at all events, they must risk it. The foresail was hoisted and the cable cut, and she leaped forward, but only for a few yards, when she grounded upon the sands again with a terrible shock, and again within reach of the brig. Huge breakers came tearing along, and, at last, after many such experiences, they were once more clear of the wreck. Then another danger arose. A small life-boat belonging to the Broadstairs men had been in tow all this time, and when the Ramsgate boat grounded she came crashing along into her. The Ramsgate men had, in the midst of the boiling sea, to fend her off with their feet, and at last cut her adrift. The sea-chests of the Portuguese sailors—or at least those not already washed away—were thrown overboard. Again and again she grounded on the sand ridges washed up by the surf—ridges giant editions of the little sand-ripples on the sea-shore so well remembered by all visitors to our coasts, but two and three feet high, instead of as many inches.
“One old boatman,” says Gilmore, “afterwards thus described his feelings:—‘Well, sir, perhaps my friends were right when they said I hadn’t ought to have gone out—that I was too old for that sort of work’ (he was then about sixty years of age), ‘but, you see, when there is life to be saved, it makes one feel young again; and I’ve [pg 228]always felt I had a call to save life when I could, and I wasn’t going to hang back then. And I stood it better than some of them, after all. I did my work on board the brig, and when she was so near falling over us, and when the Dreadnought life-boat seemed knocking our bottom out, I got on as well as any of them; but when we got to beating and grubbing over the sands, swinging round and round, and grounding every few yards with a jerk that bruised us sadly, and almost tore our arms out from the sockets; no sooner washed off one ridge, and beginning to hope that the boat was clear, than she thumped upon another harder than ever, and all the time the wash of the surf nearly carrying us out of the boat—it was truly almost too much for any man to stand. There was a young fellow holding on next to me; I saw his head begin to drop, and that he was getting faint, and going to give over; and when the boat filled with water, and the waves went over his head, he scarcely cared to struggle free. I tried to cheer him a bit, and keep his spirits up. He just clung to the thwart like a drowning man. Poor fellow! he never did a day’s work after that night, and died in a few months.’ And then the old man described how he took his life-belt off, that he might have it over all the quicker; how the captain cheered them up by crying out, ‘We’ll see Ramsgate yet again, my men, if we steer clear of old wrecks;’ and how he was going off into a kind of stupor when the clouds broke a little, and one bright star shone out, a star of life and hope to him. For seven whole days after the poor old man reached shore he lost his speech, and lay like a log on his bed, while all the men were considerably shaken. ‘I cannot describe it,’ said he, ‘and you cannot, neither can any one else; but when you say you’ve beat and thumped over those sands, almost yard by yard, in a fearful storm on a winter’s night, and live to tell the tale, why it seems to me about the next thing to saying that you’ve been dead, and brought to life again.’ ”
But suddenly the swinging and beating of the boat ceased: she was in a heavy sea, but in deep water, and she answered her helm. The crew soon got more sail on her, and she made good way before the gale. Even the Portuguese sailors lifted their heads. They had been clinging together and to the boat, crouching down under the lee of the foresail, utterly despairing of life; now their joy knew no bounds. They were noticed earnestly consulting together. They had lost their kits, and only possessed the clothes they stood in and a few pounds in money (about £17) between them, but the latter they determined to present to the crew. “I, for one, won’t touch any of it,” said the coxswain of the boat. “Nor I!” “Nor I!” all added; “put your money up.” And so to the harbour, where their consul took care of them. When the steamer arrived later on, what was not the surprise and delight of the captain and all hands to find the life-boat at her old moorings, and their comrades in so many dangers all safe in port!
For by far the larger proportion if not indeed nearly the whole of these life-savers work con amore, and a mishap or positive disaster is often to them an agonising disappointment. One stormy New Year’s Eve some years ago “a ship was seen off Deal beach in almost a blaze of light, burning tar-barrels and firing rockets, to tell of her distress; an intervening fog seemed to prevent the look-out on board the light-vessel seeing her, and some boatmen on Deal beach, who could not possibly get their boats off the sands in the face of the strong gale blowing straight on shore, put their halfpence together to pay for a telegraph message—the [pg 229]messages were dearer then than they are now—and sent their swiftest runner to telegraph to Ramsgate; and, after all, there was some unfortunate mistake, and fatal delay, and a telegram at last sent for further particulars, which was answered with a demand for urgent speed, and away then flew steamer and life-boat, and they neared the wreck, and rounded to, to send the life-boat in, when some of the boatmen thought they heard an agonising shriek, and others thought it was only the wail of the storm; but they looked, and the great green seas swept over the wreck, turned her right over, and she was seen no more, and twenty-eight lives went to their account. A piteous New Year’s tale it was that was told next morning. A boat’s crew got away from the ship soon after she struck, and, battling through the broken seas, made way before the wind to Dover, and they told the story that the lost vessel had picked up a shipwrecked crew, who were thus a second time wrecked, and at the second time lost; and that more of the crew would have come away in the boat, and in other boats, but it was a great risk; and there was a Deal pilot on board, who pointed out the danger, and said that the Ramsgate life-boat was sure to be out to their rescue, they might be sure of her; and so they stayed and lighted tar-barrel after tar-barrel, and fired rocket after rocket; and when the sea washed their signal-fires out and swept the decks, they took to the rigging, and waited for the life-boat; and as they waited, the poor Deal pilot could watch the light on the [pg 230]beach, by the house where slept his wife and eight children, who were to call him husband—father—no more.” The life-boat men hardly like to speak of such a cruel disaster—blameless though they be in the matter. In this particular case a Board of Trade inquiry acquitted them and all else concerned of any blame whatever.
A dark December night, and a large ship reported ashore on the Goodwins. The harbour-master hurries to Ramsgate pier-head; he and all with him can see nothing; they cross-question the man who asserts that he observed during a lift in the fog a vessel on the sands. Although there is no signal from the light-vessels, the harbour-master decides to send out steamer and life-boat. The crews of both soon discover the vessel looming through the mist, a complete wreck, her bow to the sea, her mizen-mast down to the deck, and the wild seas running over her. There are no sailors to be seen lashed in her rigging. Have all on board perished?
Thank God! not so. After infinite difficulty, and after nearly getting entangled with some of the wreckage, the life-boat crew get near the vessel, and find that three men and a boy are crouching under the shelter of the deck-house; they must be a small proportion of the original crew, for she is a large ship, and must have had some fifteen or sixteen hands aboard. The men have been crouching there for hours, and their confidence in the advent of the life-boat had been so strong that they had prepared for her coming by preparing a life-buoy, with a long line fastened to it, ready to throw overboard.
As the long hours passed, fervent hope had been dashed by wild despair. Suddenly the life-boat appears, coming up to her cable just astern of the vessel; it is to them as a reprieve from death, and they wake to life and action. They throw the life-buoy and line to the life-boat men, and after much trouble the latter get it on board. All hands lay hold on the rope, and do their utmost to haul the life-boat nearer to the wreck, but the heavy gale, terrific sea, and strong tide, render it impossible. A tremendous sea comes rushing over the vessel, and for the moment swamps the boat, knocking down five or six of the men, hurting some of them severely, but she lifts again, and no one is lost. But what of the poor crew? The life-boat men feel that it is impossible to haul their boat nearer the ship.
“To their great surprise, they see the captain spring up from the lee of the deck-house, hurriedly take off his oilskin coat, throw it into the water, and then, jumping on the gunwale, grasp the hawser that holds the boat, and slide down into the boiling sea. A huge wave breaks over him and washes him away from the rope; he now tries to swim to the boat, but the life-boat is not directly astern—the sheer she has to her cable that is fastened to the anchor, which was thrown over some distance to the side of the vessel, prevents her dropping right astern; and although the captain has but to swim a few yards out of the direction of the sweep of sea and tide, it is impossible for him to manage it. He is perfectly overwhelmed by the boil of sea, tossed wildly up and down, wave after wave beating over him: it is all that he can do to keep his head above water, and cannot guide his course in the least; the boatmen try all they can to make the boat sheer towards him, so as to reach him or throw him a rope, but it is impossible: they cannot get sufficiently near, and in a few seconds they see him swept [pg 231]rapidly by in the swift tide. Jarman, the coxswain of the boat, seizes a life-buoy, and throws it with all his force towards him; the wind catches it, and helps the throw; it falls near him; he makes a spring forward and reaches it; the men gladly see that he has got it; they see him put his two hands upon one side, as if to get upon it; as he leans forward it falls over his head like a hoop; he gets his arms through it, and shouting to the boatmen, ‘All right!’ he waves his hand as if to beckon them to follow him, and goes floating down in the strong tide and among the raging, leaping seas, in a strange wild dance, that threatens indeed to be a dance of death.” With terror and dismay they watch him in his fearful struggle, till he is lost to their view, quite out of sight among the waves; they could not follow him, however much they might have wished it, for it might be hours before they could get back to the ship, and the two men and boy still aboard.
And had they thought of so doing the next episode would have obliged them to desist. A tremendous crash startles them all; the mainmast has fallen over the port side of the vessel. The men on board give a loud cry; the chief mate springs wildly to the starboard quarter, and, making the end of the mainbrace hanging there fast round his waist, drops into the sea. He is a powerful swimmer; but what can he do in a tide and sea so tremendous that twelve strong men cannot haul the boat one foot against them? And so a fearful tragedy is worked out before their very eyes. Now he is buried in a sea; now he is thrown high in the air on the crest of a wave, but he never nears the boat, nor can it near him. He strikes out wildly, as if to make a last effort, and cries aloud in his agony and despair. They try again and again to throw the lead-line over the rope which holds the poor fellow, but the boat is pitching and tossing so much that their efforts are all in vain. “ ‘Now he rises on a wave; now try; heave with a will, well clear of his head. Ah! missed again; look out; hold on all!’ A wave rushes over them, boat and all; another half minute, and they make another attempt. No! all in vain, each time it falls short. The struggle cannot last long; strong and young as the man is, his strength cannot possibly endure long in such a conflict; his cries grow more feeble, and soon cease; they see him try and get back to the ship, climbing up the rope, but his strength fails, and he falls back; his arms and legs are still tossed wildly about, but it is by the action of the waves; his head drops and sinks; yes! it is all over!—all over with him!” Think of the second mate and cabin-boy on the wreck, watching in helpless horror the death they could not avert, and which may be theirs in a few moments!
The deck-house under which they have been crouching is beginning to break up, and the remaining man, throwing himself on the rope by which the life-boat is made fast to the ship, attempts to reach the boat. The breakers rush over him as he painfully struggles on, and he is again and again buried in the waves. At last he reaches the high bow of the life-boat, which is leaping and falling and jerking, tearing the hawser up and down in the seas, as if trying to throw him from his hold. His hands convulsively clutch the rope; pale, and with jaw dropping, he seems about to swoon, and in another moment he will be gone. “The man in the bow of the boat has been watching his every movement, has shuddered with dismay as he saw the seas wash over [pg 232]him, expecting him to be carried away in the strong tide. No; he still grasps the rope, and at last is within reach! In one spring, and with a cry to his mates, ‘Hold me! hold me!’ the boatman throws himself upon the raised fore-deck of the life-boat, and, with his body half-stretched over the stern, he grasps the collar of the sailor. The drowning man throws his arm around the boatman’s neck, and clings to him convulsively, by his weight dragging the man’s head down and burying it in the water; but the brave fellow clings as hard to the half-dead sailor as the sailor does to him; the seas wash bodily over them and over the bow of the boat; up and down the boat plunges them both, but he still holds on; three or four of the boatmen have hold of his legs, and are doing their utmost to pull him back into the boat, but they cannot do so; and so the struggle goes on: it is only as the boat rises on a wave and throws her bow up in the air that the men can breathe.” And now a new horror, for right down upon them comes the wreck of one of the ship’s largest boats, which has just got free of the wreckage. Thank God! it just passes clear of them. The boatmen cannot get the men in over the high bow of the boat, and the two poor fellows are drowning fast, and so they drag them along the side of the boat, still clinging together, to the waist of the boat, where the gunwale is very low, and with more assistance succeed in getting them aboard.
And now for the poor boy, still clinging to the gunwale, and crying out in piteous [pg 233]tones. Each moment, as the waves dash over the vessel, the boatmen expect to see him washed overboard like a cork. What can be done? No one can mount the rope in the face of the seas and tide which had really helped the poor fellow now safely on the boat. There seems no hope of taking him off by any means whatever, but the coxswain determines to haul the boat up to the ship sharply, and attempt it. Scarcely are the orders given, when some of the men give a cry, “ ‘What’s that? look out!’ Yes, he is overboard, washed over by that big sea. ‘Where is he? where is he? There he is! No; only his cap! there he lifts on that sea—he is coming straight for the boat!’ From the change and eddy of the tide, the rush of the sea past the boat is not nearly so rapid as it was, and the poor boy comes floating slowly from the ship; once or twice he has been rolled under by the waves, now he is on the surface again, and near the boat. ‘Here he comes! look! on that wave! Lost! No, he floats again! Slacken hawsers! Now he is within reach! Carefully, quick! Now you have got him! He is making no effort, and floating with his head under water!’ A boatman manages to hook his jacket with a long boat-hook, and pulls him towards the boat; gently the men lift him in, sorrowfully, and tears are in the eyes of more than one as they look upon the small face. ‘Poor little chap! Too late! too late! he’s gone!’ ” Their efforts are now all needed to get clear of the wreck, cut the cable, and raise the sail, all which being done successfully, they go off smartly before the wind, and have time to look to the poor boy again. Kind hands chafe his hands and rub his back and limbs, and put a little rum to his lips, and after about half an hour they have the joy of seeing him show signs of life, and their efforts are redoubled. Some of the men take the dryest of their jackets and wrap him up tenderly, lying him under the mizen-sail. He eventually recovers.
But, strangest part of all this eventful story, the captain, who had been two hours in the seething waters, is picked up alive, although, it may well be believed, in a terrible state of exhaustion. At first he seems to be dying, but at length, after the men have done their best in chafing and rubbing, he gets a little better, and is able to tell them that his vessel, the Providentia, was a full-rigged ship from Finland, and that he himself is a Russian Fin, which accounts for his miraculous preservation in the water, as the Fins are the hardiest of sailors. Eleven of his men had left the ship in their best boat, and were, it was eventually found, blown over to Boulogne.
The waves are rolling along in all their fury, and beat down upon the sands with tremendous force, and among them, and settled down somewhat, is a large barque. The life-boat men look at the awful rage of sea, and say to each other, “We have indeed our work cut out for us.” There are no signs of life on board the wreck, but the flag of distress is still flying, and the steamer tows the boat nearer to her. Then the crew is discovered crouching in the shelter of the deck-house, while the huge waves make a complete breach over the vessel, threatening to wash away both house and crew. The steamer takes the boat to windward and lets her go. The boat’s sail is hoisted, and she makes for the wreck. A minute more and they are in the broken water, the seas falling in tangled volumes over the boat, and she is tossed in all directions by the wild broken waves. She fills again and again, and the men have to cling with all their strength to the thwarts; but still the wind drives the boat on, and they get within about sixty yards [pg 234]of the wreck, when the anchor is thrown out and the cable paid out swiftly. The men shout out, to encourage the poor trembling wretches on board, and, just as they expect to make a first successful rescue of a part of them, are nearly swamped by a fearful wave, which carries them a hundred yards away. They prepare for another attempt, hoist the sail, and try to sheer her to the vessel, but all their efforts are in vain. Wave after wave breaks over them, and the boat is tossed in all directions by the broken seas. Sometimes the coxswain feels as if he would be thrown bodily forward on the men, as the waves almost lift the boat end on end. They must give it up for this time; the very oars are blown from the row-locks and out of the men’s hands. Again and again they are baulked in their efforts to reach the ill-starred vessel. Yet again and again they cheer, to keep up the spirits of its half-drowned and frozen crew.
The ship’s hull has now been under water for some time, and is breaking up fast. On board the Aid the mortar apparatus is got ready, in the hope of getting near enough to the vessel to fire a line into her rigging. “Cautiously the steamer approaches; the tide has been for some time rising fast; the steamer does not draw much water; they are almost within firing distance; the waves come rushing along and nearly overrun the steamer; at last a breaker, larger than the rest, catches her, lifts her high upon its crest, and letting her fall down into its trough as down the side of a well, she strikes the sands heavily; the engines are instantly reversed; she lifts with the next wave, and being a very quick and handy boat, at once moves astern before she can thump again, and they are saved from shipwreck; and thus the fifth effort to save the shipwrecked crew fails.” No time is lost; at once the steamer heads for the life-boat, and makes ready to again tow her into position for a fresh attempt. The masts of the wreck are quivering, and it is evident that she is breaking up fast.
The life-boat men consult together as to the plan of their next effort. At last one of the men proposes a mode, most assuredly novel, and which must, indeed, either prove rescue to the shipwrecked or death to all. “I’ll tell you what, my men, if we are going to save those poor fellows, there is only one way of doing it: it must be a case of save all or lose all, that is just it! We must go in upon the vessel straight, hit her between the masts, and throw our anchor over right upon her decks.” This is, almost naturally, derided by some as a hair-brained trick. Let us see the result.
“Once more the boat heads for the wreck—this time to do or to die; each man knows it, each man feels it. They are crossing the stern of the vessel. ‘Look at that breaker! Look at that breaker! Hold on! hold on! It will be all over with us if it catches us; we shall be thrown high into the masts of the vessel, and shaken out into the sea in a moment! Hold on all, hold on! Now it comes! No, thank God! it breaks ahead of us, and we have escaped. Now, men, be ready, be ready!’ Thus shouts the coxswain. Every man is at his station; some with the ropes in hand ready to lower the sails, others by the anchor, prepared to throw it overboard at the right moment; round, past the stern of the vessel, the boat flies, round in the blast of the gale and the swell of the sea; down helm; round she comes; down foresail; the ship’s lee gunwale is under water; the boat shoots forward straight for the wreck, and hits the lee rail with a shock that almost throws all the men from their posts, and then, still forward, she literally leaps on [pg 235]board the wreck. Over! over with the anchor. It falls on the vessel’s deck. All the crew of the vessel are in the mizen shrouds, but they cannot get to the boat: a fearful rush of sea is chasing over the vessel, and between them and it. Again and again the boat thumps on the wreck as on a rock, with a shock that almost shakes the men from their hold.” The waves carry her off, but the anchor holds, and they manage to haul on board another line. Again and again the boat washes away, but comes up to the vessel again; and, one by one, ten poor Danes are got on board. One sailor jumps from the rigging; the boat sinks in the trough of the sea, and he falls between her and the wreck; a second, and he would be crushed; two boatmen seize him, and are themselves seized by their companions, or they would go overboard.
The long battle was over; was it not one worth fighting? So thought the King of Denmark, who sent two hundred rix-dollars to be divided among the men, who were also rewarded by the Board of Trade. The boatmen are poor men, and such presents come in very acceptably; but their greatest satisfaction must ever come from the memory of their own brave deeds.
Probable Fate of a rich Vessel in the Middle Ages—Maritime Laws of the Period—The King’s Privileges—Cœur de Lion and his Enactments—The Rôles d’Oleron—False Pilots and Wicked Lords—Stringent Laws of George II.—The Homeward-bound Vessel—Plotting Wreckers—Lured Ashore—“Dead Men Tell no Tales”—A Series of Facts—Brutality to a Captain and his Wife—Fate of a Plunderer—Defence of a Ship against Hundreds of Wreckers—Another Example—Ship Boarded by Peasantry—Police Attacked by Thousands—Cavalry Charge the Wreckers—Hundreds of Drunken Plunderers—A Curious Tract of the Last Century—A Professional Wrecker’s Arguments—A Candid Bahama Pilot.
The great historian, Hallam, says: “In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a rich vessel was never secure from attack, and neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals was to be obtained from Government, who sometimes feared the plunderer, and sometimes connived at the offence.” As we have seen before, some of the greatest names of the Elizabethan and later days were often not much better than legalised pirates. But the poor sailors and owners were not merely the prey of these sea wolves; there were then and for centuries afterwards, nearly to our own days, “land-rats” ashore, who were to the pirates what sneak-thieves were to the highwaymen of romance. Those “good old days,” when “wrecking” was considered a legitimate pursuit!
In preceding chapters the maritime laws and customs of successive ages have been briefly traced. Piracy was almost openly recognised in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and a foreign ship with a rich cargo was too often regarded as rightful prey. There was a constant petty warfare between maritime nations, and frequently even between towns of the same nation. Thus, in the year 1254 some Winchelsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth vessel, and killed some of her crew.
[pg 237]Prior to the reign of Henry I. all wrecked property belonged to the king. Whether it was found necessary to make the king the owner of wreckage, in order to lessen the temptation to wreck vessels and murder the crews—no unfrequent occurrence, even in the last century—or “however it was,” says Gilmore, “the law existed, and the shipwrecked merchant might come struggling ashore upon a broken spar, and find the coast strewn with scattered but still valuable goods so lately his, but now by law his no longer any more than they belonged to the half-dozen rude fishermen who stood watching the torn wreck and dispersed cargo being wave-lifted high upon the beach.” Henry I. decreed that neither wreck nor cargo should become the property of the Crown if any man of the crew escaped with life to shore. It is to be feared that this well-meant law led to many a heartless murder. His successor expanded the law to the extent that if even a beast came ashore alive, the wreck and goods should belong to the original owners. Even the proverbial cat with nine lives might thus save a vessel.
Richard Cœur de Lion, always truly chivalrous, would have nought to do with plundering the plundered, and he decreed “that all persons escaping alive from a wreck should retain their goods; that wreck or wreckage should only be considered the property of the king when neither an owner nor the heir of a late owner could be found for it.” Some authorities will not couple the name of Richard with the “Rôles d’Oleron,” but it is certain that they were first promulgated in or about his time. They afford us some idea of the terrible system of wrecking then prevalent; such laws would not have been promulgated without good reason. Note their stringency.
“An accursed custom prevailing in some parts; inasmuch as a third or fourth part of the wrecks that come ashore belong to the lord of the manor where the wrecks take place, and that pilots, for profit from these lords and from the wrecks, like faithless and treacherous villains, do purposely run the ships under their care upon the rocks,” the law declares “that all false pilots shall suffer a most rigorous and merciless death, and be hung on high gibbets;” while “the wicked lords are to be tied to a post in the middle of their own houses, which shall be set on fire at all four corners, and burnt, with all that shall be therein, the goods being first confiscated for the benefit of the persons injured, and the site of the houses shall be converted into places for the sale of hogs and swine.” And again, “If people, more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs, murdered shipwrecked folk, they were to be plunged into the sea until half dead, and then drawn out and stoned to death.” The pilot who negligently caused shipwreck was to make good the losses or lose his head; but the master and sailors were, as a saving clause (principally for the owners!), to be persuaded that he had not the means to make good the loss before they cut off his head.
And so, without much change, the laws stood till the reign of George II.; and, alas! it does not seem that human nature, on our coasts at least, had greatly improved, for otherwise there would hardly have been necessity for a new Act, bristling with threats. The preamble states:—“That notwithstanding the good and salutary laws now in being against plundering and destroying vessels in distress, and against taking away shipwrecked, lost, and stranded goods, that still many wicked enormities had been committed, to the disgrace of the nation;” and it was therefore enacted that death should be the [pg 238]punishment for hanging out false lights to lure vessels to their destruction; death for those who killed shipwrecked persons; and death for stealing cargo or wreckage, whether any one on board remained alive or not.
Every now and again some fearful tragedy, reported in our ever-vigilant press, opens our eyes to the possibilities of human degradation and depravity; but, in spite of all, thank God! these examples are few and far between. Does this not tend, at least, to show that the world now-a-days is better and kinder, and, in a word, more Christian-like, than in former days? Let the reader think—aye, and ponder, and think again—over the preceding paragraph. Could men—aye, and women too—assist not merely in robbery and plunder, but in first causing the wreck, and then, to cover up all, in murdering the few poor survivors? A writer from whom we have already quoted says:—
“Imagine a homeward-bound vessel, some two hundred and fifty years ago, clumsy in build, awkward in rig, little fitted for battling with the gales of our stormy coast, but yet manned with strong, stout-hearted men, who made their sturdy courage compensate for deficiency of other means; think of many perils overcome, a long weary voyage nearly ended, the crew rejoicing in thoughts of home, of home-love and home-rest, the headlands of dear Old England—loved by her sons no less then than now—lying a dark line upon the horizon, the night growing apace, the breeze freshening, ever freshening, adding each moment a hoarser swell to the deep murmurs of its swift-following blasts, the ship scudding on, breasting the seas with her bluff bows, rising and pitching with the running waves, which cover her with foam!
“Look on land! Keen eyes have watched the signs of the coming storm; men, more greedy than the foulest vulture, ‘more inhuman than mad dogs,’ have cast most cruel and wistful glances seaward! Yes, their eyes light up with the very light of hell as they see in the dim distance the white sail of a struggling ship making towards the land!
“And now try to imagine the scene as the night falls and the storm gathers. Two or three ill-looking fellows drop in, say, to a low tavern standing in a bye-lane that leads from the cliff to the beach in some village on our south-western coast. Soon muttered hints take form, and in low whispers the men talk over the chances of a wreck this wild night. They remember former gains; they talk over disappointments, when, on similar nights of darkness, wildness, and storm, vessels discovered their danger too soon for them, and managed to weather the headlands of the bay.
“The plot takes form; with many a deep and muttered curse the murderous decision is taken that if a vessel can be trapped to destruction it shall be.
“There is an old man of the party whose brow is furrowed with dread lines; he does not say much, but every now and then his eyes glare, and his features work as if convulsed. His comrades look at him—twice—and, as a terrific squall shakes the house, a third time. Silently he rises, and leaves the inn.... Now in the pitch darkness of the night, with bowed head, and faltering steps battling against the storm, the old man leads a white horse along the edge of the cliff. To the top of the horse’s tail a lantern is tied, and the light sways with the movement of the horse, and in its movements seems not unlike the masthead light of a vessel rocked by the motion of the sea. A whisper has gone through the village of a chance of something happening during the night, and [pg 239]most of the men and many of the women are on the alert, lurking in the caves beneath the cliff, or sheltered behind jutting pieces of rock.
“The vessel makes in steadily for the land; the captain grows uneasy, and fears running into danger; he will put the vessel round, and try and battle his way out to sea.
“The look-out man reports a dim light ahead. What kind? and Whither away? He can make out that it is a ship’s light, for it is in motion. Yes, she must be a vessel standing on in the same course as that which they are on. It is all safe, then; the captain will stand in a little longer; when suddenly, in the lull of the storm, a hoarse murmur is heard—surely the sound of the sea beating upon rocks! Yes! look! a white gleam upon the water! Breakers ahead! breakers ahead! Oh, a very knell of doom! The cry rings through the ship, ‘Down, down with helm—round her to!’ Too late, too late! A crash, a shudder from stem to stern of the stout ship, the shriek of many voices in their agony, green seas sweeping over the vessel, and soon broken timbers, bales of cargo, and lifeless bodies scattered along the beach, while the shattered remnant of the hull is torn still further to pieces with each insweep of the mighty seas as they roll it to and fro among the rocks. Fearful and crafty the smile that darkened the dark face of the willing murderer who was leading the horse with the false light as he heard the crash of the vessel and the shrieks of the drowning crew! Fearful the smile that darkened the faces of the men and women waiting on the beach as they came out from their places, ready to struggle and fight among themselves for any spoil that might come ashore! A homeward-bound ship from the Indies! Great good fortune—rich spoil! Bale after bale is seized upon by the wreckers, and dragged high upon the beach out of the way of the surf. But, see! a sailor clinging to a bit of broken mast! With his last conscious effort he gains a footing on the shore, staggers forward, and falls. Is he alive? Not now! Why did that fearful old woman kneel upon his chest and cover his mouth with her cloak? Dead men tell no tales—claim no property!”
Alas! the above is no imaginary or exaggerated statement of facts.
A few examples, which have occurred for the most part within the last hundred years or so, are appended. They have been culled from that most rigidly correct chronicler, the Annual Register:—
Lent Circuit, 1774.—At Shrewsbury Assizes, bills of indictment were preferred by Captain Chilcot, late of the Charming Jenny, against three opulent inhabitants of the Isle of Anglesea, one of whom is said to be possessed of a considerable estate, and to have offered five thousand pounds bail in order to their being tried at the next assizes on a charge of piracy, when the bills were found. It appeared that on the 11th September, 1773, in very bad weather, in consequence of false lights being discovered, the captain bore for shore, when his vessel, whose cargo was valued at £19,000, went to pieces, and all the crew, except the captain and his wife, perished, the latter being brought on shore on a portion of the wreck. Nearly exhausted, they lay for some time, till the savages of the adjacent places rushed down upon them. The lady was just able to lift a handkerchief up to her head when her husband was torn from her side. They cut the buckles from his shoes, and deprived him of every covering. Happy to escape with his life, he hasted to the beach in search of his wife, when, horrible to relate, her half-naked [pg 240]and plundered corpse presented itself to his view. What to do Captain Chilcot was at a loss. Providence, however, conducted him to the roof of a venerable pair, who bestowed upon him every assistance. The captain’s wife, it seems, at the time the ship went to pieces, had two bank bills of a considerable value and seventy guineas in her pocket. At the Summer Assizes at Salop, Roberts and Parry, two of the above-named, were found guilty of plundering the Charming Jenny, but their counsel pleading an arrest of judgment, sentence was suspended. Eventually one was executed, and one had his sentence commuted.
On the 7th September, 1782, one John Webb was executed at Hereford for having plundered a Venetian vessel drawn on shore on the coast of Glamorganshire by stress of weather. No mention is made of hurting or molesting the crew, and it is evident that the laws were, about this time, stringently carried out. “This,” said the Annual Register, “it is hoped, will put a final stop to that inhuman practice of plundering ships wrecked upon the coast.”
Next follows an example in the present century:—“Jany. 8, 1811.—Another daring attempt (says the Register) was made by a party of country-people at Clonderalaw Bay to take possession of the American ship Romulus on this day. They assembled at about ten in the evening, to the amount of about two or three hundred, and commenced a firing of musketry, which they kept up at intervals for three hours; when, finding a steady resistance from the crew, and guard of yeomanry which had been put on the vessel on her first going on shore, they retired. The shot they fired appeared to be cut from square bars of lead, about half an inch in diameter. One of these miscreants dropped, and was carried away by his companions.”
The following is an extract from a letter:—“On Friday, the 27th of October, 1811, the galliot Anna Hulk Klas Boyr, Meinerty master, from Christian Sound, laden with deals, for Killalu, was driven on shore at a place called Porturlin, between Killalu and Broadhaven. The captain and crew providentially saved their lives by jumping on shore on a small island or rock. At this time the stern and quarter were stove in. The crew remained two hours on the rock, when they were taken off by a boat and brought to the mainland. Shortly after, the captain’s trunk, with all the sailors’ clothes in general, came on shore, when the country-people immediately began to plunder, leaving the unfortunate sufferers nothing but what they had on their backs. The plunderers repaired to the wreck, and cut away everything they could come at of the sails, rigging, &c., while hundreds were taking away the deals to all parts of the country. Though the captain spoke good English, and most pitifully inquired to whom he might apply for assistance, yet he could not hear of any for fourteen hours, when he was told that Major Denis Bingham was the nearest and only person he could apply to. With much difficulty he procured a guide, and proceeded to Mr. Bingham’s, a distance of twenty miles through the mountains. In the meantime, after thirty-six hours’ concealment of this very melancholy circumstance, Captain Morris, of the Townshend cruiser, who lay at Broadhaven, a distance of about ten miles from the wreck, heard of it, and, approaching it, landed with twenty men, well armed. In coming near the wreck he first fired in the air, in order to disperse the peasantry, which had no effect; he therefore ordered his men to fire close, [pg 241]which had the desired effect, when he immediately pursued them into the interior, from three to five miles distance, dividing his party in different directions, when, by great exertion and fatigue, they saved about 1,800 deals and a remnant of the wreck. Captain Morris had some of the robbers taken, but his party being so scattered, they were rescued by a large mob of the country. The unfortunate captain and crew were taken by Captain Morris on board his cutter, where they got a change of clothing, and were taken every possible care of.”
The following particulars of the wreck and plunder of the Inverness, in the river Shannon, loaded at Limerick with a cargo of provisions, under contract for the Victualling Board, and bound to London, will be found interesting:—
[pg 242]“Dear Spaight,—As I am now in possession of most of the particulars of the wreck of the Inverness, I shall detail them to you as follows:—
“She went on shore on Wednesday night, the 19th instant, mistaking Rinevaha for Carrigaholt, and would have got off by the next spring-tide had the peasantry not boarded her, and rendered her not seaworthy by scuttling her and tearing away all her rigging; they then robbed the crew of all their clothes, tore their shirts, which they made bags of to carry away the plunder, and then broached the tierces of pork, and distributed the contents to people on shore, who assisted to convey them up the country. The alarm having reached this on Thursday, a sergeant and twelve of the police were sent down, with the chief constable at their head, and they succeeded in re-taking some of the provisions and securing them, driving the mob from the wreck. The police kept possession of what they had got during the night; but very early on Friday morning the people collected in some thousands, and went down to the beach, where they formed into three bodies, and cheered each other with hats off, advancing with threats, declaring that they defied the police, and would possess themselves again of what had been taken from them, and of the arms of the police. The police formed into one body, and, showing three fronts, endeavoured to keep them at bay, but in vain; they assailed them with stones, sticks, scythes, and axes, and gave some of our men some severe blows, which exasperated them so much that they were under the necessity of firing in self-defence, and four of the assailants fell victims, two of whom were buried yesterday. During their skirmishing, which began about seven o’clock, one of the men, mounted, was despatched to this town for a reinforcement, when Major Warburton, in half an hour, with twenty cavalry, and a few infantry mounted behind them, left this, and in one hour and a half were on board the wreck, and took twelve men in the act of cutting up the wreck. One of them made a blow of a hatchet at Major Warburton, which he warded off, and snapped a pistol at him; the fellow immediately threw himself overboard, when —— Troy charged him on horseback, up to the horse’s knees in water, and cut him down. The fellows then flew in every direction, pursued by our men, who took many of them, and wounded several. Nine tierces of pork had been saved. Her bowsprit, gaff, and spars are all gone, with every stitch of canvas and all the running rigging. The shrouds are still left; two anchors and their cables are gone, and even the ship’s pump. A more complete plunder has seldom been witnessed. Yesterday the revenue wherry went down to Rinevaha, and returned in the evening with the Major and a small party, with thirty-five prisoners, who now are all lodged in Bridewell. The women in multitudes assembled to supply the men with whisky to encourage them. Nothing could exceed the coolness of —— Balfice and his party, who certainly made a masterly retreat to the slated store at Carrigaholt, where I found them. He and Fitzgerald were wounded, but not severely. Fitzgerald had a miraculous escape, and would have been murdered, but was preserved by a man he knew from Kerry, who put him under his bed.
A late case of plundering on a large scale occurred the 26th September, 1817. The [pg 243]Norwegian brig Bergetta, Captain Peterson, was wrecked on the Cefu-Sidau sands, in Carmarthen Bay. She was bound from Barcelona for Stettin, with a cargo of wine, spirits, &c., when the master, losing his reckoning, owing to a thick fog, fell into the fatal error of taking the coast of Devon for that of France, and acted under that persuasion. So circumstanced, a violent gale, together with the tide, drove the vessel into the Bristol Channel, and she struck upon the above sands, and in the space of two or three hours went to pieces. The master and crew, with great difficulty, got into the boat, and were all happily saved. Notwithstanding the greatest exertions on the part of the officers of the Customs, supported by several gentlemen and others, acts of plunder were committed to a considerable extent. Of 266 pipes and casks of wine, &c., not above 100 were saved. Hundreds of men and women were reduced to nearly a state of insensibility through intoxication.
A scarce and curious tract, published in 1796, exists in the library of the British Museum, and a few extracts from it will show the arguments by which the wreckers of the last century salved their consciences. It is supposed to be a dialogue between one Richard Sparkes, a chandler by trade, but a professional wrecker also, and John Trueman, “an honest taylor.”
“ ‘Good news! good news, neighbour!’ said Richard Sparkes, the chandler, as he entered a shop where John Trueman, an honest taylor, was at work. ‘The vessel which has been these three hours fighting with the surge and winds for the harbour has at last bulged. It is a trader from Amsterdam, they say, and faith! two thumping casks were floating before I left the beach. Rare sport, Master Trueman, rare sport, let me tell you! A good blustering wind and a high surf is no bad thing for a seaport.’
“Honest Trueman, who had not been long an inhabitant of the place, and was quite unacquainted with this language—which, to the disgrace of humanity, is too often used by the unfeeling on such occasions in seaport towns—suspended his work, and listened to this harangue with too much surprise to interrupt it. At length, said he, ‘Do you call this rare sport? Do you call this good news?’
“Sparkes. ‘To be sure I do. I mean to be out all night; the tide will return in about three hours, and I warrant it will bring us something worth looking after. But mayhap, as you are a new-comer, Master Trueman, you do not know the go at these seasons, so I will tell you. You must know that when a vessel strikes it is catch as catch can for her lading: one has as good a right as another, and he is the luckiest who can get most. We call it going a wrecking; and let me tell you it is no bad business. There is my neighbour Perkins, the pilot, got the Lord knows what by the smuggling cutter that was wrecked about three leagues from hence two months ago. Ay, cask upon cask of the best French brandy, and tea, and I cannot tell you what he got; but he has held his head pretty high ever since, for, as good luck would have it, she struck upon a shoal of rock where the Custom-house officers would not venture, so Perkins and a few more knowing ones had it all to themselves. As I told you before, Master Trueman, this going a wrecking is no bad business, so look about you.’ ”
Trueman upbraids the first speaker with dishonesty and want of humanity.
“ ‘Humanity,’ says Sparkes, ‘odds my life! neighbour, there’s not a more tenderhearted fellow alive. Many is the life my boat, when I was in the fishing trade, has saved from pure good-will; but as to the matter of the wrecking, every man must take care of [pg 244]his own interest. Charity, you know, Master Trueman, should begin at home.’ ” And he goes on to say that it was no fault of his that the vessel bulged, or that the master or cabin-boy were drowned; that it is all the chance of war, and that one vessel was the same to him as another, provided it were well laden. He added that he did not pretend to be better than his grandfather, and that wrecking was in fashion in his days and in those of his good old father before him.
Mr. D. Mackinnen, who made a tour through the West Indies early in the present century, particularly mentions the Bahamas as the home of wreckers. He says that the immense variety of banks, shallows, and unknown passages between the hundreds of islands which form the group render the chances of shipwreck frequent. In order to save the crews and property so constantly exposed to danger, the Governor of the Bahamas, about the commencement of this century, licensed a number of daring adventurers to ply up and down and assist ships in peril, and there could not have been collected a more skilful and hardy set of men. But, unfortunately, the governor’s good intentions were baulked by the larger part of them becoming wreckers. Mr. Mackinnen asking one of these men what success he had lately had, was told that there had been about forty sail of pilots along the Florida coast for four months. He remarked that they must have rendered great service to the crews wrecked in that dangerous passage. The pilot said, “No; they generally went on in the night.” “But could not you light up beacons on shore?” “No, no,” said the man, laughing, “we always put them out for a better chance by night.” “But it would have been more humane——” “I did not go there for humanity; I went racking!”