Part 16

The day was calm and beautiful. A ray of hope beamed for a moment to quiet our agitation. We still expected to see the boats or some ships, and addressed our prayers to the Eternal, on whom we placed our trust. The half of our men were extremely feeble, and bore upon their faces the stamp of approaching dissolution. The evening arrived, and we found no help. The darkness of the third night augmented our fears, but the wind was still, and the sea less agitated. The sun of the fourth morning since our departure shone upon our disaster, and showed us ten or twelve of our companions stretched lifeless upon the raft. This sight struck us most forcibly, as it told us we would be soon extended in the same manner in the same place. We gave their bodies to the sea for a grave, reserving only one to feed those who, but the day before, had held his trembling hands, and sworn to him eternal friendship. This day was beautiful. Our souls, anxious for more delightful sensations, were in harmony with the aspect of the heavens, and got again a new ray of hope. Towards four in the afternoon, an unlooked for event happened which gave us some consolation. A shoal of flying fish passed under our raft, and as there were an infinite number of openings between the pieces which composed it, the fish were entangled in great quantities. We threw ourselves upon them, and captured a considerable number. We took about two hundred and put them in an empty barrel; we opened them as we caught them, and took out what is called their milt. This food seemed delicious: but one man would have required a thousand. Our first emotion was to give to God renewed thanks for this unhoped for favor.

An ounce of gunpowder having been found in the morning, was dried in the sun during the day, which was very fine; a steel, gunflints, and tinder made also a part of the same parcel. After a good deal of difficulty we set fire to some fragments of dry linen. We made a large opening in the side of an empty cask, and placed at the bottom of it several wet things, and upon this kind of scaffolding we set our fire; all of which we placed on a barrel that the sea-water might not extinguish it. We cooked some fish and eat them with extreme avidity; but our hunger was such, and our portion so small, that we added to it some of the sacrilegious viands, which the cooking rendered less revolting. This some of the officers touched for the first time. From this day we continued to eat it; but we could no longer dress it, the means of making a fire having been entirely lost; the barrel having caught fire we extinguished it without being able to preserve anything to rekindle it on the morrow. The powder and tinder were entirely gone. This meal gave us all additional strength to support our fatigues. The night was tolerable, and would have been happy, had it not been signalized by a new massacre.

Some Spaniards, Italians, and negroes, had formed a plot to throw us all into the sea. The negroes had told them that they were very near the shore, and that, when there, they would enable them to traverse Africa without danger. We had to take to our arms again, the sailors, who had remained faithful to us, pointing out to us the conspirators. The first signal for battle was given by a Spaniard, who, placing himself behind the mast, holding fast by it, made the sign of the Cross with one hand, invoking the name of God, and with the other held a knife. The sailors seized him and threw him into the sea. An Italian, servant to an officer of the troops, who was in the plot, seeing all was discovered, armed himself with the only boarding axe left on the raft, made his retreat to the front, enveloped himself in a piece of drapery he wore across his breast, and of his own accord threw himself into the sea. The rebels rushed forward to avenge their comrades; a terrible conflict again commenced; both sides fought with desperate fury; and soon the fatal raft was strewed with dead bodies and blood, which should have been shed by other hands, and in another cause. In this tumult we heard them again demanding, with horrid rage, the head of Lieut. Danglas! In this assault the unfortunate sutler was a second time thrown into the sea. M. Coudin, assisted by some workmen, saved her, to prolong for a little while her torment and her existence.

In this terrible night Lavilette failed not to give proofs of the rarest intrepidity. It was to him and some of those who had survived the sequel of our misfortunes, that we owed our safety. At last, after unheard of efforts, the rebels were once more repulsed, and quiet restored. Having escaped this new danger, we endeavored to get some repose. The day at length dawned upon us for the fifth time. We were now no more than thirty in number. We had lost four or five of our faithful sailors, and those who survived were in the most deplorable condition. The sea-water had almost entirely excoriated the skin of our lower extremities; we were covered with contusions or wounds, which, irritated by the salt water, extorted from us the most piercing cries. About twenty of us only were capable of standing upright or walking. Almost all our fish was exhausted; we had but four days' supply of wine: in four days, said we, nothing will be left, and death will be inevitable. Thus came the seventh day of our abandonment. In the course of the day two soldiers had glided behind the only barrel of wine that was left; pierced it, and were drinking by means of a reed. We had sworn that those who used such means should be punished with death; which law was instantly put in execution, and the two transgressors were thrown into the sea.

This same day saw the close of the life of a child named Leon, aged twelve years. He died like a lamp which ceases to burn for want of aliment. All spoke in favor of this young and amiable creature, who merited a better fate. His angelic form, his musical voice, the interest of an age so tender increased still more by the courage he had shown, and the services he had performed, for he had already made in the preceding year a campaign in the East Indies, inspired us all with the greatest pity for this young victim, devoted to so horrible and premature a death. Our old soldiers and all our people in general did everything they could to prolong his existence, but all was in vain. Neither the wine which they gave him without regret, nor all the means they employed, could arrest his melancholy doom, and he expired in the arms of M. Coudin, who had not ceased to give him the most unwearied attention. Whilst he had strength to move, he ran incessantly from one side to the other, loudly calling for his unhappy mother, for water and food. He trod indiscriminately on the feet and legs of his companions in misfortune, who, in their turn, uttered sorrowful cries, but these were very rarely accompanied with menaces; they pardoned all which the poor boy had made them suffer. He was not in his senses, consequently could not be expected to behave as if he had had the use of his reason.

There now remained but twenty-seven of us. Fifteen of that number seemed able to live yet some days; the rest, covered with large wounds, had almost entirely lost the use of their reason. They still, however, shared in the distributions, and would, before they died, consume to thirty or forty bottles of wine, which to us were inestimable. We deliberated, that by putting the sick on half allowance was but putting them to death by halves: but after a counsel, at which presided the most dreadful despair, it was decided they should be thrown into the sea. This means, however repugnant, however horrible it appeared to us, procured the survivors six days wine. But after the decision was made, who durst execute it? The habit of seeing death ready to devour us; the certainty of our infallible destruction without this monstrous expedient; all, in short, had hardened our hearts to every feeling but that of self-preservation. Three sailors and a soldier took charge of this cruel business. We looked aside and shed tears of blood at the fate of these unfortunates. Among them were the wretched sutler and her husband. Both had been grievously wounded in the different combats. The woman had a thigh broken between the beams of the raft, and a stroke of a sabre had made a deep wound in the head of her husband. Every thing announced their approaching end. We consoled ourselves with the belief that our cruel resolution shortened but a brief space the term of their existence. Ye who shudder at the cry of outraged humanity, recollect, that it was other men, fellow-countrymen, comrades who had placed us in this awful situation!

This horrible expedient saved the fifteen who remained; for when we were found by the Argus brig, we had very little wine left, and it was the sixth day after the cruel sacrifice we have described. The victims, we repeat, had not more than forty-eight hours to live, and by keeping them on the raft, we would have been absolutely destitute of the means of existence two days before we were found. Weak as we were, we considered it as a certain thing, that it would have been impossible for us to have lived only twenty-four hours more without taking some food. After this catastrophe, we threw our arms into the sea; they inspired us with a horror we could not overcome. We only kept one sabre, in case we had to cut some cordage or some piece of wood.

A new event, for everything was an event to wretches to whom the world was reduced to the narrow space of a few toises, and for whom the winds and waves contended in their fury as they floated above the abyss; an event happened which diverted our minds from the horrors of our situation. All on a sudden a white butterfly, of a species common in France, came fluttering above our heads, and settled on our sails. The first thought this little creature suggested was, that it was the harbinger of approaching land, and we clung to the hope with a delirium of joy. It was the ninth day we had been upon the raft; the torments of hunger consumed our entrails; and the soldiers and sailors already devoured with haggard eyes this wretched prey, and seemed ready to dispute about it. Others looking upon it as a messenger from Heaven, declared that they took it under their protection, and would suffer none to do it harm. It is certain we could not be far from land, for the butterflies continued to come on the following days, and flutter about our sail. We had also on the same day another indication not less positive, by a Goeland which flew around our raft. This second visitor left us no doubt that we were fast approaching the African soil, and we persuaded ourselves we would be speedily thrown upon the coast by the force of the currents.

This same day a new care employed us. Seeing we were reduced to so small a number, we collected all the little strength we had left, detached some planks on the front of the raft, and, with some pretty long pieces of wood, raised on the centre a kind of platform, on which we reposed. All the effects we could collect were placed upon it, and rendered to make it less hard; which also prevented the sea from passing with such facility through the spaces between the different planks, but the waves came across, and sometimes covered us completely.

On this new theatre we resolved to meet death in a manner becoming Frenchmen, and with perfect resignation. Our time was almost wholly spent in speaking of our unhappy country. All our wishes, our last prayers, were for the prosperity of France. Thus passed the last days of our abode upon the raft.

Soon after our abandonment, we bore with comparative ease the immersions during the nights, which are very cold in these countries; but latterly, every time the waves washed over us, we felt a most painful sensation, and we uttered plaintive cries. We employed every means to avoid it. Some supported their heads on pieces of wood, and made with what they could find a sort of little parapet to screen them from the force of the waves; others sheltered themselves behind two empty casks. But these means were very insufficient: it was only when the sea was calm that it did not break over us.

An ardent thirst, redoubled in the day by the beams of a burning sun, consumed us. An officer of the army found by chance a small lemon, and it may be easily imagined how valuable such a fruit would be to him. His comrades, in spite of the most urgent entreaties, could not get a bit of it from him. Signs of rage were already manifested, and had he not partly listened to the solicitations of those around him, they would have taken it by force, and he would have perished the victim of his selfishness. We also disputed about thirty cloves of garlic which were found in the bottom of a sack. These disputes were for the most part accompanied with violent menaces, and if they had been prolonged, we might perhaps have come to the last extremities. There was found also two small phials, in which was a spirituous liquid for cleaning the teeth. He who possessed them kept them with care, and gave with reluctance one or two drops in the palm of the hand. This liquor which, we think, was a tincture of guiacum, cinnamon, cloves, and other aromatic substances, produced on our tongues an agreeable feeling, and for a short while removed the thirst which destroyed us. Some of us found some small pieces of powder, which made, when put into the mouth, a kind of coolness. One plan generally employed was to put into a hat a quantity of sea-water with which we washed our faces for a while, repeating it at intervals. We also bathed our hair and held our hands in the water. Misfortune made us ingenious, and each thought of a thousand means to alleviate his sufferings. Emaciated by the most cruel privations, the least agreeable feeling was to us a happiness supreme. Thus we sought with avidity a small empty phial which one of us possessed, and in which had once been some essence of roses; and every one as he got hold of it respired with delight the odor it exhaled, which imparted to his senses the most soothing impressions. Many of us kept our ration of wine in a small tin cup, and sucked it out with a quill. This manner of taking it was of great benefit to us, and allayed our thirst much better than if we had gulped it off at once.

Three days passed in inexpressible anguish. So much did we despise life, that many of us feared not to bathe in sight of the sharks which surrounded our raft; others placed themselves naked upon the front of our machine, which was under water. These expedients diminished a little the ardor of their thirst. A species of molusca, known to seamen by the name of gatere, was sometimes driven in great numbers on our raft; and when their long arms rested on our naked bodies, they occasioned us the most cruel sufferings. Will it be believed, that amidst these terrible scenes, struggling with inevitable death, some of us uttered pleasantries which made us yet smile, in spite of the horrors of our situation? One, besides others, said jestingly, 'If the brig is sent to search for us, pray God it has the eyes of Argus,' in allusion to the name of the vessel we presumed would be sent to our assistance. This consolatory idea never left us an instant, and we spoke of it frequently.

On the 16th, reckoning we were very near land, eight of the most determined among us resolved to endeavor to gain the coast. A second raft, of smaller dimensions, was formed for transporting them thither: but it was found insufficient, and they at length determined to await death in their present situation. Meanwhile night came on, and its sombre veil revived in our minds the most afflicting thoughts. We were convinced there were not above a dozen or fifteen bottles of wine in our barrel. We began to have an invincible disgust at the flesh which had till then scarcely supported us; and we may say, that the sight of it inspired us with feelings of horror, doubtless produced by the idea of our approaching destruction.

On the morning of the 17th, the sun appeared free from clouds. After having addressed our prayers to the Eternal, we divided among us a part of our wine. Each, with delight, was taking his small portion, when a captain of infantry, casting his eyes on the horizon, perceived a ship, announced it to us by an exclamation of joy. We knew it to be a brig, but it was at a great distance; we could distinguish the masts. The sight of this vessel revived in us emotions difficult to describe. Each believed his deliverance sure, and we gave a thousand thanks to God. Fears, however, mingled with our hopes. We straightened some hoops of casks, to the ends of which we fixed handkerchiefs of different colors. A man, with our united assistance, mounted to the top of the mast, and waved these little flags. For more than half an hour, we were tossed between hope and fear. Some thought the vessel grew larger, and others were convinced its course was from us. These last were the only ones whose eyes were not blinded by hope, for the ship disappeared.

From the delirium of joy, we passed to that of despondency and sorrow. We envied the fate of those whom we had seen perish at our sides; and we said to ourselves, 'When we shall be in want of everything, and when our strength begins to forsake us, we will wrap ourselves up as well as we can, we will stretch ourselves on this platform, the witness of the most cruel sufferings, and there await death with resignation.' At length, to calm our despair, we sought for consolation in the arm of sleep. The day before, we had been scorched by the beams of a burning sun: to-day, to avoid the fierceness of his rays, we made a tent with the main-sail of the frigate. As soon as it was finished, we laid ourselves under it; thus all that was passing without was hid from our eyes. We proposed then to write upon a plank an abridgement of our adventures, and to add our names at the bottom of the recital, and fix it to the upper part of the mast, in the hope it would reach the government and our families.

After having passed two hours, a prey to the most cruel reflections, the master gunner of the frigate, wishing to go to the front of the raft, went out from below the tent. Scarcely had he put out his head, when he turned to us, uttering a piercing cry. Joy was painted upon his face; his hands were stretched towards the sea; he breathed with difficulty. All he was able to say was; 'SAVED! SEE THE BRIG UPON US!' and in fact it was not more than half a league distant having every sail set, and steering right upon us. We rushed from our tent; even those whom enormous wounds in their inferior extremities had confined for many days, dragged themselves to the back of the raft, to enjoy a sight of the ship which had come to save us from certain death. We embraced one another with a transport which looked much like madness, and tears of joy trickled down our cheeks, withered by the most cruel privations. Each seized handkerchiefs, or some pieces of linen, to make signals to the brig, which was rapidly approaching us. Some fell on their knees, and fervently returned thanks to Providence for this miraculous preservation of their lives. Our joy redoubled when saw we at the top of the fore-mast a large white flag, and we cried, 'It is then to Frenchmen we will owe our deliverance.' We instantly recognised the brig to be the Argus; it was then about two gunshots from us. We were terribly impatient to see her reef her sails, which at last she did, and fresh cries of joy arose from our raft. The Argus came and lay-to on our starboard, about half a pistol-shot from us. The crew, ranged upon the deck and on the shrouds, announced to us, by the waving of their hands and hats, the pleasure they felt at coming to the assistance of their unfortunate countrymen. In a short time we were all transported on board the brig, where we found the lieutenant of the frigate, and some others who had been wrecked with us. Compassion was painted on every face, and pity drew tears from every eye which beheld us.

We found some excellent broth on board the brig, which they had prepared, and when they had perceived us they added to it some wine, and thus restored our nearly exhausted strength. They bestowed on us the most generous care and attention; our wounds were dressed, and on the morrow many of our sick began to revive. Some, however, still suffered much, for they were placed between decks, very near the kitchen, which augmented the almost insupportable heat of these latitudes. This want of space arose from the small size of the vessel. The number of the shipwrecked was indeed very considerable. Those who did not belong to the navy were laid upon cables, wrapped in flags, and placed under the fire of the kitchen. Here they had almost perished during the course of the night, fire having broken out between decks about ten in the evening; but timely assistance being rendered, we were saved for the second time. We had scarcely escaped when some of us became again delirious. An officer of infantry wished to throw himself into the sea, to look for his pocket book, and would have done it had he not been prevented. Others were seized in a manner not less frenzied.

The commander and officers of the brig watched over us, and kindly anticipated our wants. They snatched us from death, by saving us from our raft; their unremitting care revived within us the spark of life. The surgeon of the ship, M. Renaud, distinguished himself for his indefatigable zeal. He was obliged to spend the whole of the day in dressing our wounds; and during the two days we were in the brig, he bestowed on us all the aid of his art, with an attention and gentleness which merit our eternal gratitude.

In truth, it was time we should find an end of our sufferings; they had lasted thirteen days, in the most cruel manner. The strongest among us might have lived forty-eight hours or so, longer. M. Correard felt that he must die in the course of the day; he had, however a presentiment we would be saved. He said, that a series of events so unheard of would not be buried in oblivion; that Providence would at least preserve some of us to tell to the world the melancholy story of our misfortunes.

Such is the faithful history of those who were left upon the memorable raft. Of one hundred and fifty, fifteen only were saved. Five of that number never recovered from their fatigue, and died at St. Louis. Those who yet live are covered with scars; and the cruel sufferings to which they have been exposed, have materially shaken their constitutions.

THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

On the 29th of August, 1782, it was found necessary that the Royal George, a line-of-battle ship of 108 guns, which had lately arrived at Spithead from a cruise, should, previously to her going again to sea, undergo the operation which seamen technically call a Parliament heel. In such cases the ship is inclined in a certain degree on one side, while the defects below the water-mark on the other side are examined and repaired. This mode of proceeding is, we believe at the present day, very commonly adopted where the defects to be repaired are not extensive, or where (as was the case with the Royal George) it is desirable to avoid the delay of going into dock. The operation is usually performed in still weather and smooth water, and is attended with so little difficulty and danger, that the officers and crew usually remain on board, and neither the guns nor stores are removed.

The business was commenced on the Royal George early in the morning, a gang of men from the Portsmouth Dock-yard coming on board to assist the ship's carpenters. It is said that, finding it necessary to strip off more of the sheathing than had been intended, the men in their eagerness to reach the defect in the ship's bottom, were induced to heel her too much, when a sudden squall of wind threw her wholly on her side; and the gun-ports being open, and the cannon rolling over to the depressed side, the ship was unable to right herself, instantaneously filled with water, and went to the bottom.

The fatal accident happened about ten o'clock in the morning. Admiral Kempenfeldt was writing in his cabin, and the greater part of the people were between decks. The ship, as is usually the case upon coming into port, was crowded with people from the shore, particularly women, of whom it is supposed there were not less than three hundred on board. Amongst the sufferers were many of the wives and children of the petty officers and seamen, who, knowing the ship was shortly to sail on a distant and perilous service, eagerly embraced the opportunity of visiting their husbands and fathers.

The Admiral, with many brave officers and most of those who were between decks, perished; the greater number of the guard, and those who happened to be on the upper deck, were saved by the boats of the fleet. About seventy others were likewise saved. The exact number of persons on board at the time could not be ascertained; but it was calculated that from 800 to 1000 were lost. Captain Waghorn whose gallantry in the North Sea Battle, under Admiral Parker, had procured him the command of this ship, was saved, though he was severely bruised and battered; but his son, a lieutenant in the Royal George, perished. Such was the force of the whirlpool, occasioned by the sudden plunge of so vast a body in the water, that a victualler which lay alongside the Royal George was swamped; and several small craft, at a considerable distance, were in imminent danger.

Admiral Kempenfeldt, who was nearly 70 years of age, was peculiarly and universally lamented. In point of general science and judgment, he was one of the first naval officers of his time; and, particularly in the art of manoeuvring a fleet, he was considered by the commanders of that day as unrivalled. His excellent qualities, as a man, are said to have equalled his professional merits.

This melancholy occurrence has been recorded by the poet Cowper, in the following beautiful lines:--