Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849Gilly, William O. S.
History
Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849
Gilly, William O. S.
Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 18th century; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 19th century; Shipwrecks
We feel how inadequate have been our efforts to depict the
self-devotion of Captain Baker, and the courage and constancy of his
crew. The following letter, addressed to Lieutenant Booth, formerly an
officer of the Drake, will go farther than any panegyric we can offer,
to display the right feeling of the ship's company, and their just
appreciation of their brave and faithful commander.
'SIR,--Your being an old officer of ours in a former ship, and
being our first lieutenant in H.M. ship Drake, leads us to beg
that you will have the goodness to represent to our Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty the very high sense of gratitude
we, the surviving petty officers and crew of his Majesty's late
ship Drake, feel due to the memory of our late much lamented,
and most worthy commander, who, at the moment he saw death
staring him in the face on one side, and the certainty of escape
was pointed out to him on the other, most stanchly and
frequently refused to attempt procuring his own safety, until
every man and boy had been rescued from the impending danger.
Indeed, the manliness and fortitude displayed by the late
Captain Baker on the melancholy occasion of our wreck was such
as never before was heard of. It was not as that of a moment,
but his courage was tried for many hours, and his last
determination of not crossing from the rock, on which he was
every moment in danger of being washed away, was made with more
firmness, if possible, than the first. In fact, during the whole
business he proved himself to be a man whose name and last
conduct ought ever to be held in the highest estimation by a
crew who feel it their duty to ask from the Lords Commissioners
of the Admiralty that, which they otherwise have not the means
of obtaining, that is, a public and lasting record of the
lion-hearted, generous, and very unexampled way in which our
late noble commander sacrificed his life in the evening of the
23rd of June.'
The above letter was signed by the surviving crew of the Drake.
We need not add that their request was complied with; and a monument
erected to the memory of Captain Baker, in the chapel of the Royal
Dockyard at Portsmouth.
At the request of the author, a friend, to whom he related the
pathetic story of the captain of the Drake, composed the following
verses on his untimely and romantic fate:--
THE LOSS OF THE DRAKE.
1.
There's a garden full of roses, there's a cottage by the Dove;
And the trout stream flows and frets beneath the hanging crags above;
There's a seat beneath the tulip-tree, the sunbeams never scorch:
There's jasmine on those cottage walls, there's woodbine round the porch.
A gallant seaman planted them--he perished long ago;
He perished on the ocean-wave, but not against the foe.
2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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