The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American
{*2} The case of the brig _Polly_, of Boston, is one so much in
point, and her fate, in many respects, so remarkably similar to
our own, that I cannot forbear alluding to it here. This vessel,
of one hundred and thirty tons burden, sailed from Boston, with a
cargo of lumber and provisions, for Santa Croix, on the twelfth
of December, 1811, under the command of Captain Casneau. There
were eight souls on board besides the captain—the mate, four
seamen, and the cook, together with a Mr. Hunt, and a negro girl
belonging to him. On the fifteenth, having cleared the shoal of
Georges, she sprung a leak in a gale of wind from the southeast,
and was finally capsized; but, the masts going by the board, she
afterward righted. They remained in this situation, without fire,
and with very little provision, for the period of one hundred and
ninety-one days (from December the fifteenth to June the
twentieth), when Captain Casneau and Samuel Badger, the only
survivors, were taken off the wreck by the Fame, of Hull, Captain
Featherstone, bound home from Rio Janeiro. When picked up, they
were in latitude 28 degrees N., longitude 13 degrees W., having
drifted above two thousand miles! On the ninth of July the Fame
fell in with the brig Dromero, Captain Perkins, who landed the
two sufferers in Kennebeck. The narrative from which we gather
these details ends in the following words:
“It is natural to inquire how they could float such a vast
distance, upon the most frequented part of the Atlantic, and not
be discovered all this time. They were passed by more than a
dozen sail, one of which came so nigh them that they could
distinctly see the people on deck and on the rigging looking at
them; but, to the inexpressible disappointment of the starving
and freezing men, they stifled the dictates of compassion,
hoisted sail, and cruelly abandoned them to their fate.”
{*3} Among the vessels which at various times have professed to
meet with the Auroras may be mentioned the ship San Miguel, in
1769; the ship Aurora, in 1774; the brig Pearl, in 1779; and the
ship Dolores, in 1790. They all agree in giving the mean latitude
fifty-three degrees south.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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