Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.Anonymous
History
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.
Anonymous
Mutiny; Pirates; Seafaring life; Shipwrecks
You perceive, then, that up to this moment also the same obstacle
existed in the minds of the captain and surgeon.--They did not dare,
without authority, to land the convicts, and rather than leave them on
board, or land them without such authority, they perished with them.
The female convicts, who were battened down under the hatches, on the
vessel's running aground, broke away the half deck hatch, and frantic,
rushed on deck. Of course they entreated the captain and surgeon to
let them go on shore in the long-boat, but they were not listened to,
as the captain and surgeon did not feel authorized to liberate
prisoners committed to their care.
At seven o'clock the flood tide began. The crew seeing that there were
no hopes, clung to the rigging. The poor 108 women and 12 children
remained on deck, uttering the most piteous cries. The vessel was
about three quarters of a mile English from the shore, and no more.
Owen, one of the three men saved, thinks that the women remained on
deck in this state about an hour and a half. Owen and four others were
on the spars, and thinks they remained there three quarters of an
hour, but, seeing no hope of being saved, he took to swimming, and was
brought in a state of insensibility to the hotel. Towsey, another of
the men saved, was on a plank with the captain. Towsey asked who he
was? He said "I am the captain," but the next moment he was gone.
Rice, the third man, floated ashore on a ladder. He was in the aft
when the other men took to the raft. When the French pilot-boat rowed
away, after being rejected by the captain, he (Rice) saw a man waving
his hat on the beach, and remarked to the captain that a gentleman was
waving to them to come on shore. The captain turned away and made no
answer.--At that moment the women all disappeared, the ship broke in
two.
These are the facts of this awful case. The French Marine Humane
Society immediately placed hundreds of men on the beach; and the
office, or lodging, being close to the shore, as soon as the corpses
were picked up they were brought to the rooms, where I assisted many
of my countrymen in endeavoring to restore them to life. Our efforts
were fruitless except in the cases of the three men, Owen, Rice and
Towsey. I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies in my life. Some
of the women were the most perfectly made; and French and English wept
together at such a horrible loss of life in sight of--ay, and even
close to, the port and town.--Body after body has been brought in.
More than 60 have been found; they will be buried to-morrow. But alas!
after all our efforts, only three lives have been saved out of 136.
THE MUTINEERS, A TALE OF THE SEA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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