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
work in the tops, were blown up with them and falling into the water,
were picked up with very little hurt. These, with the two before
mentioned, and one of the sailors' wives, were supposed to be the only
survivors, besides the captain and two of the lieutenants.
The following particulars were, however, collected from the
examination of several persons before Sir Richard King, the
port-admiral, and the information procured from those, who saw the
explosion from the Dock.
The first person known to have observed any thing was a young
midshipman in the Cambridge guard-ship, lying not far distant from the
place where the Amphion blew up; who having a great desire to observe
every thing relative to a profession into which he had just entered,
was looking through a glass at the frigate, as she lay along side of
the sheer-hulk, and was taking in her bowsprit. She was lashed to the
hulk; and the Yarmouth, an old receiving ship, was lying on the
opposite side, quite close to her, and both within a few yards of the
Dock-yard jetty. The midshipman said, that the Amphion suddenly
appeared to rise altogether upright from the surface of the water,
until he nearly saw her keel; the explosion then succeeded; the masts
seemed to be forced up into the air, and the hull instantly to sink.
All this passed in the space of two minutes.
The man who stood at the Dock-yard stairs, said, that the first he
heard of it was a kind of hissing noise, and then followed the
explosion, when he beheld the masts blown up into the air. It was very
strongly reported that several windows were broken in the Dock by the
explosion, and that in the Dock-yard much mischief was done by the
Amphion's guns going off when she blew up; but though the shock was
felt as far off as Plymouth, and at Stone-house, enough to shake the
windows, yet it is a wonderful and miraculous fact, that surrounded as
she was in the harbor, with ships close along side of the jetty, and
lashed to another vessel, no damage was done to any thing but herself.
It is dreadful to reflect, that owing to their intention of putting to
sea the next day, there were nearly one hundred men, women and
children, more than her complement on board, taking leave of their
friends, besides the company who were at two dinners given in the
ship, one of which was by the captain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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