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
As his strength, however, failed him, he became more manageable, and
they got him to lie down in the middle of the boat, among some of the
people. Mr. Purnell drank once a little salt water, but could not
relish it; he preferred his own urine, which he drank occasionally as
he made it. Soon after sunset the second mate lost his speech. Mr.
Purnell desired him to lean his head on him; he died, without a groan
or struggle, on the 11th of July, being the 9th day they were in the
boat. In a few minutes after, the carpenter expired almost in a
similar manner. These melancholy scenes rendered the situation of the
survivors more dreadful; it is impossible to describe their feelings.
Despair became general; every man imagined his own dissolution was
near. They all now went to prayers; some prayed in the Welch language,
some in Irish, and others in English; then, after a little
deliberation, they stripped the two dead men, and hove them overboard.
The weather being now very mild, and almost calm, they turned to,
cleaned the boat, and resolved to make their sail larger out of the
frocks and trowsers of the two deceased men. Purnell got the captain
to lie down with the rest of the people, the boatswain and one man
excepted, who assisted him in making the sail larger, which they had
completed by six or seven o'clock in the afternoon, having made a
shroud out of the boat's painter, which served as a shifting
back-stay.--Purnell also fixed his red flannel waistcoat at the
mast-head, as a signal the most likely to be seen.
Soon after this some of them observed a sloop at a great distance,
coming, as they thought, from the land. This roused every man's
spirits; they got out their oars, at which they laboured alternately,
exerting all their remaining strength to come up with her; but night
coming on, and the sloop getting a fresh breeze of wind, they lost
sight of her, which occasioned a general consternation; however, the
appearance of the North star, which they kept on their starboard-bow,
gave them hopes that they stood in for land. This night one William
Wathing died; he was 64 years of age, and had been to sea 50 years;
quite worn out with fatigue and hunger, he earnestly prayed, to the
last moment, for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Early the next
morning Hugh Williams also died, and in the course of the day another
of the crew: entirely exhausted,--they both expired without a groan.
Early in the morning of July 13, it began to blow very fresh, and
increased so much, that they were obliged to furl their sail, and keep
the boat before the wind and sea, which drove them off soundings. In
the evening their gunner died. The weather now becoming moderate and
the wind in the S. W. quarter, they made sail, not one being able to
row or pull an oar at any rate; they ran all this night with a fine
breeze.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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