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Title: The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay

Author: Duncan McGregor

Release date: March 3, 2008 [eBook #24745]

Language: English

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[Illustration: ESCAPING FROM THE BURNING SHIP.]

   THE LOSS
   OF THE
   KENT EAST INDIAMAN
   IN THE BAY OF BISCAY.

   NARRATED IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND

   BY

   GENERAL SIR DUNCAN MACGREGOR, K.C.B.

   _NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS._

   THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
   56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD;
   AND 164, PICCADILLY.

       *       *       *       *       *

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

The older I grow, and I am now in my 94th year, I am the more convinced
of the special interposition of Divine Providence in the winter
recorded, in the following Tract.

The Author

       *       *       *       *       *

THE LOSS OF THE KENT EAST INDIAMAN.


MY DEAR E----,

You are aware that the _Kent_, Captain Henry Cobb, a fine new ship of
1,350 tons, bound to Bengal and China, left the Downs on the 19th of
February, with 20 officers, 344 soldiers, 43 women, and 66 children,
belonging to the 31st regiment; with 20 private passengers, and a crew
(including officers) of 148 men--in all, 641 persons on board.

The bustle attendant on a departure for India is calculated to subdue
the force of those deeply painful sensations to which few men can refuse
to yield, in the immediate prospect of a long and distant separation
from the land of their fondest and earliest recollections. With my
gallant shipmates, indeed, whose elasticity of spirits is remarkably
characteristic of the professions to which they belonged, hope appeared
greatly to predominate over sadness. Surrounded as they were by every
circumstance that could render their voyage propitious, and in the ample
enjoyment of every necessary that could contribute either to their
health or their comfort, their hearts seemed to beat high with
contentment and gratitude towards that country which they zealously
served, and whose interests they were cheerfully going forth to defend.

With a fine fresh breeze from the north-east, the stately _Kent_, in
bearing down the Channel, speedily passed many a well-known spot on the
coast dear to our remembrance; and on the evening of the 23rd we took
our last view of happy England, and entered the wide Atlantic, without
the expectation of again seeing land until we reached the shores of
India.

With slight interruptions of bad weather, we continued to make way until
the night of Monday, the 28th, when we were suddenly arrested in lat.
47° 30´, long. 10°, by a violent gale from the south-west, which
gradually increased during the whole of the following morning.

To those who have never "gone down to the sea in ships, and seen the
wonders of the Lord in the great deep," or even to such as have never
been exposed in a westerly gale to the tremendous swell in the Bay of
Biscay, I am sensible that the most sober description of the magnificent
spectacle of "watery hills in full succession flowing" would appear
sufficiently exaggerated. But it is impossible, I think, for the
inexperienced mariner, however unreflecting he may try to be, to view
the effects of the increasing storm, as he feels his solitary vessel
reeling to and fro under his feet, without involuntarily raising his
thoughts, with a secret confession of helplessness and veneration that
he may never before have experienced, towards that Being whose power,
under ordinary circumstances, we may have disregarded, and whose
incessant goodness we are prone to requite with ingratitude.

The activity of the officers and seamen of the _Kent_ appeared to keep
ample pace with that of the gale. Our larger sails were speedily taken
in or closely reefed; and about ten o'clock on the morning of the 1st of
March, after having struck our top-gallant yards, we were lying to,
under a triple-reefed maintop-sail only, with the deadlights in, and
with the whole watch of soldiers attached to the life lines, that were
run along the deck for this purpose.

The rolling of the ship, which was vastly increased by a dead weight of
some hundred tons of shots and shell that formed a part of its lading,
became so great about half-past eleven or twelve o'clock, that our main
chains were thrown by every lurch considerably under water; and the best
cleated articles of furniture in the cabins and the cuddy were dashed
about with so much noise and violence as to excite the liveliest
apprehensions of individual danger.

It was a little before this period that one of the officers of the ship,
with the well-meant intention of ascertaining that all was fast below,
descended with two of the sailors into the hold, where they carried with
them, for safety, a light in the patent lantern; and seeing that the
lamp burned dimly, the officer took the precaution to hand it up to the
orlop deck to be trimmed. Having afterwards discovered one of the spirit
casks to be adrift, he sent the sailors for some billets of wood to
secure it; but the ship in their absence having made a heavy lurch, the
officer unfortunately dropped the light; and letting go his hold of the
cask in his eagerness to recover the lantern, it suddenly stove, and the
spirits communicating with the lamp, the whole place was instantly in a
blaze.

I know not what steps were then taken. I myself had been engaged during
the greater part of the morning in double-lashing and otherwise securing
the furniture in my cabin, and in occasionally going to the cuddy, where
the marine barometers were suspended, to mark their varying indications
during the gale, in my journal; and it was on one of those occasions,
after having read to Mrs. ----, at her request, the twelfth chapter of
St. Luke, which so beautifully declares and illustrates the minute and
tender providence of God, and so solemnly urges on all the necessity of
continual watchfulness and readiness for the "coming of the Son of man,"
that I received from Captain Spence, the captain of the day, the
alarming information that the ship was on fire in the afterhold. On
hastening to the hatchway, whence smoke was slowly ascending, I found
Captain Cobb and other officers giving orders, which seemed to be
promptly obeyed by the seamen and troops, who used every exertion by
means of the pumps, buckets of water, wet sails, hammocks, &c., to
extinguish the flames.

With a view to excite among the ladies as little alarm as possible, in
conveying this intelligence to Colonel Fearon, the commanding officer of
the troops, I knocked gently at his cabin door, and expressed a wish to
speak with him; but whether my countenance betrayed the state of my
feelings, or the increasing noise and confusion upon deck created
apprehensions amongst them that the storm was assuming a more serious
aspect, I found it difficult to pacify some of the ladies by repeated
assurances that no danger whatever was to be apprehended from the gale.
As long as the devouring element appeared to be confined to the spot
where the fire originated, and which we were assured was surrounded on
all sides by the water casks, we ventured to cherish hopes that it might
be subdued; but no sooner was the light blue vapour that at first arose
succeeded by volumes of thick, dingy smoke--which speedily ascending
through all the four hatchways, rolled over every part of the ship--than
all further concealment became impossible, and almost all hope of
preserving the vessel was abandoned. "The flames have reached the cable
tier," was exclaimed by some individuals, and the strong pitchy smell
that pervaded the deck confirmed the truth of the exclamation.

In these awful circumstances, Captain Cobb, with an ability and decision
that seemed to increase with the imminence of the danger, resorted to
the only alternative now left him, of ordering the lower decks to be
scuttled, the combings of the hatches to be cut, and the lower ports to
be opened, for the free admission of the waves.

These instructions were speedily executed by the united efforts of the
troops and seamen; but not before some of the sick soldiers, one woman,
and several children, unable to gain the upper deck, had perished. On
descending to the gun deck with Colonel Fearon, Captain Bray, and one or
two other officers of the 31st regiment, to assist in opening the ports,
I met, staggering towards the hatchway, in an exhausted and nearly
senseless state, one of the mates, who informed us that he had just
stumbled over the dead bodies of some individuals who must have died
from suffocation, to which it was evident that he himself had almost
fallen a victim. So dense and oppressive was the smoke, that it was with
the utmost difficulty we could remain long enough below to fulfil
Captain Cobb's wishes; which were no sooner accomplished, than the sea
rushed in with extraordinary force, carrying away, in its resistless
progress to the hold, the largest chests, bulk-heads, etc.

Such a sight, under any other conceivable circumstances, was well
calculated to have filled us with horror; but in our natural solicitude
to avoid the more immediate peril of explosion, we endeavoured to cheer
each other, as we stood up to our knees in water, with the faint hope
that by these violent means we might be speedily restored to safety. The
immense quantity of water that was thus introduced into the hold had
indeed the effect, for a time, of checking the fury of the flames; but
the danger of sinking having increased as the risk of explosion was
diminished, the ship became water-logged, and presented other
indications of settling previous to her going down.

Death in two of its most awful forms now encompassed us, and we seemed
left to choose the terrible alternative. But always preferring the more
remote, though equally certain crisis, we tried to shut the ports again,
to close the hatches, and to exclude the external air, in order, if
possible, to prolong our existence, the near and certain termination of
which appeared inevitable.

The scene of horror that now presented itself baffles all description;--

   "Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell;
   Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave."

The upper deck was covered with between six and seven hundred human
beings, many of whom, from previous sea-sickness, were forced, on the
first alarm, to flee from below almost in a state of nakedness, and were
now running about in quest of husbands, children, or parents. While some
were standing in silent resignation, or in stupid insensibility to their
impending fate, others were yielding themselves up to the most frantic
despair. Some on their knees were earnestly imploring, with significant
gesticulations and in noisy supplications, the mercy of Him whose arm,
they exclaimed, was at length outstretched to smite them; others were to
be seen hastily crossing themselves, and performing the various external
acts required by their peculiar persuasion; while a number of the older
and more stout-hearted soldiers and sailors sullenly took their seats
directly over the magazine; hoping, as they stated, that by means of the
explosion which they every instant expected, a speedier termination
might be put to their sufferings.[1] Several of the soldiers' wives and
children, who had fled for temporary shelter into the after cabins on
the upper decks, were engaged in prayer and in reading the Scriptures
with the ladies; some of whom were enabled, with wonderful
self-possession, to offer to others those spiritual consolations which a
firm and intelligent trust in the Redeemer of the world appeared at this
awful hour to impart to their own breasts. The dignified deportment of
two young ladies,[2] in particular, formed a specimen of natural
strength of mind, finely modified by Christian feeling, that failed not
to attract the notice and admiration of every one who had an opportunity
of witnessing it. On the melancholy announcement being made to them that
all hope must be relinquished, and that death was rapidly and inevitably
approaching, one of the ladies above referred to, calmly sinking down on
her knees, and clasping her hands together, said, "Even so, come, Lord
Jesus," and immediately proposed to read a portion of the Scriptures to
those around her. Her sister with nearly equal composure and
collectedness of mind selected the forty-sixth and other appropriate
Psalms, which were accordingly read, with intervals of prayer, by those
ladies alternately to the assembled females.

One young gentleman, of whose promising talents and piety I dare not now
make further mention, having calmly asked me my opinion respecting the
state of the ship, I told him that I thought we should be prepared to
sleep that night in eternity; and I shall never forget the peculiar
fervour with which he replied, as he pressed my hand in his, "My heart
is filled with the peace of God;" adding, "yet, though I know it is
foolish, I dread exceedingly the last struggle."

Amongst the numerous objects that struck my observation at this period I
was much affected with the appearance and conduct of some of the dear
children, who, quite unconscious, in the cuddy cabins, of the perils
that surrounded them, continued to play as usual with their little toys
in bed, or to put the most innocent and unseasonable questions to those
around them. To some of the older children, who seemed fully alive to
the reality of the danger, I whispered, "Now is the time to put in
practice the instructions you used to receive at the Regimental School,
and to think of that Saviour of whom you have heard so much." They
replied, as the tears ran down their cheeks, "Oh, sir, we are trying to
remember them, and we are praying to God."

The passive condition to which we were all reduced by the total failure
of our most strenuous exertions, while it was well calculated, and
probably designed, to convince us afterwards that our deliverance was
effected, not by our own might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord,
afforded us ample room at the moment for deep and awful reflection,
which, it is to be earnestly wished, may have been improved, as well by
those who were eventually saved as by those who perished.

It has been observed by the author of the Retrospect, that "in the heat
of battle, it is not only possible but easy to forget death, and cease
to think; but in the cool and protracted hours of a shipwreck, where
there is often nothing to engage the mind but the recollection of tried
and unsuccessful labours, and the sight of unavoidable and increasing
harbingers of destruction, it is not easy or possible to forget
ourselves or a future state."

The general applicability of the latter part of this proposition I am
disposed to doubt; for if I were to judge of the feelings of all on
board by those of the number who were heard to express them, I should
apprehend that a large majority of those men, whose previous attention
has never been fairly and fully directed to the great subject of
religion, approach the gates of death, it may be with solemnity, or with
terror, but without any definable or tangible conviction of the fact
that after death cometh the judgment.

Several there were who vowed in loud and piteous cries, that if the Lord
God would spare their lives, they would thenceforward dedicate all their
powers to His service; and not a few were heard to exclaim, in the
bitterness of remorse, that the judgments of the Most High were justly
poured out upon them for their neglected Sabbaths, and their profligate
or profane lives; but the number of those was extremely small who
appeared to dwell either with lively hope or dread on the view of an
opening eternity. And as a further evidence of the truth of this
observation, I may mention that when I afterwards had occasion to mount
the mizen shrouds, I there met with a young man, who had brought me a
letter of introduction from our excellent friend, Dr. G--n, to whom I
felt it my duty, while we were rocking on the mast, quietly to propose
the great question, "What must we do to be saved?" and this young
gentleman has since informed Mr. P. that though he was at that moment
fully persuaded of the certainty of immediate death, yet the subject of
eternity, in any form, had not once flashed upon his mind previous to my
conversation.

While we thus lay in a state of physical inertion, but with all our
mental faculties in rapid and painful activity--with the waves lashing
furiously against the sides of our devoted ship, as if in anger with the
hostile element for not more speedily performing its office of
destruction,--the binnacle, by one of those many lurches which were
driving everything movable from side to side of the vessel, was suddenly
wrenched from its fastenings, and all the apparatus of the compass
dashed to pieces upon the deck; on which one of the young mates,
emphatically regarding it for a moment, cried out with the emotion so
natural to a sailor under such circumstances, "What! is the _Kent's_
compass really gone?" leaving the bystanders to form, from that omen,
their own conclusions. One promising young officer of the troops was
seen thoughtfully removing from his writing-case a lock of hair, which
he composedly deposited in his bosom; and another officer procuring
paper and pens, addressed a short communication to his father, which was
afterwards carefully enclosed in a bottle, in the hope that it might
eventually reach its destination, with the view, as he stated, of
relieving him from the long years of fruitless anxiety and suspense
which our melancholy fate would awaken, and of bearing his humble
testimony, at a moment when his sincerity could scarcely be questioned,
to the faithfulness of that God in whose mercy he trusted, and whose
peace he largely enjoyed in the tremendous prospect of immediate
dissolution.[3] It was at this appalling instant, when "all hope that we
should be saved was then taken away," and when the letter referred to
was about being committed to the waves, that it occurred to Mr. Thomson,
the fourth mate, to send a man to the fore-top, rather with the ardent
wish than the expectation, that some friendly sail might be
discovered on the face of the waters. The sailor, on mounting, threw his
eyes round the horizon for a moment--a moment of unutterable
suspense--and waving his hat exclaimed, "A sail on the lee bow!" The
joyful announcement was received with deep-felt thanksgivings, and with
three cheers, upon deck. Our flags of distress were instantly hoisted,
and our minute guns fired; and we endeavoured to bear down under our
three top-sails and fore-sail upon the stranger, which afterwards proved
to be the _Cambria_,[4] a small brig of 200 tons burden, Captain Cook,
bound to Vera Cruz, having on board twenty or thirty Cornish miners, and
other agents of the Anglo-Mexican Company.

[Illustration: The ship the Kent Indiaman is on fire--Elizabeth Joanna &
myself commit our spirits into the hands of our blessed Redeemer.

His grace enables us to be quite composed in the awful prospect of
entering eternity D MacGregor 1st March 1825----Bay of Biscay]

For ten or fifteen minutes we were left in doubt whether the crew of the
brig perceived our signals, or perceiving them, were either disposed or
able to lend us any assistance. From the violence of the gale, it seems
that the report of our guns was not heard; but the ascending volumes of
smoke from the ship sufficiently announced the dreadful nature of our
distress; and we had the satisfaction, after a short period of dark
suspense, to see the brig hoist British colours, and crowd all sail to
hasten to our relief.

Although it was impossible, and would have been improper, to repress the
rising hopes that were pretty generally diffused amongst us by the
unexpected sight of the _Cambria_, yet I confess, that when I reflected
on the long period our ship had been already burning--on the tremendous
sea that was running--on the extreme smallness of the brig, and the
immense number of human beings to be saved, I could only venture to hope
that a few might be spared; but I durst not for a moment contemplate the
possibility of my own preservation.

[Illustration: SAVED FROM THE WRECK.]

While Captain Cobb, Colonel Fearon, and Major MacGregor of the 31st
regiment, were consulting together, as the brig was approaching us, on
the necessary preparations for getting out the boats, etc., one of the
officers asked Major MacGregor in what order it was intended the
officers should move off; to which the other replied, "Of course in
funeral order;" which injunction was instantly confirmed by Colonel
Fearon, who said, "Most undoubtedly, the juniors first; but see that any
man is cut down who presumes to enter the boats before the means of
escape are presented to the women and children."

To prevent the rush to the boats as they were being lowered, which, from
certain symptoms of impatience manifested both by soldiers and sailors,
there was reason to fear, some of the military officers were stationed
over them with drawn swords. But from the firm determination which these
exhibited, and the great subordination observed, with few exceptions, by
the troops, this proper precaution was afterwards rendered unnecessary.

Arrangements having been made by Captain Cobb for placing in the first
boat, previous to letting it down, all the ladies, and as many of the
soldiers' wives as it could safely contain, they hurriedly wrapped
themselves up in whatever articles of clothing could be found; and I
think about two, or half-past two o'clock, a most mournful procession
advanced from the after cabins to the starboard cuddy port, outside of
which the cutter was suspended. Scarcely a word was uttered--not a
scream was heard--even the infants ceased to cry, as if conscious of the
unspoken and unspeakable anguish that was at that instant rending the
hearts of their parting parents; nor was the silence of voices in any
way broken, except in one or two cases, where the ladies plaintively
entreated permission to be left behind with their husbands. But on being
assured that every moment's delay might occasion the sacrifice of a
human life, they successively suffered themselves to be torn from the
tender embrace, and with that fortitude which never fails to
characterize and adorn their sex on occasions of overwhelming trial,
were placed, without a murmur, in the boat, which was immediately
lowered into a sea so tempestuous as to leave us only to hope against
hope that it should live in it for a single moment. Twice the cry was
heard from those on the chains that the boat was swamping. But He who
enabled the apostle Peter to walk on the face of the deep, and was
graciously attending to the earnest aspirations of those on board, had
decreed its safety.

Although Captain Cobb had used every precaution to diminish the danger
of the boat's descent, by stationing a man with an axe to cut away the
tackle from either extremity, should the slightest difficulty occur in
unhooking it; yet the peril attending the whole operation, which can
only be adequately estimated by nautical men, had very nearly proved
fatal to its numerous inmates.

After one or two unsuccessful attempts to place the little frail bark
fairly upon the surface of the water, the command was at length given to
unhook; the tackle at the stern was, in consequence, immediately
cleared; but the ropes at the bow having got foul, the sailor found it
impossible to obey the order. In vain was the axe applied to the
entangled tackle; the moment was inconceivably critical, as the boat,
which necessarily followed the motion of the ship, was gradually rising
out of the water, and must, in another instant, have been hanging
perpendicularly by the bow, and its helpless passengers launched into
the deep, had not a most providential wave suddenly struck and lifted up
the stern, so as to enable the seamen to disengage the tackle. The boat
being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while
from the poop, battling with the billows,--now raised, in its progress
to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for
several seconds, as if engulfed "in the horrid vale" between them.[5]

The _Cambria_ having prudently lain to at some distance from the _Kent_,
lest she should be involved in her explosion, or exposed to the fire
from her guns, which, being all shotted, afterwards went off as the
flames successively reached them, the men had a considerable way to row;
and the success of this first experiment seeming to be the measure of
our future hopes, the movements of this precious boat--incalculably
precious, without doubt, to the agonized husbands and fathers
immediately connected with it--were watched with intense anxiety by all
on board.

The better to balance the boat in the raging sea through which it had to
pass, and to enable the seamen to ply their oars, the women and children
were stowed promiscuously under the seats, and consequently exposed to
the risk of being drowned by the continual dashing of the spray over
their heads, which so filled the boat during the passages that before
their arrival at the brig the poor females were sitting up to the waist
in water, and their children kept with the greatest difficulty above it.

However, in the course of twenty minutes the little cutter was seen
alongside the ark of refuge; and the first human being that happened to
be admitted, out of the vast assemblage that ultimately found shelter
there, was the infant son of Major MacGregor, a child of only a few
weeks old, who was caught from his mother's arms and lifted into the
brig by Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate of the _Kent_, the officer who had
been ordered to take charge of the ladies' boat.[6]

But the extreme difficulty and danger presented to the women and
children in getting into the _Cambria_ seemed scarcely less imminent
than that which they had previously encountered; for to prevent the boat
from swamping or being stove against the side of the brig, while its
passengers were disembarking, required no ordinary exercise of skill
and perseverance on the part of the sailors, and of self-possession and
effort on that of the females themselves. On coming alongside of the
_Cambria_, Captain Cook very judiciously called first for the children,
who were successively thrown or handed up from the boat. The women were
then urged to avail themselves of every favourable heave of the sea by
springing towards the many friendly arms that were extended from the
vessel to receive them; and, notwithstanding the deplorable
consequence of making a false step under such critical circumstances,
not a single accident occurred to any individual belonging to the first
boat. Indeed, the only one whose life appears to have been placed in
extreme jeopardy alongside was one of the ladies, who, in attempting to
spring from the boat, came short of the hand that was held out to her,
and would certainly have perished, had she not most happily caught hold
at the instant of a rope that happened to be hanging over the
_Cambria's_ side, to which she clung for some moments, until she was
dragged into the vessel.

I have reason to know that the feelings of oppressive delight,
gratitude, and praise experienced by the married officers and soldiers
on being assured of the comparative safety of their wives and children,
so entirely abstracted their minds from their own situation as to render
them for a little while totally insensible either to the storm that beat
upon them, or to the active and gathering volcano that threatened every
instant to explode under their feet.

It being impossible for the boats, after the first trip, to come
alongside the _Kent_, a plan was adopted for lowering the women and
children by ropes from the stern, by tying them two and two together.
But from the heaving of the ship, and the extreme difficulty in dropping
them at the instant the boat was underneath, many of the poor creatures
were unavoidably plunged repeatedly under water; and much as humanity
may rejoice that no woman was eventually lost by this process, yet it
was as impossible to prevent, as it was deplorable to witness, the great
sacrifice thus occasioned of the younger children--the same violent
means which only reduced the parents to a state of exhaustion or
insensibility, having entirely extinguished the vital spark in the
feebler frames of the infants that were fastened to them.

Amid the conflicting feelings and dispositions manifested by the
numerous actors in this melancholy drama, many affecting proofs were
elicited of parental and filial affection, or of disinterested
friendship, that seemed to shed a momentary halo around the gloomy
scene.

Two or three soldiers, to relieve their wives of a part of their
families, sprang into the water with their children, and perished in
their endeavours to save them. One young lady, who had resolutely
refused to quit her father, whose sense of duty kept him at his post,
was near falling a sacrifice to her filial devotion, not having been
picked up by those in the boats until she had sunk five or six times. A
man, who was reduced to the frightful alternative of losing his wife or
his children, hastily decided in favour of his duty to the former. His
wife was accordingly saved, but his four children, alas! were left to
perish. A fine fellow, a soldier, who had neither wife nor child of his
own, but who evinced the greatest solicitude for the safety of those of
others, insisted on having three children lashed to him, with whom he
plunged into the water; not being able to reach the boat, he was again
drawn into the ship with his charge, but not before two of the children
had expired. One man fell down the hatchway into the flames, and another
had his back so completely broken as to have been observed quite doubled
falling overboard. These spectacles of individual loss and suffering
were not confined to the entrance upon the perilous voyage between the
two ships. One man, who fell between the boat and brig, had his head
literally crushed to pieces; and some others were lost in their attempts
to ascend the side of the _Cambria_.

Seeing that the tardy means employed for the escape of the women and
children necessarily consumed a great deal of time that might be partly
devoted to the general preservation, orders were given that along with
the females, each of the boats should also admit a certain portion of
the soldiers, several of whom, in their impatience to take advantage of
this permission, flung themselves overboard, and sank in their
ill-judged and premature efforts for deliverance.

One poor fellow of this number, a very respectable man, had actually
reached the boat, and was raising his hand to lay hold on the gunwale,
when the bow of the boat, by a sudden pitch, struck him on the head,
and he instantly went down. There was a peculiarity attending this man's
case that deserves notice. His wife, to whom he was warmly attached, not
having been of the allotted number of women to accompany the regiment
abroad, resolved in her anxiety to follow her husband, to defeat this
arrangement, and accordingly repaired with the detachment to Gravesend,
where she ingeniously managed, by eluding the vigilance of the sentries,
to get on board, and conceal herself for several days; and although she
was discovered, and sent ashore at Deal, she contrived a second time,
with true feminine perseverance, to get between decks, where she
continued to secrete herself until the morning of the fatal disaster.

While the men were thus bent in various ways on self-preservation, one
of the sailors, who had taken his post with many others over the
magazine, awaiting with great patience the dreaded explosion, at last
cried out, as if in ill-humour that his expectation was likely to be
disappointed, "Well, if she won't blow up, I'll see if I can't get away
from her;" and jumping up, he made his way to the boats, which he
reached in safety.

I ought to state that three of the six boats we originally possessed
were either completely stove or swamped in the course of the day, one of
them with men in it, some of whom were seen floating in the water for a
moment before they disappeared; and it is suspected that one or two of
those who went down must have sunk under the weight of their spoils, the
same individuals having been seen eagerly plundering the cuddy cabins.

As the day was rapidly drawing to a close, and the flames were slowly
but perceptibly extending, Colonel Fearon and Captain Cobb evinced an
increasing anxiety to relieve the remainder of the gallant men under
their charge.

To facilitate this object a rope was suspended from the extremity of the
spanker-boom, along which the men were recommended to proceed, and
thence slide down by the rope into the boats. But as, from the great
swell of the sea, and the constant heaving of the ship, it was
impossible for the boats to preserve their station for a moment, those
who adopted this course incurred so great a risk of swinging for some
time in the air, and of being repeatedly plunged under water, or dashed
against the sides of the boats underneath, that many of the landsmen
continued to throw themselves out of the stern window on the upper deck,
preferring what appeared to me the more precarious chance of reaching
the boats by swimming. Rafts made of spars, hencoops, etc., were also
ordered to be constructed, for the twofold purpose of forming an
intermediate communication with the boats--a purpose, by the bye, which
they very imperfectly answered--and of serving as a last point of
retreat, should the further extension of the flames compel us at once to
desert the vessel. Directions were at the same time given that every man
should tie a rope round his waist, by which he might afterwards attach
himself to the rafts, should he be suddenly forced to take to the water.
While the people were busily occupied in adopting this recommendation, I
was surprised, I had almost said amused, by the singular delicacy of one
of the Irish recruits, who, in searching for a rope in one of the
cabins, called out to me that he could find none except the cordage
belonging to an officer's cot, and wished to know whether there would be
any harm in his appropriating it to his own use.

The gradual removal of the officers was at the same time commenced, and
was marked by a discipline the most rigid, and an intrepidity the most
exemplary; none appearing to be influenced by a vain and ostentatious
bravery, which, in cases of extreme peril, affords rather a presumptive
proof of secret timidity than of fortitude; nor any betraying an unmanly
or unsoldierlike impatience to quit the ship; but, with the becoming
deportment of men neither paralyzed by, nor profanely insensible to, the
accumulating dangers that encompassed them, they progressively departed
in the different boats with their soldiers; those who happened to
proceed first leaving behind them an example of coolness that could not
be unprofitable to those who followed.

But the finest illustration of their conduct was displayed in that of
their chief, whose ability and presence of mind, under the complicated
responsibility and anxiety of a commander, husband, and father, were
eminently calculated, throughout this dismal day, to inspire all others
with composure and fortitude. Never for one moment did Colonel Fearon
seem to forget the authority with which his sovereign had invested him,
nor did any of his officers--as far as my observation went--cease to
remember the relative situations in which they were severally placed.
Even in the gloomiest moments of that dark season, when the dissolution
of every earthly distinction seemed near at hand, the decision and
confidence with which orders were issued on the one hand, and the
promptitude and respect with which they were obeyed on the other,
offered the best proofs of the stability of the well-connected system of
discipline established in the 31st regiment, and the most unquestionable
ground for the high and flattering commendation which his Royal
Highness, the Commander-in-chief, has been pleased to bestow upon it.

I should, however, be guilty of injustice and unkindness if I here
omitted to bear my humble testimony to the manly behaviour of the East
India Company's cadets, and other private passengers on board, who
emulated the best conduct of the officers of the ship and of the troops,
and equally participated with them in all the hardships and exertions of
the day.

As an agreeable proof, too, of the subordination and good feeling that
governed the poor soldiers in the midst of their sufferings, I ought to
state that towards evening, when the melancholy groups who were
passively seated on the poop, exhausted by previous fatigue, anxiety,
and fasting, were beginning to experience the pain of intolerable
thirst, a box of oranges was accidentally discovered by some of the men,
who, with a degree of mingled consideration, respect, and affection,
that could hardly have been expected at such a moment, refused to
partake of the grateful beverage until they had offered a share of it to
their officers.

I regret that the circumstances under which I write do not allow me
sufficient time for recalling to my recollection all the busy thoughts
that engaged my own mind on that eventful day, or the various
conjectures which I ventured to form of what was passing in the minds of
others.

But one idea was forcibly suggested to me,--that instead of being able
to trace amongst my numerous associates that diversity of fortitude
which I should have expected would mark their conduct--forming, as it
were, a descending series, from the decided heroism exhibited by some,
down to the lowest degree of pusillanimity and frenzy discoverable in
others,--I remarked that the mental condition of my fellow-sufferers was
rather divided by a broad but, as it afterwards appeared, not impassable
line; on the one side of which were ranged all whose minds were greatly
elevated by the excitement above their ordinary standard; and on the
other was to be seen the incalculably smaller but more conspicuous
group, whose powers of acting and thinking became absolutely paralyzed,
or were driven into delirium, by the unusual character and pressure of
the danger.

Nor was it uninteresting to observe the curious interchange, at least
externally, of strength and weakness that obtained between those two
discordant parties, during the day. Some whose agitation and timidity
had, in the earlier part of it, rendered them objects of pity or
contempt, afterwards rose, by some great internal effort, into positive
distinction for the opposite qualities; while others, remarkable at
first for calmness and courage, suddenly giving way, without any fresh
cause of despair, seemed afterwards to cast their minds as they did
their bodies, prostrate before the danger.

It would not, perhaps, be difficult to account for these apparent
anomalies; but I shall content myself with simply stating the facts,
adding to them one of a similar description that sensibly affected my
own mind.

Some of the soldiers near me having casually remarked that the sun was
setting, I looked round, and never can I forget the intensity with which
I regarded his declining rays. I had previously felt deeply impressed
with the conviction that that night the ocean was to be my bed; and had,
I imagined, sufficiently realized to my mind, both the last struggles
and the consequences of death. But as I continued solemnly watching the
departing beams of the sun, the thought that that was really the very
last I should ever behold, gradually expanded into reflections the most
tremendous in their import. It was not, I am persuaded, either the
retrospect of a past life, or the direct fear of death or of judgment,
that occupied my mind at the period I allude to; but a broad,
illimitable view of eternity itself, altogether abstracted from the
misery or felicity that flows through it--a sort of painless,
pleasureless, sleepless eternity. I know not whither the overwhelming
thought would have hurried me, had I not speedily seized, as with the
grasp of death, on some of those sweet promises of the gospel which give
to an immortal existence its only charms; and that naturally enough led
back my thoughts, by means of the brilliant object before me, to the
contemplation of that blessed city, "which hath no need of the sun,
neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God doth lighten
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

I have been the more particular in recording my precise feelings at the
period in question, because they tend to confirm an opinion which I have
long entertained--in common, I believe, with others,--that we very
rarely realize even those objects that seem, in our every-day
speculations, to be the most interesting to our hearts. We are so much
in the habit of uttering the awful words 'Almighty,' 'heaven,' 'hell,'
'eternity,' 'divine justice,' 'holiness,' etc., without attaching to
them, in all their magnitude, the ideas of which such words are the
symbols, that we become overwhelmed with much of the astonishment that
accompanies a new and alarming discovery if, at any time, the ideas
themselves are suddenly and forcibly impressed upon us; and it is,
probably, this vagueness of conception, experienced even by those whose
minds are not altogether unexercised on the subject of religion, that
enables others, devoid of all reflection whatever, to stand on the very
brink of that precipice which divides the world of time from the regions
of eternity, not only with apparent, but frequently, I am persuaded,
with real tranquillity. How much it is to be lamented that we do not
keep in mind a truth which no one can pretend to dispute, that our
indifference or blindness to danger, whether it be temporal or eternal,
cannot possibly remove or diminish the extent of that danger.

Some time after the shades of night had enveloped us, I descended to the
cuddy, in quest of a blanket to shelter me from the increasing cold; and
the scene of desolation that there presented itself was melancholy in
the extreme. The place which, only a few short hours before, had been
the seat of kindly intercourse and of social gaiety, was now entirely
deserted, save by a few miserable wretches, who were either stretched in
irrecoverable intoxication on the floor, or prowling about, like beasts
of prey, in search of plunder. The sofas, drawers, and other articles
of furniture, the due arrangement of which had cost so much thought and
pains, were now broken into a thousand pieces, and scattered in
confusion around me. Some of the geese and other poultry, escaped from
their confinement, were cackling in the cuddy; while a solitary pig,
wandering from its sty in the forecastle, was ranging at large in
undisturbed possession of the Brussels carpet that covered one of the
cabins. Glad to retire from a scene so cheerless and affecting, and
rendered more dismal by the smoke which was oozing up from below, I
returned to the poop, where I again found, amongst the few officers that
remained, Capt. Cobb, Colonel Fearon, Lieuts. Ruxton, Booth, and Evans,
superintending, with unabated zeal, the removal of the rapidly
diminishing sufferers, as the boats successively arrived to carry them
off.

The alarm and impatience of the people increased in a high ratio as the
night advanced; and our fears, amid the surrounding darkness, were fed
as much by the groundless or exaggerated reports of the timid as by the
real and evident approach of the fatal crisis itself. With a view to
ensure a greater probability of being discovered by those in the boats,
some of the more collected and hardy soldiers (for I think almost all
the sailors had already effected their escape) took the precaution to
tie towels and such like articles round their heads, previously to their
committing themselves to the water.

As the boats were nearly three-quarters of an hour absent between each
trip--which period was necessarily spent by those in the wreck in a
state of fearful inactivity--abundant opportunity was afforded for
collecting the sentiments of many of the unhappy men around me; some of
whom, after remaining perhaps for a while in silent abstraction, would
suddenly burst forth, as if awakened from some terrible dream to a still
more frightful reality, into a long train of loud and desponding
lamentation, that gradually subsided into its former stillness.

It was during those trying intervals of rest that religious instruction
and consolation appeared to be the most required and the most
acceptable. Some there were who endeavoured to dispense it agreeably to
the visible wants and feelings of the earnest hearers. On one of those
occasions, especially, the officer to whom I have already alluded was
entreated to pray. His prayer was short, but was frequently broken by
the exclamations of assent to some of its confessions, that were wrung
from the afflicted hearts of his auditors.

I know not in what manner, under those circumstances, spiritual hope or
comfort could have been ministered to my afflicted companions by those
who regard works, either wholly or partly, as the means of propitiating
divine justice, rather than the evidence and fruits of that faith which
pacifies the conscience and purifies the heart. But in some few cases,
at least, where the individuals deplored the want of time for repentance
and good works, I well remember that no arguments tended to soothe their
troubled minds but those which went directly to assure them of the
freeness and fulness of that grace which is not refused, even in the
eleventh hour, to the very chief of sinners. And if any of those to whom
I now allude have been spared to read this record of their feelings in
the prospect of death, it will be well for them to keep solemnly in mind
the vows they then took upon them, and to seek to improve that season of
probation which they so earnestly besought, and which has been so
mercifully extended to them,--by humbly and incessantly applying for
accessions of that faith which they are sensible removed the terrors of
their awakened consciences, and can alone enable them henceforward to
live in a sober, righteous, and godly manner, and thereby give the only
unquestionable proof of their love to God, and their interest in the
great salvation of His Son Jesus Christ.

If, on reading this imperfect narrative,[7] any persons beyond the
immediate circle of my companions in misery (for within it I can safely
declare that there were no indications of ridicule) should affect to
despise, as contemptible or unsoldierlike, the humble devotional
exercises to which I have now referred, I should like to assure them,
that although they were undoubtedly commenced and prosecuted much more
with an eternal than a temporal object in view, yet they also subserved
the important purpose of restoring order and composure amongst a certain
limited class of soldiers, at moments when mere military appeals had
ceased to operate.

I must state that, in general, it was not those most remarkable for
their fortitude who evinced either a precipitancy to depart, or a desire
to remain very long behind--the older and cooler soldiers appearing to
possess too much regard for their officers, as well as for their
individual credit, to take their hasty departure at a very early period
of the day, and too much wisdom and resolution to hesitate to the very
last.

But it was not till the close of this mournful tragedy that
backwardness, rather than impatience, to adopt the perilous and only
means of escape that offered, became generally discernible on the part
of the unhappy remnant still on board, and that made it not only
imperative on Captain Cobb to reiterate his threats, as well as his
entreaties, that not an instant should be lost, but seemed to render it
expedient for one of the officers of the troops, who had expressed his
intention of remaining to the last, to limit, in the hearing of those
around him, the period of his own stay. Seeing, however, between nine
and ten o'clock, that some individuals were consuming the precious
moments by obstinately hesitating to proceed, while others were making
the inadmissible request to be lowered down as the women had been,
learning from the boatmen that the wreck, which was already nine or ten
feet below the ordinary water mark, had sunk two feet lower since their
last trip; and calculating, besides, that the two boats then under the
stern, with that which was in sight on its return from the brig, would
suffice for the conveyance of all who seemed in a condition to remove;
the three remaining officers of the 31st regiment seriously prepared to
take their departure.

As I cannot perhaps convey to you so correct an idea of the condition of
others as by describing my own feelings and situation under the same
circumstances, I shall make no apology for detailing the manner of my
individual escape, which will sufficiently mark that of many hundreds
that preceded it. The spanker-boom of so large a ship as the _Kent_,
which projects, I should think, 16 or 18 feet over the stern, rests on
ordinary occasions about 19 or 20 feet above the water; but in the
position in which we were placed, from the great height of the sea, and
the consequent pitching of the ship, it was frequently lifted to a
height not less than 30 or 40 feet from the surface.

To reach the rope, therefore, that hung from its extremity was an
operation that seemed to require the aid of as much dexterity of hand as
steadiness of head. For it was not only the nervousness of creeping
along the boom itself, or the extreme difficulty of afterwards seizing
on and sliding down by the rope that we had to dread, and that had
occasioned the loss of some valuable lives by deterring men from
adopting this mode of escape; but as the boat, which one moment was
probably close under the boom, might be carried the next, by the force
of the waves, 15 or 20 yards away from it, the unhappy individual, whose
best calculations were thus defeated, was generally left swinging for
some time in mid-air, if he was not repeatedly plunged several feet
under water, or dashed with dangerous violence against the sides of the
returning boat--or, what not unfrequently happened, was forced to let go
his hold of the rope altogether. As there seemed, however, no
alternative, I did not hesitate, notwithstanding my comparative
inexperience and awkwardness in such a situation, to throw my legs
across the perilous spar; and with a heart extremely grateful that such
means of deliverance, dangerous as they appeared, were still extended to
me; and more grateful still that I had been enabled, in common with
others, to discharge my honest duty to my sovereign and to my
fellow-soldiers, I proceeded,--after confidently committing my spirit,
the great object of my solicitude, into the keeping of Him who had
formed and redeemed it,--to creep slowly forward, feeling at every step
the increasing difficulty of my situation. On getting nearly to the end
of the boom, the young officer whom I followed and myself were met with
a squall of wind and rain so violent as to make us fain to embrace
closely the slippery stick (without attempting for some minutes to make
any progress), and to excite our apprehension that we must relinquish
all hope of reaching the rope. But our fears were disappointed; and
after resting for a little while at the boom end, while my companion was
descending to the boat, which he did not find until he had been plunged
once or twice over head in the water, I prepared to follow; and instead
of lowering myself, as many had imprudently done, at the moment when the
boat was inclining towards us--and consequently being unable to descend
the whole distance before it again receded,--I calculated that while the
boat was retiring I ought to commence my descent, which would probably
be completed by the time the returning wave brought it underneath; by
which means I was, I believe, almost the only officer or soldier who
reached the boat without being either severely bruised or immersed in
the water.

But my good friend Colonel Fearon had not been so fortunate; for after
swinging for some time, and being repeatedly struck against the side of
the boat, and at one time drawn completely under it, he was at last so
utterly exhausted that he must instantly have let go his hold of the
rope and perished, had not some one in the boat seized him by the hair
of the head, and dragged him into it, almost senseless and alarmingly
bruised.

Captain Cobb, in his resolution to be the last, if possible, to quit his
ship, and in his generous anxiety for the preservation of every life
entrusted to his charge, refused to seek the boat until he again
endeavoured to urge onward the few still around him, who seemed struck
dumb and powerless with dismay.[8] But finding all his entreaties
fruitless, and hearing the guns, whose tackle was burst asunder by the
advancing flames, successively exploding in the hold into which they had
fallen, this gallant officer, after having nobly pursued, for the
preservation of others, a course of exertion that has been rarely
equalled either in its duration or difficulty, at last felt it right to
provide for his own safety by laying hold on the topping-lift or rope
that connects the driver boom with the mizen-top, and thereby getting
over the heads of the infatuated men who occupied the boom, unable to go
either backward or forward, and ultimately dropping himself into the
water.

The means of escape, however, did not cease to be presented to the
unfortunate individuals above referred to, long after Captain Cobb took
his departure; since one of the boats persevered in keeping its station
under the _Kent's_ stern, not only after all expostulation and entreaty
with those on board had foiled, but until the flames, bursting forth
from the cabin windows, rendered it impossible to remain without
inflicting the greatest cruelty on the individuals that manned it. But
even on the return of the boat in question to the _Cambria_, with the
single soldier who availed himself of it, did Captain Cook, with
characteristic jealousy, refuse to allow it to come alongside until he
learned that it was commanded by the spirited young officer, Mr.
Thomson,[9] whose indefatigable exertions during the whole day were to
him a sufficient proof that all had been done that could be done for the
deliverance of those individuals.

[Illustration: THE MAGAZINE EXPLODED.]

The same beneficent Providence which had been so wonderfully exerted for
the preservation of hundreds, was pleased, by a still more striking and
unquestionable display of power and goodness, to avert the fate of a
portion of those few who, we had all too much reason to fear, were
doomed to destruction. It would appear--for the poor men themselves give
an extremely confused, though I am persuaded not a wilfully false
account of themselves--that shortly after the departure of the last boat
they were driven by the flames to seek shelter on the chains, where they
stood until the masts fell overboard, to which they then clung for some
hours, in a state of horror that no language can describe; until they
were, most providentially, I may say miraculously, discovered and picked
up by Captain Bibbey, the humane commander of the _Caroline_, a vessel
on its passage from Egypt to Liverpool, who happened, to see the
explosion at a great distance, and instantly made all sail in the
direction whence it proceeded. Along with the fourteen men thus
miraculously preserved were three others, who had expired before the
arrival of the _Caroline_ to their rescue.[10]

The men on their return to their regiment expressed themselves in terms
of the liveliest gratitude for the affectionate attentions they received
on board the _Caroline_, from Captain Bibbey, who considerately remained
till daylight close to the wreck, in the hope that some others might
still be found clinging to it--an act of humanity which, it will appear
on the slightest reflection, would have been madness in Captain Cook, in
the peculiar situation of the _Cambria_, to have attempted.

But when I recollect the lamentable state of exhaustion to which that
portion of the crew were reduced, who unshrinkingly performed to the
last their arduous and perilous duties,--and that out of the three boats
that remained afloat, one was only prevented from sinking, towards the
close of the night, by having the hole in its bottom repeatedly stuffed
with soldiers' jackets, while the other two were rendered inefficient,
the one by having its bow completely stove, and the second by being half
filled with water, and the thwarts so torn as to make it necessary to
lash the oars to the boat's ribs,--I must believe that, by those who
thus laboured, all was done that humanity could possibly demand, or
intrepidity effect, for the preservation of every individual.

Quitting, for a moment, the subject of the wreck, I would advert to what
was in the meantime taking place on board the _Cambria_. I cannot,
however, pretend to give you any adequate idea of the feelings of hope
or despair that alternately flowed, like a tide, in the breasts of the
unhappy females on board the brig, during the many hours of torturing
suspense in which several of them were unavoidably held respecting the
fate of their husbands,--feelings which were inconceivably excited,
rather than soothed, by the idle and erroneous rumours occasionally
conveyed to them regarding the state of the _Kent_. But still less can I
attempt to portray the alternate pictures of awful joy and of wild
distraction exhibited by the sufferers (for both parties for the moment
seemed equally to suffer), as the terrible truth was communicated that
they and their children were indeed left husbandless and fatherless;
or as the objects from whom they had feared they were for ever severed,
suddenly rushed into their arms. But these feelings of delight, whatever
may have been their intensity, were speedily chastened, and the
attention of all arrested, by the last tremendous spectacle of
destruction.

After the arrival of the last boat the flames, which had spread along
the upper deck and poop, ascended with the rapidity of lightning to the
masts and rigging, forming one general conflagration, that illumined the
heavens to an immense distance, and was strongly reflected by several
objects on board the brig. The flags of distress, hoisted in the
morning, were seen for a considerable time waving amid the flames, until
the masts to which they were suspended successively fell like stately
steeples over the ship's side. At last, about half-past one o'clock in
the morning, the devouring element having communicated to the magazine,
the explosion was seen, and the blazing fragments of the once
magnificent _Kent_ were instantly hurried, like so many rockets, high
into the air;[11] leaving, in the comparative darkness that succeeded,
the deathful scene of that disastrous day floating before the mind like
some feverish dream.

Shortly afterwards, the brig, which had been gradually making sail, was
running at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour towards the nearest
port. I would here endeavour to render my humble tribute of admiration
and gratitude to that gallant and excellent individual, who, under God,
was undoubtedly the chief instrument of our deliverance; if I were not
sensible that testimony has been already borne to his heroic and humane
efforts, in a manner much more commensurate with, and from quarters
reflecting infinitely greater honour upon his merits, than the feeble
expressions of them which I should be able to record.[12] I trust you
will keep in mind that Captain Cook's generous intentions and exertions
must have proved utterly unavailing for the preservation of so many
lives, had they not been most nobly and unremittingly supported by those
of his mate and crew, as well as of the numerous passengers on board his
brig. While the former, only eight in number, were usefully and
necessarily employed in working the vessel, the sturdy Cornish miners
and Yorkshire smelters, on the approach of the different boats, took
their perilous stations on the chains, where they put forth the great
muscular strength with which Heaven had endowed them, in dexterously
seizing, at each successive heave of the sea, on some of the exhausted
people, and dragging them up on deck.

Nor did their kind assistance terminate there. They and the gentlemen
connected with them cheerfully opened their ample stores of clothes and
provisions, which they liberally dispensed to the naked and famished
sufferers; they surrendered their beds to the helpless women and
children, and seemed, in short, during the whole of our passage to
England, to take no other delight than in ministering to all our wants.

Although, after the first burst of mutual gratulation, and of becoming
acknowledgment of the divine mercy for our unlooked-for deliverance, had
subsided, none of us felt disposed to much interchange of thought, each
being rather inclined to wrap himself up in his own reflections; yet we
did not, during the first night, view with the alarm it warranted, the
extreme misery and danger to which we were still exposed, by being
crowded together, in a gale of wind, with upwards of 600 human beings,
in a small brig of 200 tons, at a distance, too, of several hundred
miles from any accessible port. Our little cabin, which was only
calculated, under ordinary circumstances, for the accommodation of eight
or ten persons, was now made to contain nearly eighty individuals, many
of whom had no sitting room, and even some of the ladies no room to lie
down. Owing to the continued violence of the gale, and to the bulwarks
on one side of the brig having been driven in, the sea beat so
incessantly over our deck as to render it necessary that the hatches
should only be lifted up between the returning waves, to prevent
absolute suffocation below, where the men were so closely packed
together that the steam arising from their respiration excited at one
time an apprehension that the vessel was on fire; while the impurity of
the air they were inhaling became so marked, that the lights
occasionally carried down amongst them were almost instantly
extinguished. Nor was the condition of the hundreds who covered the deck
less wretched than that of their comrades below; since they were
obliged night and day to stand shivering, in their wet and nearly naked
state, ankle deep in water:[13]--some of the older children and females
were thrown into fits, while the infants were piteously crying for that
nourishment which their nursing mothers were no longer able to give
them.[14]

Our only hope amid these great and accumulating miseries was that the
same compassionate Providence which had already so marvellously
interposed in our behalf would not permit the favourable wind to abate
or change until we reached some friendly port; for we were all convinced
that a delay of a very few days longer at sea must inevitably involve us
in famine, pestilence, and a complication of the most dreadful evils.
Our hopes were not disappointed. The gale continued with even increasing
violence; and our able captain, crowding all sail, at the risk of
carrying away his masts, so nobly urged his vessel onward, that in the
afternoon of Thursday, the 3rd, the delightful exclamation from aloft
was heard, "Land ahead!" In the evening we descried the Scilly lights;
and running rapidly along the Cornish coast, we joyfully cast anchor in
Falmouth harbour, at about half-past twelve o'clock at night.

On reviewing the various proximate causes to which so many human beings
owed their deliverance from a combination of dangers as remarkable for
their duration as they were appalling in their aspect, it is impossible,
I think, not to discover and gratefully acknowledge, in the beneficence
of their arrangement, the overruling providence of that blessed Being,
who is sometimes pleased, in His mysterious operations, to produce the
same effect from causes apparently different; and on the other hand, as
in our own case, to bring forth results the most opposite, from one and
the same cause. For there is no doubt that the heavy rolling of our
ship, occasioned by the violent gale, which was the real origin of all
our disasters, contributed also most essentially to our subsequent
preservation; since, had not Captain Cobb been enabled, by the
greatness of the swell, to introduce speedily through the gun ports the
immense quantity of water that inundated the hold, and thereby checked
for so long a time the fury of the flames, the _Kent_ must
unquestionably have been consumed before many, perhaps before any, of
those on board could have found shelter in the _Cambria_.[15]

But it is unnecessary to dwell on an insulated fact like this, amidst a
concatenation of circumstances, all leading to the same conclusion, and
so closely bound together as to force us to confess, that if a single
link in the chain had been withdrawn or withheld, we must all most
probably have perished.

The _Cambria_, which had been, it seems, unaccountably detained in port
nearly a month after the period assigned for her departure, was early on
the morning of the fatal calamity pursuing at a great distance ahead of
us the same course with ourselves; but her bulwarks on the weather side
having been suddenly driven in, by a heavy sea breaking over her
quarter, Captain Cook, in his anxiety to give ease to his labouring
vessel, was induced to go completely out of his course by throwing the
brig on the opposite tack, by which means alone he was brought in sight
of us. Not to dwell on the unexpected, but not unimportant facts of the
flames having been mercifully prevented, for eleven hours, from either
communicating with the magazine forward, or the great spirit room abaft,
or even coming into contact with the tiller ropes--any of which
circumstances would evidently have been fatal,--I would remark that,
until the _Cambria_ hove in sight, we had not discovered any vessel
whatever for several days previous; nor did we afterwards see another
until we entered the chops of the Channel. It is to be remembered, too,
that had the _Cambria_, with her small crew, been homeward instead of
outward bound, her scanty remainder of provisions, under such
circumstances, would hardly have sufficed to form a single meal for our
vast assemblage; or if, instead of having her lower deck completely
clear, she had been carrying out a full cargo, there would not have been
time, under the pressure of the danger and the violence of the gale, to
throw the cargo overboard, and certainly, with it, not sufficient space
in the brig to contain one-half of our number.

When I reflect, besides, on the disastrous consequences that must have
followed if, during our passage home, which was performed in a period
most unusually short, the wind had either veered round a few points, or
even partially subsided--which must have produced a scene of horror on
board more terrible if possible than that from which we had escaped; and
above all, when I recollect the extraordinary fact, and that which seems
to have the most forcibly struck the whole of us, that we had not been
above an hour in Falmouth harbour, when the wind, which had all along
been blowing from the south-west, suddenly chopped round to the opposite
quarter of the compass, and continued uninterruptedly for several days
afterwards to blow strongly from the north-east,--one cannot help
concluding that he who sees nothing of a Divine Providence in our
preservation must be lamentably and wilfully blind to "the majesty of
the Lord."

In the course of the morning we all prepared, with thankful and joyful
hearts, to place our feet on the shores of Old England.

The ladies, always destined to form our vanguard, were the first to
disembark, and were met on the beach by immense crowds of the
inhabitants, who appeared to have been attracted thither less by idle
curiosity than from the sincerest desire to alleviate in every possible
manner their manifest sufferings.

The sailors and soldiers, cold, wet, and almost naked, quickly followed;
the whole forming, in their haggard looks and the endless variety of
their costume, an assemblage at once as melancholy and grotesque as it
is possible to conceive. So eager did the people appear to be to pour
out upon us the full current of their sympathies, that shoes, hats, and
other articles of urgent necessity were presented to several of the
officers and men before they had even quitted the point of
disembarkation. And in the course of the day, many of the officers and
soldiers, and almost all of the females, were partaking, in the private
houses of individuals, of the most liberal and needful hospitality.

But this flow of compassion and kindness did not cease with the impulse
of the more immediate occasion that had called it forth. For a meeting
of the inhabitants was afterwards held, where subscriptions in clothes
and money to a large amount were collected for the relief of the
numerous sufferers. The women and children, whose wants seemed to demand
their first care, were speedily furnished with comfortable clothing, and
the poor widows and orphans with decent mourning. Depositories of
shirts, shoes, stockings, etc., were formed for the supply of the
officers and private passengers; and the sick and wounded in the
hospital were made the recipients, not only of all those kindly
attentions and medical assistance that could remove or soothe their
temporal suffering, but were also invited to partake freely of the most
judicious spiritual consolation and instruction. This march of charity
was conducted by the ladies of Falmouth, who were zealously accompanied
on it by the whole body, in the vicinity, of that peculiar sect of
Christians, who have ever been as remarkable for their unassuming
pretensions and consistent conduct, as for unostentatiously standing in
the front ranks of every good work. And so strong is the reason which I,
in particular, have to associate in my mind all that is sincere,
considerate, and charitable with the society of Friends, that the very
badge of Quakerism will, I trust, henceforward prove a full and
sufficient passport to the best feelings of my heart.

On the first Sunday after our arrival, Colonel Fearon, followed by all
his officers and men, and accompanied by Captain Cobb, and the officers
and private passengers of his late ship, hastened to prostrate
themselves before the throne of the Heavenly grace, to pour out the
public expression of their thanksgiving to their almighty Preserver. The
scene was deeply impressive; and it is earnestly to be hoped that many a
poor fellow who listened, perhaps for the first time in his life, with
unquestionable sincerity and humility to the voice of instruction, will
be found steadily prosecuting, in the strength of God, the good
resolutions that he may on that solemn occasion have formed, until he be
able to say, as one of the greatest generals of antiquity did, that "it
was good for him to have been afflicted; for before he was afflicted he
went astray, but that afterwards he was not ashamed to keep God's word."

In the course of a few days the private passengers and most of the
sailors of our party were dispersed in various directions; and the
troops, after having incurred to the excellent inhabitants of Falmouth,
and the adjacent towns, a debt of gratitude which none of them can ever
hope to repay, were embarked for Chatham.

I think you must be already sensible that the circumstances of our
situation on board the _Kent_ did not enable us conscientiously to save
a single article, either of public or private property, from the flames;
indeed, the only thing I preserved--with the exception of forty or fifty
sovereigns, which I hastily tied up in my pocket handkerchief, and put
into my wife's hands, at the moment she was lifted into the boat, as a
provision for herself and her companions against the temporary want to
which they might be exposed on some foreign shore--was the pocket
compass, which you yourself presented to me.[16]

But I would have you to be assured, that the total abandonment of
individual interests on the part of the officers of the ship, and of the
31st regiment, was occasioned by no want of self-possession, nor even,
in all cases, of opportunities to attend to them; but to a sincere
desire to avoid even the appearance of selfishness, at moments when the
valuable lives of their sailors and soldiers were at stake. And this
observation applies with still greater force to the senior officers in
both services, whose cabins being upon the upper deck were accessible
during the whole day; and where many portable articles of value were
deposited, which could have been very easily carried off, had those
officers been disposed to devote to their own concerns even a portion of
that precious time, and of those active exertions, which they
unremittingly applied to the performance of their professional duty.

Notwithstanding the unexpected length to which I have already extended
this narrative, I cannot allow myself to close it without offering to my
late companions on board the _Kent_, into whose hands it may possibly
fall, a few very plain and simple observations, which I think worthy of
their serious consideration, and the importance of which I desire to
have deeply impressed upon my own mind. None of those soldiers who were
in the habit of reading their Bibles can have failed to notice that
faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is therein made the great pivot
on which the salvation of man hinges; that the whole human race, without
distinction of rank, nation, age, or sex, being justly exposed to the
wrath of Almighty God, nothing but the precious blood of Christ, which
was shed on the cross, can possibly atone for their sins; and that faith
in this atonement can alone pacify the conscience, and awaken confidence
towards God as a reconciled Father. If, therefore, "he that believeth in
Christ shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," be
the unequivocal language of Jehovah, either expressly declared or
obviously implied in every page of that record which He has vouchsafed
to us of His Son; is it not a question of the deepest concernment to
every one professing any regard for divine revelation, whether he really
understands and believes that record, and whether he is able to give,
not only to others, but to himself, a reason of this hope that is in
him?

From the influence of education or example, the absence of serious
reflection, an attention to the outward ordinances of religion, a regard
to many of the proprieties and decencies of life, and a forgetfulness
that the religion of the Bible is a religion of motives rather than one
of observances, minds easily satisfied on such subjects may persuade
themselves that they are spiritually alive while they are dead--that
they are amongst the sincere disciples of the blessed Redeemer, and
fully interested in His salvation, while they may have neither part nor
lot in the matter. But if, at the hour of death, when all external
support shall slide away, the soul shall be awakened to the
consciousness of its real condition; if it should be made to see, on the
one hand, the spirituality and exceeding breadth of the divine law, and
be quickened, on the other, to a sense of its unnumbered transgressions;
if the mercy of God out of Christ, in which so many vainly and vaguely
trust, should become obscured by the inflexible justice and spotless
holiness of His character and if the solitary spirit, as it is dragged
towards the mysterious precipice, is made to hear, from a voice which it
can no longer mistake, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all
things which are written in the book of the law to do them,"--how
unspeakably miserable must be the condition of the man who thus
discovers, for the first time, that the sand which he had all his
lifetime been mistaking for the "Rock of Ages" is now giving way under
his feet, and that his soul must speedily sink into that state in which,
"where the tree falleth, there it shall be;" where "he that is unjust,
let him be unjust still;" and where there is "no work, nor device, nor
knowledge," nor repentance.

But that I may not be misunderstood, or be supposed to favour principles
of barren speculation, more delusive and dangerous to their possessors,
and to the best interests of society, than absolute ignorance itself--I
would remind the gallant men to whom I am now more especially addressing
myself, that that faith which saves the soul not only "worketh"
invariably "by love," and gradually "overcometh the world," but that "it
is the gift of God," implanted in the heart by His Holy Spirit, even by
that Spirit which is freely given to every one that earnestly asketh.
And however unable the simple soldier may be to explain either the
nature or the manner of its operation, he must not deceive himself into
the persuasion that he is possessed of this precious grace unless he
feels it bringing forth in his life and conversation the abundant fruits
that necessarily spring from it, and that cannot indeed be produced
without it. He will be steady and zealous in the performance of duty,
patient under fatigue and privation, sober amid temptation, calm but
firm in the hour of danger, and respectfully obedient to his officers;
he will honour his king, be content with his wages, and do harm to no
man. His piety will be ardent but sober, his prayers will be earnest and
frequent, but rather in secret than before men; he will not be
contentious or disputatious, but rather desirous of instructing others
by his example than by his precepts; letting his light so shine before
them, in the simplicity of his motives, the uprightness of his actions,
in his readiness to oblige, and by the whole tenor of his life, that
they, seeing his good works, may be led, by the divine blessing, to
acknowledge the reality and power and beauty of religion, and be induced
in like manner to glorify his heavenly Father. In short, in comparison
with his thoughtless comrades, he must not only aspire to become a
better man, but, from the constraining motives of the gospel, struggle
to be also in every essential respect a better soldier.

In conclusion, I would observe that if any class of men, more than
another, ought to be struck with awe and gratitude by the goodness and
providence of God, it is they who go down to the sea in ships, and see
His wonders in the great deep; or if any ought to familiarize their
minds with death and its solemn consequences, it is surely soldiers,
"whose very business it is to die." May all those then, especially, who
thus possessed the privilege, but rarely granted, of being allowed, in
the full vigour of health, and in the absence of all the bustle and
excitement of battle, to contemplate, from the very brink of eternity,
the awful realities that reign within it, as many of their departing
comrades were hurried through its dreadful portals, be now led, in the
respite which has been given them, to remember that this alone is the
accepted time, and this the day of salvation; for while some may defer
the subject "to a more convenient season," the message may come forth,
at an hour when it is least expected, "This night thy soul shall be
required of thee." The foregoing narrative may be fitly supplemented by
some particulars[17] of the events occurring after the departure of the
_Cambria_ from the scene of the wreck:--

"About twelve o'clock the watch of the barque _Caroline_, on her passage
from Alexandria to Liverpool, observed a light on the horizon, and knew
it at once to be a ship on fire. There was a heavy sea on, but the
captain, instantly setting his maintop-gallant-sail, ran down towards
the spot. About one, the sky becoming brighter, a sudden jet of vivid
light shot up; but they were too distant to hear the explosion. In
half-an-hour the _Caroline_ could see the wreck of a large vessel lying
head to the wind. The ribs and frame timbers, marking the outlines of
double ports and quarter-galleries, showed that the burning skeleton was
that of a first-class Indiaman. Every other external feature was gone;
she was burnt nearly to the water's edge, but still floated, pitching
majestically as she rose and fell on the long rolling swell of the bay.
The vessel looked like an immense cage of charred basket-work filled
with flame, that here and there blazed brighter at intervals. Above,
and far to leeward, there was a vast drifting cloud of curling smoke
spangled with millions of sparks and burning flakes, and scattered by
the wind over the sky and waves.

"As the _Caroline_ approached, part of a mast and some spars, rising and
falling, were observed grinding under the weather-quarter of the wreck,
having got entangled with the keel or rudder irons, and thus attaching
it to the hull of the vessel. The _Caroline_, coming down swift before
the wind, was in a few minutes brought across the bows of the _Kent_. At
that moment a shout was heard as if from the very centre of the fire,
and the same instant several figures were observed clinging to a mast.
The sea was heavy, and the wreck threatened every moment to disappear.
The _Caroline_ was hove-to to leeward, in order to avoid the showers of
flakes and sparks, and to intercept any boats or rafts. The mate and
four seamen pushed off in the jolly-boat, through a sea covered with
floating spars, chests, and furniture, that threatened to crush or
overwhelm the boat. When within a few yards of the stern, they caught
sight of the first living thing--a wretched man clinging to a spar
close under the ship's counter. Every time the stern-frame rose with the
swell he was suspended above the water, and scorched by the long keen
tongues of pure flame that now came darting through the gun-room ports.
Each time this torture came the man shrieked with agony; the next moment
the surge came and buried him under the wave, and he was silent. The
_Caroline's_ men, defying the fire, pulled close to him, but just as
their hands were stretching towards him (latterly the poor wretch had
been silent), the rope or spar was snapped by the fire, and he sank for
ever.

"The men then, carefully backing, carried off six other of the nearest
men from the mast. The small boat, only eighteen feet long, would not
hold more than eleven persons, and indeed, as it was, was nearly swamped
by a heavy wave. In half-an-hour the boat bravely returned, and took off
six more.

"The mate, fearing the vessel was going down, and that the masts would
be swallowed in the vortex, redoubled his efforts to get a third time to
the wreck. While struggling with a head sea, and before the boat could
reach the mast, the end came. The fiery mass settled like a red-hot
coal into the waves, and disappeared for ever. The sky grew instantly
dark, a dense shroud of black smoke lingered over the grave of the ship,
and instead of the crackle of burning timbers and the flutter of flames,
there spread the ineffable stillness of death.

"As the last gleam flickered out, Mr. Wallen, the mate of the
_Caroline_, with great quickness of thought set the spot by a star.
Then, in spite of the danger in the darkness of floating wreck, he
resolved to wait quietly till daylight, and ordered his men to shout
repeatedly to cheer any who might be still floating on stray spars. For
a long time no one answered; at last a feeble cry came, and the
_Caroline's_ sailors returned it loudly and gladly. What joy that faint
cry must have brought to those friendly ears! With what joy must the
boatmen's shout have been received!

[Illustration: WHEN DAY BROKE THE MAST WAS VISIBLE.]

"When the day broke the mast was visible, and four motionless men could
be seen among its cordage and top-work. They seemed dead, but as the
boat neared, two of them feebly raised their heads and stretched out
their arms. When taken into the boat, they were found to be faint and
almost dead from the cold and wet, and the many hours they had been
half under water. The other two were stone dead. One had bound himself
firmly to the spar, and lay as if asleep, with his arms around it, and
his head upon it, as if it had been a pillow. The other stood half
upright between the cheeks of the mast, his face fixed in the direction
of the boat, his arms still extended. They were both left on the spar.
One of the Indiaman's empty boats was also found drifting a short
distance off. The wind beginning to freshen and a gale coming on, it was
all the jolly-boat could do to rejoin the _Caroline_. There could be no
doubt that when the _Caroline_ hove-to and luffed under the lee of the
_Kent_, it must have passed men drifting to leeward on detached spars.
They of course all perished in the rising storm.

"A piece of plate was presented to Captain Cook, of the _Cambria_, by
the officers and passengers of the _Kent_, and the Duke of York publicly
thanked him for his humane zeal and promptitude. The Secretary of War
(Lord Palmerston) authorized a sum of five hundred pounds to be given to
the captain and crew of the _Cambria_, and the agents of the ship were
also paid two hundred and eighty-seven pounds for provisions, two
hundred and eighty-seven pounds for passengers' diet, and five hundred
pounds for demurrage. The East India Company awarded six hundred pounds
to Captain Cook, one hundred pounds to the first mate, fifty pounds to
the second mate, ten pounds each to the nine men of the crew, fifteen
pounds each to the twenty-six miners, and one hundred pounds to the ten
chief miners for extra stores, to make their voyage out more
comfortable. The Royal Exchange Assurance gave Captain Cook fifty
pounds, and his officers and crew fifty pounds. The subscribers to
Lloyds voted him a present of one hundred pounds; the Royal Humane
Society awarded him an honorary medallion; and the underwriters at
Liverpool were also prominent in their liberality."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Captain Cobb, with great forethought, ordered the deck to
be scuttled forward, with a view to draw the fire in that direction,
knowing that between it and the magazine were several tiers of
water-casks; while he hoped that the wet sails, etc., thrown into the
after-hold, would prevent the fire from communicating with the
spirit-room abaft.]

[Footnote 2: The late Lady MacGregor, and the late Mrs. Pringle, of
Yair, Whytbank, Selkirk, N.B., who are also mentioned in the letter on
page 23.]

[Footnote 3: This bottle, left in the cabin, was cast into the sea by
the explosion that destroyed the _Kent_. About nineteen months
afterwards the following notice appeared in a Barbadoes (West Indian)
newspaper:--

"A bottle was picked up on Saturday, the 30th September, at Bathsheba (a
bathing-place on the west of Barbadoes), by a gentleman who was bathing
there, who, on breaking it, found the melancholy account of the fate of
the ship _Kent_, contained in a folded paper written with pencil, but
scarcely legible." The words of the letter were then given, and a
facsimile of it will be found on the next page. The letter itself, taken
from the bottle thickly encrusted with shells and seaweed, was returned
to the writer when he arrived, shortly after its discovery, at
Barbadoes, as Lieut.-Colonel of the 93rd Highlanders, and the
interesting relic is still preserved by his son (at that time called
"little Rob Roy"), who is not mentioned in the letter, but was saved as
related in page 33.]

[Footnote 4: Two shipwrights, dismissed from their situation because
they would not work on Sunday, were employed by the father of a friend
of the writer. He engaged them to build their first vessel, the
_Cambria_, and this was her first voyage, starting from Deptford before
the _Kent_ sailed from Gravesend.

Captain Cook many years afterwards commanded in the disastrous "Niger
Expedition." He was a splendid sailor, and a humble Christian, whose
death-bed, long years after, was attended by the youngest passenger he
had helped to save from the burning _Kent_.]

[Footnote 5: I was afterwards informed by one of the passengers on board
the _Cambria_--for from the great height of the Indiaman we had not the
opportunity of making a similar observation--that when both vessels
happened to be at the same time in the trough of the sea, the _Kent_ was
entirely concealed by the intervening waves from the deck of the
_Cambria_.]

[Footnote 6: "The _Rob Roy_ Canoe on the Jordan" (Murray) gives some
other experiences of watery dangers in after life.]

[Footnote 7: This narrative has been translated into the French,
Spanish, Swedish, Italian, German, and Russian languages, and the author
(born March 16, 1787) still enjoys good health (1880) while writing the
preface to this edition, of which a _facsimile_ is given at the
beginning of the book.]

[Footnote 8: Some of those men who were necessarily left behind, having
previously conducted themselves with great propriety and courage, I
think it but justice to express my belief that the same difficulties
which had nearly proved fatal to Captain Cobb's personal escape were
probably found to be insurmountable by landsmen, whose coolness,
unaccompanied with dexterity and experience, might not be available to
them in their awful situation.]

[Footnote 9: I ought to state that the exertions of Mr. Muir, third
mate, were also most conspicuous during the whole day.]

[Footnote 10: See page 83.--One of the men saved after the
explosion (which had burned off both his feet) was met thirty years
afterwards by the individual who was first saved in the _Cambria_. This
man was wheeling himself in a go-cart on the race-ground at Lanark,
dressed in sailor's costume, and selling papers with a picture of the
_Kent_ upon them and some doggerel verses below. As honorary secretary
of the "Open-Air Mission" (which provides preachers for streets in
towns, and for races and fairs in the country), the "first saved" from
the wreck and burning then preached the Gospel to the "last saved" from
the scorched embers, and to a large and motley crowd, all of whom will
assuredly meet once more "at that day."]

[Footnote 11: Besides 500 barrels of gunpowder, there was on board
several hundredweight of highly explosive percussion powder. The brig
was about three miles distant when the _Kent_ exploded.]

[Footnote 12: Captain Cook afterwards rendered distinguished services in
the Niger expedition, and died in London a true Christian sailor, after
several visits from one he had helped to save.]

[Footnote 13: In addition to those who were naked on board the _Kent_ at
the moment the alarm of fire was heard, several individuals afterwards
threw off their clothes to enable them the more easily to swim to the
boats.]

[Footnote 14: One of the soldiers' wives was delivered of a child about
an hour or two after her arrival on board the brig. Both survived, and
the child received the appropriate name of "Cambria."]

[Footnote 15: There were lost in the destruction of the _Kent_, 54
soldiers, 1 woman, and 20 children, belonging to the 31st Regiment; 1
seaman and 5 boys--total, 81 individuals.]

[Footnote 16: A little Testament was also saved. Only one officer's
sword was saved, and that belonged to him who afterwards led the 31st
regiment in the battles on the Sutlej.]

[Footnote 17: From _All the Year Round_.]







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