Chapter 26

DELAYS AND ACCIDENTS--SCURVY AGAIN--A LEAK--THE GLOUCESTER ABANDONED.

When on the 6th of May, 1742, we left the coast of America, we stood to the south-west with a view of meeting with the north-east trade wind, which the accounts of former writers made us expect at seventy or eighty leagues distance from the land. We had, besides, another reason for standing to the southward, which was the getting into the latitude of 13 or 14 degrees north, that being the parallel where the Pacific Ocean is most usually crossed, and consequently where the navigation is esteemed the safest. This last purpose we had soon answered, being in a day or two sufficiently advanced to the south. At the same time we were also farther from the shore than we had presumed was necessary for falling in with the tradewind; but in this particular we were most grievously disappointed, for the wind still continued to the westward, or at best variable. As the getting into the north-east trade was to us a matter of the last consequence, we stood more to the southward, and made many experiments to meet with it, but all our efforts were for a long time unsuccessful, so that it was seven weeks from our leaving the coast before we got into the true trade wind.

CONTRARY AND VARIABLE WINDS.

This was an interval in which we believed we should well-nigh have reached the easternmost parts of Asia, but we were so baffled with the contrary and variable winds which for all that time perplexed us, that we were not as yet advanced above a fourth part of the way. The delay alone would have been a sufficient mortification, but there were other circumstances attending it which rendered this situation not less terrible, and our apprehensions perhaps still greater, than in any of our past distresses, for our two ships were by this time extremely crazy, and many days had not passed before we discovered a spring in the foremast of the Centurion, which rounded about twenty-six inches of its circumference, and which was judged to be at least four inches deep; and no sooner had our carpenters secured this with fishing it but the Gloucester made a signal of distress, and we learned that she had a dangerous spring in her mainmast, so that she could not carry any sail upon it. Our carpenters, on a strict examination of this mast, found it so very rotten and decayed that they judged it necessary to cut it down as low as it appeared to have been injured, and by this it was reduced to nothing but a stump, which served only as a step to the topmast. These accidents augmented our delay and occasioned us great anxiety about our future security, for on our leaving the coast of Mexico the scurvy had begun to make its appearance again amongst our people, though from our departure from Juan Fernandez we had till then enjoyed a most uninterrupted state of health. We too well knew the effects of this disease from our former fatal experience to suppose that anything but a speedy passage could secure the greater part of our crew from perishing by it, and as, after being seven weeks at sea, there did not appear any reasons that could persuade us we were nearer the trade wind than when we first set out, there was no ground for us to suppose but our passage would prove at least three times as long as we at first expected, and consequently we had the melancholy prospect either of dying by the scurvy or perishing with the ship for want of hands to navigate her.

SLOW PROGRESS.

When we reached the trade wind, and it settled between the north and the east, yet it seldom blew with so much strength but the Centurion might have carried all her small sails abroad with the greatest safety, so that now, had we been a single ship, we might have run down our longitude apace, and have reached the Ladrones soon enough to have recovered great numbers of our men who afterwards perished. But the Gloucester, by the loss of her mainmast, sailed so very heavily that we had seldom any more than our topsails set, and yet were frequently obliged to lie to for her, and I conceive that in the whole we lost little less than a month by our attendance upon her, in consequence of the various mischances she encountered. In all this run it was remarkable that we were rarely many days together without seeing great numbers of birds, which is a proof that there are many islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along at no very considerable distance from our track. Some indeed there are marked in Spanish charts, but the frequency of the birds seems to evince that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered, for the greatest part of the birds, we observed, were such as are known to roost on shore, and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening, for we never saw them early or late, and the hour of their arrival and departure gradually varied, which we supposed was occasioned by our running nearer their haunts or getting farther from them.

The trade wind continued to favour us without any fluctuation from the end of June till towards the end of July, but on the 26th of July, being then, as we esteemed, about three hundred leagues distant from the Ladrones, we met with a westerly wind, which did not come about again to the eastward in four days' time. This was a most dispiriting incident, as it at once damped all our hopes of speedy relief, especially, too, as it was attended with a vexatious accident to the Gloucester, for in one part of those four days the wind flattened to a calm, and the ships rolled very deep, by which means the Gloucester's forecap split and her topmast came by the board and broke her foreyard directly in the slings. As she was hereby rendered incapable of making any sail for some time, we were obliged, as soon as a gale sprung up, to take her in tow, and near twenty of the healthiest and ablest of our seaman were taken from the business of our own ship and were employed for eight or ten days together on board the Gloucester in repairing her damages. But these things, mortifying as we thought them, were but the beginning of our disasters, for scarce had our people finished their business in the Gloucester before we met with a most violent storm in the western board, which obliged us to lie to. In the beginning of this storm our ship sprung a leak, and let in so much water that all our people, officers included, were employed continually in working the pumps, and the next day we had the vexation to see the Gloucester with her topmast once more by the board, and whilst we were viewing her with great concern for this new distress we saw her main-topmast, which had hitherto served as a jury mainmast, share the same fate. This completed our misfortunes and rendered them without resource, for we knew the Gloucester's crew were so few and feeble that without our assistance they could not be relieved, and our sick were now so far increased, and those that remained in health so continually fatigued with the additional duty of our pumps, that it was impossible for us to lend them any aid. Indeed, we were not as yet fully apprised of the deplorable situation of the Gloucester's crew, for when the storm abated (which during its continuance prevented all communication with them) the Gloucester bore up under our stern, and Captain Mitchel informed the Commodore that besides the loss of his masts, which was all that had appeared to us, the ship had then no less than seven feet of water in her hold, although his officers and men had been kept constantly at the pump for the last twenty-four hours, and that her crew was greatly reduced, for there remained alive on board her no more than seventy-seven men, eighteen boys, and two prisoners, officers included, and that of this whole number only sixteen men and eleven boys were capable of keeping the deck, and several of these very infirm.

THUS PERISHED H.M.S. GLOUCESTER.

It plainly appeared that there was no possibility of preserving the Gloucester any longer, as her leaks were irreparable, and the united hands on board both ships capable of working would not be able to free her, even if our own ship should not employ any part of them. The only step to be taken was the saving the lives of the few that remained on board the Gloucester, and getting out of her as much as was possible before she was destroyed; and therefore the Commodore immediately sent an order to Captain Mitchel, as the weather was now calm and favourable, to send his people on board the Centurion as expeditiously as he could and to take out such stores as he could get at whilst the ship could be kept above water. And as our leak required less attention whilst the present easy weather continued, we sent our boats, with as many men as we could spare, to Captain Mitchel's assistance.

It was the 15th of August, in the evening, before the Gloucester was cleared of everything that was proposed to be removed; and though the hold was now almost full of water, yet as the carpenters were of opinion that she might still swim for some time if the calm should continue and the water become smooth, she was set on fire; for we knew not how near we might now be to the island of Guam, which was in the possession of our enemies, and the wreck of such a ship would have been to them no contemptible acquisition. When she was set on fire Captain Mitchel and his officers left her and came on board the Centurion, and we immediately stood from the wreck, not without some apprehensions (as we had now only a light breeze) that, if she blew up soon, the concussion of the air might damage our rigging; but she fortunately burned, though very fierce, the whole night, her guns firing successively as the flames reached them. And it was six in the morning, when we were about four leagues distant, before she blew up. The report she made upon this occasion was but a small one, but there was an exceeding black pillar of smoke, which shot up into the air to a very considerable height. Thus perished His Majesty's ship the Gloucester.