—Editor ↩
“Scarce was this done, when a gust, exceeding in violence everything of the kind I had ever seen, or could conceive, laid the ship on her beam ends. …
“The ship lay motionless, and, to all appearance, irrevocably overset. … The water forsook the hold, and appeared between decks. …
“Immediate directions were given to cut away the main and mizzenmasts, trusting when the ship righted, to be able to wear her. On cutting one or two lanyards, the mizzenmast went first over, but without producing the smallest effect on the ship, and, on cutting the lanyard of one shroud, the mainmast followed. I had next the mortification to see the foremast and bowsprit also go over. On this, the ship immediately righted with great violence.”
—“Loss of the Centaur Man-of-War, 1782, by Captain Inglefield,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III 41
—Editor ↩
Perhaps the whole would have got drunk, but for.
—[MS.]
“A midshipman was appointed to guard the spirit-room, to repress that unhappy desire of a devoted crew to die in a state of intoxication. The sailors, though in other respects orderly in conduct, here pressed eagerly upon him.
“ ‘Give us some grog,’ they exclaimed, ‘it will be all one an hour hence.’—‘I know we must die,’ replied the gallant officer, coolly, ‘but let us die like men!’—Armed with a brace of pistols, he kept his post, even while the ship was sinking.”
—“Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny, February 5, 1805,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III 418
John Wordsworth, the poet’s brother, was captain of the Abergavenny. See Life of William Wordsworth, by Professor Knight, 1889, I 370–380; see, too, Coleridge’s Anima Poetae, 1895, p. 132. For a contemporary report, see a Maltese paper, Il Cartaginense, April 17, 1805. —Editor ↩
“However, by great exertions of the chain-pumps, we held our own. … All who were not seamen by profession, had been employed in thrumming a sail which was passed under the ship’s bottom, and I thought had some effect. …
“The Centaur laboured so much, that I could scarce hope she would swim till morning: … our sufferings for want of water were very great. …
“The weather again threatened, and by noon it blew a storm. The ship laboured greatly; the water appeared in the fore and after-hold. I was informed by the carpenter also that the leathers were nearly consumed, and the chains of the pumps, by constant exertion, and friction of the coils, were rendered almost useless. …
“At this period the carpenter acquainted me that the well was stove in … and the chain-pumps displaced and totally useless. … Seeing their efforts useless, many of them [the people] burst into tears, and wept like children. …
“I perceived the ship settling by the head.”
—“Loss of the Centaur,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III pp. 45–49
—Editor ↩
’Tis ugly dying in the Gulf of Lyons.
—[MS.]
Byron may have had in mind the story of the half-inaudible vow of a monster wax candle, to be offered to St. Christopher of Paris, which Erasmus tells in his “Naufragium.” The passage is scored with a pencil-mark in his copy of the Colloquies. —Editor ↩
Stanza XLIV recalls Cardinal de Retz’s description of the storm at sea in the Gulf of Lyons:
“Everybody were at their prayers, or were confessing themselves. … The private captain of the galley caused, in the greatest height of the danger, his embroidered coat and his red scarf to be brought to him, saying, that a true Spaniard ought to die bearing his King’s Marks of distinction. He sat himself down in a great elbow chair, and with his foot struck a poor Neapolitan in the chops, who, not being able to stand upon the Coursey of the Galley, was crawling along, crying out aloud, ‘Sennor Don Fernando, por l’amor de Dios, Confession.’ The captain, when he struck him, said to him, ‘Inimigo de Dios piedes Confession!’ And as I was representing to him, that his inference was not right, he said that that old man gave offence to the whole galley. You can’t imagine the horror of a great storm; you can as little imagine the Ridicule mixed with it. A Sicilian Observantine monk was preaching at the foot of the great mast, that St. Francis had appeared to him, and had assured him that we should not perish. I should never have done, should I undertake to describe all the ridiculous frights that are seen on these occasions.”
—Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, 1723, III 353
—Editor ↩
“Some appeared perfectly resigned, went to their hammocks, and desired their messmates to lash them in; others were securing themselves to gratings and small rafts; but the most predominant idea was that of putting on their best and cleanest clothes. The boats … were got over the side.”
—“Loss of the Centaur,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III 49, 50
—Editor ↩
Men will prove hungry, even when next perdition.
—[MS.]
“Eight bags of rice, six casks of water, and a small quantity of salted beef and pork, were put into the longboat, as provisions for the whole.”
—“Wreck of the Sidney, 1806,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, III 434
—Editor ↩
“The yawl was stove alongside and sunk.”
—“Loss of the Centaur,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, III 50
—Editor ↩
“One oar was erected for a mainmast, and the other broke to the breadth of the blankets for a yard.”
—“Loss of the Duke William Transport, 1758,” Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, II 387
—Editor ↩
Which being withdrawn, discloses but the frown.
—[MS. erased]
