90. Difficulties of Ocean Travel
BY JOHN TRUMBULL
(1780-1781)[218]
Two opportunities offered for going to America; one was on a
small fast sailing merchant
vessel, unarmed, and relying entirely upon her speed to avoid the
British cruisers which she must
expect to meet; the other was the South Carolina, commanded by
Commodore Gillon, a frigate of
the first class, too strong to fear anything less than a ship of the line.
I chose the Carolina. Several of us passengers went on board,
and on the 12th of August,
soon after sunrise, the wind began to blow from the northwest, directly
on shore, with every
appearance of a heavy gale. The proper thing to have done, was to have
run back into the Texel
roads, but that we dared not do, lest the ship should be seized. We
dared not run for the English
channel, lest we should fall in with British cruisers of superior force.
The gale soon increased to such a degree, that it would have
been madness to remain at
anchor on such a lee shore. The only thing which could be done,
therefore, was to lay the ship's
head to the northeast, and carry sail. A fog soon came on, so
thick that we could hardly see from stem to stern; the gale increased to
a very hurricane, and soon
brought us to close-reefed topsails. The coast of Holland was under our
lee, and we knew that we
were running upon the very edge of the sands, which extend so far
from the shore, that if the ship
should touch, she must go to pieces before we could even see the land,
and all hands must perish.
We passed the morning in the deepest anxiety; in the afternoon we
discovered that we had started
several of the bolts of the weather main-chain plates. This forced us to
take in our close-reefed
topsails, as the masts would no longer bear the strain of any sail aloft,
and we were obliged to rely
upon a reefed foresail.
By this time, we knew that we must be not far from
Heligoland, at the mouth of the Elbe,
where the coast begins to trend to the northward, which increased the
danger. At ten o'clock at
night, a squall struck us heavier still than the gale, and threw our only
sail aback; the ship became
unmanageable, the officers lost their self-possession, and the crew all
confidence in them, while
for a few minutes all was confusion and dismay.
Happily for us, Commodore Barney was among the
passengers, (he had just escaped
from Mill prison in England,) hearing the increased tumult aloft, and
feeling the ungoverned
motion of the ship, he flew upon deck, saw the danger, assumed the
command, the men obeyed,
and he soon had her again under control.
It was found that with the squall the wind had shifted several
points, so that on the other
tack we could lay a safe course to the westward, and thus relieve our
mainmast. That our danger
was imminent
no one will doubt, when informed that on the following morning, the
shore of the Texel Island
was covered with the wrecks of ships, which were afterwards
ascertained to have been Swedish.
Among them was a ship of seventy-four guns, convoying
twelve merchantmen all were
wrecked, and every soul on board perished. The figure-head of the
ship-of-war, a yellow lion, the
same as ours, was found upon the shore, and gave sad cause to our
friends for believing, for some
time, that the South Carolina had perished.
When the gale subsided, we stood to the northward, made the
Orkneys, then Shetland,
and when off Faro encountered another gale, more furious, if possible,
than that of the 12th, but
we had now sea-room and deep water. In the night, however, the ship
labored so heavily as to roll
the shot out of her lockers.
Several of us passengers had our cots slung in the great cabin,
over the guns, which were
forty-two pounders, and it was by no means a pleasant sight to see
several dozens of these
enormous shot rolling from side to side of the ship, with the roar of
thunder, and crushing all that
stood in their way, whether furniture, trunks or chests, while we hung
over them swinging in our
hammocks. This difficulty was overcome, and the rolling of the shot
stopped, by throwing the
sailors' hammocks among them.
Another danger was also apprehended that some of the
immense heavy guns might break
loose. They were secured by running one of the cables outside, fore
and aft, in front of the open
port-holes, and passing strong lashings around that; by this addition to
the usual ring-bolts, all was
held safe until the gale was over.
We had now cleared the land of the British islands, and were
off the west coast of
Ireland, when it was thought to be necessary to examine into the state
of our provisions and
water. We were short; consequently, instead of continuing our course
for America, it was
determined to bear away for Corunna in Spain, the nearest friendly
port.
We arrived in safety, in a few days. There we found the
Cicero, of twenty guns and one
hundred and twenty men, belonging to the house of Cabot in Beverly.
She was to sail immediately
for Bilboa, there to take on board a cargo, which was lying ready for
her, and to sail for America.
The usual time required to run from Corunna to Bilboa was
two to three days. We were
again unfortunate; the wind being dead a-head, we were twenty-one
days in making the passage,
and, as if Jonah himself had been among us, at the end of eighteen
days, we fell in with a little
fleet of Spanish coasters who told us that they had seen a ship and two
brigs, which they believed
to be British cruisers. At sunset we saw what appeared to be the force
described, and about
midnight found we were within hail.
The Cicero ran close alongside of the ship, and hailed her in
English no answer; in French
no answer. The men, who were at their guns, impatient of delay, did
not wait for orders, but
poured in her broadside; the hostile squadron (as we supposed them)
separated, and made all sail
in different directions, when a boat from the large ship came alongside
with her captain, a
Spaniard, who informed us that they were Spanish vessels from St.
Sebastians, bound to the West
Indies that his ship was very
much cut in her rigging, but happily, no lives lost. He had mistaken us
for British vessels, and was
delighted to find his mistake. We apologized for ours, offered
assistance, and we parted most
amicably.
No accident befel, until the last day of our passage. We saw the
land of America, (the
Blue Hills of Milton, near Boston,) in the afternoon of a beautiful day
in January; at six o'clock,
P.M., we laid the ship's head to the eastward, and stood off under easy
sail
until midnight, when we hove about, and stood in to the westward,
under the same sail. We
expected to find ourselves at sunrise, at about the same distance from
the land, and all was joy
and merriment on board, at the near approach of home.
One honest old tar was happily on the lookout, and at three
o'clock sung out from the
forecastle, "breakers! breakers! close under our bow, and right ahead!"
He was just in time; the
crew, though merry, were obedient, and flew upon deck in time to
escape the danger.
We found we were close upon the rocks of Cape Ann. We
must have been drifted by a
very strong current, for our course had been careful, and could never
have brought the ship there.
Before noon, we were safe in the port of Beverly, where we found
eleven other ships, all larger
and finer vessels than the Cicero all belonging to the same owners, the
brothers Cabot laid up for
the winter.
Yet such are the vicissitudes of war and the elements, that
before the close of the year
they were all lost by capture or wreck, and the house of Cabot had not
a single ship afloat upon
the ocean. In the evening, after we got into port, a snow storm came on,
with a heavy gale from
the eastward. The roads were so completely blocked up with snow, that
they were impassable,
and we did not get up to Boston until the third day; but I was at last
safe on American land, and
most truly thankful.
[[218]]
John Trumbull, a gallant young Connecticut
officer, in this piece shows us how dangerous it was to cross the ocean.
Besides the danger of wreck there was always the danger of
capture.