58 THE SEA. 



thwarts, and two of the men were washed clean out of her. The pump was set going, 

 and the boat bailed out with their caps, &c., as far as possible. They then made a 

 second attempt to row the boat against the sea, which was as unsuccessful as before. 

 Meantime, poor Burgoyne was still clinging to the pinnace, in " a storm of broken 

 waters/' When the launch was swept towards him once, one of the men on board 

 offered to throw him an oar, which he declined, saying, nobly, " For God's sake, men, 

 keep your oars : you will want them." This piece of self-abnegation probably cost him 

 his life, for he went down shortly after, following "the six hundred " of his devoted 

 crew into "the valley of death/' The launch was beaten hither and thither; and a 

 quarter of an hour after the Captain had capsized, sighted the lights of one of their 

 own ships, which was driven by in the gale, its officers knowing nothing of the fate of 

 these unfortunates, or their still more hapless companions. Mr. May, the gunner, took 

 charge of the launch, and at daybreak they sighted Cape Finisterre, inside which they 

 landed after twelve hours' hard work at the oars. 



One man, when he found the vessel capsizing, crawled over the weather-netting on 

 the port side, and performed an almost incredible feat. It is well told in his own 

 laconic style : " Felt ship heel over, and felt she would not right. Made for weather- 

 hammock netting. She was then on her beam-ends. Got along her bottom by degrees, 

 as she kept turning over, until I was where her keel would have been if she had one. 

 The seas then washed me off. I saw a piece of wood about twenty yards off, and swam to 

 it." In other words, he got over her side, and walked up to the bottom ! While in 

 the water, two poor drowning wretches caught hold of him, and literally tore off the legs 

 of his trousers. He could not help them, and they sank for the last time. 



Many and varied were the explanations given of the causes of this disaster. There 

 had evidently been some uneasiness in regard to her stability in the water at one time, 

 but she had sailed so well on previous trips, in the same stormy waters, that confidence 

 had been restored in her. The belief, afterwards, among many authorities, was that she 

 ought not to have carried sail at all.* This was the primary cause of the disaster, no 

 doubt; and then, in all probability, when the force of the wind had heeled her over, a 

 heavy sea struck her and completely capsized her the water on and over her depressed 

 side assisting by weighting her downwards. The side of the hurricane-deck acted, when 

 the vessel was heeled over, as one vast sail, and, no doubt, had much to do with putting 

 her on her beam-ends. The general impression of the survivors appeared to be that, 

 with the ship heeling over, the pressure of a strong wind upon the under part of the 

 hurricane-deck had a greater effect or leverage upon the hull, than the pressure of the 

 wind on her top-sails. They were also nearly unanimous in their opinion that when 

 the Captain's starboard side was well down in the water, with the weight of water on the 

 turret-deck, and the pressure of the wind blowing from the port hand on the under surface 

 of the hurricane-deck, and thus pushing the ship right over, she had no chance of 

 righting herself again. 



* The late Admiral Sherard Osborn, in a letter to the Times, said, " The desire of our Admiralty to make 

 all their fighting-ships cruise under canvas, as well as steam, induced poor Captain Coles to go a step further, 

 and to make a ship with a low free board a sailing-ship." This was against his judgment, however. 



