Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sultry heat and occasional thunderstorms. Within a month scurvy
and fever had returned and the log once more became a mournful
catalogue of deaths. By July it was only just possible to maintain the
routine running of the ship. No one had the energy to cope with
emergencies. Thus, when the
Gloucester's
rotten foremast splintered
she had to be taken in tow. And when the top of the
Centurion's
main-
mast snapped, it was left hanging in a tangle of ropes and broken
wood.
On 14 August Saumarez recorded:
. . . ½ past noon the Gloucester came under our stern, when Cap-
tain Mitchell acquainted the Commodore that his ship had sprung a
leak and had then seven foot of water in her hold, his men with incess-
ant pumping being all fatigued, as were likewise the officers and no
longer able to hold out, having had 9½ feet of water within her; all the
full water casks were entirely covered and the people had no water to
drink. The ship rolled and laboured and was under no command of the
helm . . .
19
The 866-ton, 50-gun ship was only five years old but sun, wind
and wave had prematurely aged her. She was literally falling apart.
The next two days were spent ferrying her crew and stores to the
flagship. Saumarez recorded that when a boatload of forty-six sick
men arrived at the
Centurion,
three died while trying to drag them-
selves aboard. Then fires were laid on the
Gloucester,
and Anson's
ship drew away to a safe distance while her men watched the war-
ship's end. She burned for several hours before the flames reached
her magazine and blew her to pieces. The silent sailors could only
regard the warship's end as an omen. Half a world away from home,
one ship left out of the eight which had left Portsmouth, nearly all
their comrades dead: it could only be a matter of time before they,
too, were in Davy Jones's locker. No wonder Saumarez described the
