PERIL AND PRIVATION.

BY JAMES PAYN.

THE LOSS OF THE "HALSEWELL."

On Sunday, the 1st of January, 1786, the Halsewell, a vessel of 758 tons burden, bound for the East Indies, sailed through the Downs with a fair wind and under exceptionally favorable circumstances. She had a well-tried commander, Captain Pierce, good officers, and a numerous crew. To these were added a considerable number of soldiers of "John Company," as the East India Company was called, so that security seemed assured both by sea and land.

There were, moreover, several lady passengers aboard, most of whom were known to one another, including the daughters of the Captain, two of his cousins, and one still younger lady, Miss Mansell, returning from a school in England to her parents in Madras. The chief mate too was related to Captain Pierce, so that the company in the chief cabin was almost a family party.

On Monday very thick weather came on, so that the ship was compelled to anchor, and on Tuesday a gale arose that obliged her to cut her cables and run out to sea. The gale grew to a tempest, which continued for three days, and on Friday night the ship ended her voyage.

At two in the morning of that day she was driving to her doom on the sharp rocks between Peverel Point and St. Alban's Head, in Dorsetshire. These rocks run sheer down to the sea, so that to approach them even in fine weather is fraught with danger.

There is a story told by the great humorist Thomas Hood of a terrible scene on board ship, when every one was running about distracted with fear, save one cheerful old lady. "There is nothing whatever to be alarmed at," she said, when some one asked her how it was she showed such courage, "for the Captain has just told me we are 'running on shore.'" To her the land seemed like safety. And so it doubtless was with some of the poor ladies on board the Halsewell.

The Captain, as they drove nearer the rocky shore on that awful night, consulted with his second mate, Mr. Meriton, as to their chances of escape, and especially with reference to his daughters.

"We can do nothing, sir, but wait for the morning," was the sad reply; and even while he spoke the ship struck with a violence that dashed the heads of those standing in the cuddy, as the saloon in an Indiaman was called, against the deck above them.

A frightful scene followed. The sailors had acted ill throughout the storm, and, skulking in their hammocks, had compelled their officers and the soldiers, who behaved admirably, to man the pumps; but now that the catastrophe, which they might have helped to avert, was upon them, they exhibited a frantic fear.

The ship lay beating against the rocks, with her broadside toward them, and the Captain's advice was that each man should take what opportunity should offer itself to reach the land. The ensign staff was accordingly unshipped, and laid between the ship's side and a rock; but it snapped asunder with the weight of the first man who attempted to cross, so that there was nothing for the rest to do but to drop into the raging sea, and trust to the waves to carry them to the unknown shore.

This desperate attempt, made by a number of the men, was of course impossible for the ladies, who with the passengers, three black women, and two soldiers' wives, had collected in the roundhouse upon deck to the number of no less than fifty. The Captain, whose use was gone in these dreadful straits, sat on a cot with a daughter upon each side, whom he alternately pressed to his breast. The scene was indescribably mournful. Mr. Meriton procured a quantity of wax candles, and stuck them about the place in which it was their hope to wait for dawn; then perceiving that the poor women were parched with thirst, he brought a basket of oranges, with which they refreshed themselves. This was the last meal they were ever to take on earth.

At this time they were all tolerably composed, except Miss Mansell, who lay sobbing upon the floor. Mr. Meriton thought he perceived that the sides of the ship were visibly giving way; that her deck was lifting, and that consequently she could not much longer hold together.

On leaving the roundhouse to see whether his suspicions were correct, they received a terrible confirmation. The ship had separated in the middle, and not a moment was to be lost in seizing the slender chance of saving his life. As a great sea struck the ship the poor ladies cried out: "Oh, poor Meriton, he is drowned! Had he staid with us he would have been safe." Whereupon Mr. Rogers, another officer, offered to go and look for him. This they opposed, lest he should share the same fate.

Rogers and the Captain, however, went out with a lantern, but being able to see nothing but the black face of the perpendicular rock, the Captain returned to his daughters, and was no more seen. A very heavy sea struck the ship, and burst into the roundhouse, and Mr. Rogers heard the ladies shriek at intervals until the water drowned their voices.

He seized a hen-coop, and was carried by a wave on to a rock, where it left him, miserably bruised, in the company of no less than one hundred and twenty-four persons, among whom he found Mr. Meriton. The meeting between these two was very touching, for they were old friends, and had just survived a calamity, little less terrible, in another Indiaman, between which event and their present peril an interval of only twenty-five days had elapsed. They were prevented, however, from the interchange of mutual congratulations by at least twenty men between them, none of whom could move without imperilling his life.

They were, in fact, on the ledge of a cavern overhung by the precipice, as closely packed and with as little room to move in as those sea-birds which we often see clustered on some ridge of rock. The full horror of their situation was, however, hid from them. They could not even see the ship they had just quitted, though in a few minutes a universal shriek, which long vibrated in their ears, and in which the voice of female agony was plainly distinguishable, informed them that she had gone to pieces. Not one atom of the wreck of the Halsewell was ever afterward beheld.

This terrible incident gave such a shock to the poor trembling wretches on the ledge that many of them, being already unnerved and weak from bruises, lost their feeble hold, and fell upon the rocks below. Their groans and cries for succor increased the misery of the survivors. After three hours, which seemed as many ages, the daylight broke, and revealed the fact that unless aid was given from the cliff above them, escape was impossible, while the total disappearance of the ship left no evidence of their position, their guns and signals of distress through the night having been unheard by reason of the roaring of the gale.

The only hope of escape was to creep along the ledge to its extremity, and then, on a ridge nearly as broad as a man's hand, to turn a corner, and then scale a precipice almost perpendicular and two hundred feet in height! Such was the courage of their despair that even this was essayed. What with fear and fatigue, many lost their footing, and perished in the attempt. The cook and quarter-master alone succeeded in reaching the cliff top, and at once hastened to the nearest house.

This chanced to be the residence of the steward of the Purbeck stone quarries, who instantly collected his workmen, and furnished them with ropes. Next to the two men who had escaped, and after an interval in which many must have failed, a soldier and Mr. Meriton were trying to make their way to the summit, as the quarrymen arrived. They perceived the soldier, and dropped him a rope, of which he laid hold, but in the effort loosened the stone on which he stood, which also supported Mr. Meriton. The latter, however, seized another rope as he was in the very act of falling. He had probably the narrowest escape of all.

The perils of the rest were by no means at an end. The most fortunate crawled to the edge of the ledge and waited for the rope held by two strong men at the very brink of the cliff. Other ropes were tied about them and fastened to an iron bar fixed in the ground. Four other men, standing behind these, also held the rope which was let down, and we may be sure that they pulled with a will when the word was given.

Many of the poor shipwrecked souls, however, were too benumbed and weak to help themselves even thus far; and for these the rope, with a strong loop at the end of it, had to be let down. The force of the wind blew the rope into the cavern, when whoever was so fortunate as to catch it put the noose round his body and was drawn up. Many even of these perished from nervousness or loss of presence of mind. One especially, who lost his hold, fell into the sea, and being a strong swimmer, added to the general distress by dying, as it were, by inches before the eyes of the survivors.

It was evening before they found themselves in safety; indeed, one poor fellow, a soldier, remained in this perilous position until the next morning. On being mustered at the steward's house, they were found to number seventy-four out of a crew of two hundred and fifty.

They were treated with the utmost hospitality, and word of their coming was sent to the towns through which they would have to pass on their way to London, that they might be helped along. "It is worthy of commemoration," says the biographer, in which all my readers will agree, "that the landlord of the Brown Inn at Blandford not only refreshed all these distressed seamen at his house, but presented each with half a crown."

As one lies on the cliff-top above Peverel Point in the summer sun, with the blue sea below smiling so smoothly, it is difficult to imagine what took place in that unseen cavern beneath, or even the tears of joy which were shed by those who, after such a night of horror, set foot for the first time upon that grassy slope.