Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 31, 2025
On May the 29th, 1782, the Royal George, of 100 guns, being heeled over at Spithead to repair a pipe which led under water, the lower-deck guns having been run out, the water rushed with such rapidity in at the port-holes that she filled and sank Rear-Admiral Kempenfeldt, with more than half his officers, and four hundred persons, perishing, many of them the wives and children of the seamen and marines on board.
From the length of the lower-deck guns they could not be easily run in, while the 12-pounders on the main-deck were so old and their vents so large that much powder exploded through them.
The survivors immediately began to fish the masts, repair the damaged rigging, and to secure the lower-deck ports, through which the water was rushing at every roll. Her adventures were not over, though; for at 3 p.m., on her homeward course, she fell in with the Jemappes, wholly dismasted, and moved only by means of her spritsails.
Among the worst ships in the service at that time were the two-deck 40 and 50 gun ships, for when any heavy sea was running, they were unable to open their lower-deck ports, and were thus of even less force than vessels carrying only 20 guns. Numerous instances of this occurred, and among others the Antelope, of 50 guns, Captain Thomas Saumarez, fell in with a French privateer of 22 guns.
True Blue himself, who lived to enjoy a hearty and hale old age, gave the same advice to his grandchildren which he received from Paul Pringle. "Lads," he used to say, "be content with your lot. Do your duty in whatever station you are placed, on the quarterdeck or fo'castle, in the tops aloft or at the guns on the main or lower-deck, and leave the rest to God.
At eleven in the forenoon of the 30th they carried out the remains of their best bower-cable, with two lower-deck guns, which they dropped right a-head in five fathoms water.
"May I tell the commanding officer of the flag-ship to use the lower-deck guns, my lord?" "He will do that of his own accord, after reading those orders; heavy guns mean the heaviest. Good afternoon, sir; for God's sake, lose no time." Clinch obeyed this injunction to the letter. He reached the Foudroyant some time before sunset, and immediately placed the order in her captain's hands.
The ship had been forced much further up the beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams.
One day, as I was going along the lower-deck, with a message to old Perigal, who was attending to some duty forward, I came suddenly on Toby Bluff, whose ear Spellman had seized, while with his heel he was bestowing sundry hard blows on the corpus of my sturdy follower, who already knew enough of naval discipline not to venture on retaliation.
It was that or nothing; and he felt rich enough to pay for it himself if the Bird of Prey, who had cabled him to come out to Carlsbad as his secretary, would not stand the difference between the price and that of the lower-deck six-in-a-room berth which he would have taken if he had been allowed a choice.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking