narrative of a seaman of the Resistance named Thomas Scott, one of the few survivors of the awful catastrophe which ensued, that, as he was sleeping on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, he was suddenly awakened by a fierce blaze that seized his clothes and hair, and which was succeeded, in an instant, by a tremendous explosion, from the shock of which, as he afterwards conjectured, he became utterly senseless for several minutes. From the appearance of daylight about an hour after he had been blown up, Scott supposed the accident to have happened at about four o'clock in the morning. The whole number of survivors, including Scott, appears to have been 13, of whom the highest in rank was a quartermaster. The number that had perished amounted to about 314 officers, seamen, and marines, three English women married on board, one Malay woman of Amboyna, and 14 Spanish prisoners taken in a prize ; total 332 souls.

The subsequent sufferings of Scott and his companions, as related by himself, were very great. On recovering a little from the stupor into which the shock had thrown him, he found himself half-suffocated with water, floating and struggling for his existence, in company with several other persons. He made shift, as did 12 of those near him, to reach the hammock-netting of the ship on the starboard side, which was just above the water. At the dawn of day the people belonging to the sloop, then not out of hail astern, and who must have heard the shouts of the wretched beings that were clinging to the wreck, weighed anchor, and, callous to every impulse of humanity, stood over to the island of Borea. It would appear from this, either that no prize-crew had been placed on board the sloop, but merely the master taken out of her, or that the British, notwithstanding it was one o'clock in the morning when the sloop joined, had been withdrawn from her, and her own people put in possession.

The mild state of the weather enabled the 13 survivors, most of whom were badly scorched, to construct a raft to convey them to the low land of Sumatra, distant about three leagues from the spot, and about six from the Dutch settlement of Palambang. In the afternoon they committed themselves to the raft, with only a single pumpkin for food for the whole of them. A gale soon afterwards got up, and dashed the raft to pieces. Four of the seamen, including Scott, took to an anchor-stock which had formed part of the raft, and which they now steadied by means of two spars lashed across. These men, after first being nearly famished, and then nearly massacred, reached the Sumatra coast. There they all became prisoners to a party of Malays. Scott appears to have been the only one that subsequently became released from captivity. The eight poor wretches (or rather seven, for one had died), who remained on the shattered raft, were never heard of afterwards.

On the 24th of April, at 3 p.m., the British 12-pounder

^ back to top ^