Life of a Sailor by Frederick Chamier

Author:Frederick Chamier [Chamier, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Naval
ISBN: 9781848320970
Google: _Ha9AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2011-05-23T00:41:18+00:00

8. Looking for American privateers we land at Fernando de Noronha. We sail for America where we ruin, rob, and burn.

NOW WE WERE designated as part of a ‘flying squadron’, with the Superb and the Fly, and being at war with America, we were ordered to proceed in pursuit of Commodore Rogers around and about the Equator. This we did in the month of June, passing the Cape Verde Islands then slanting across to Pernambuco. On our return we touched at Fernando de Noronha, a small island about three degrees south of the Equator where Portuguese male convicts are banished. Horrible as this place is from its lonely situation, sandy soil and scanty vegetation, it is strange that here doves are more plentiful than in any other spot on the globe. The officer who first landed brought back a report of this, causing all hands to anticipate good sport and dinner the next day.

Having no small shot, we decided to flatten bullets to cut up into slugs. This operation was performed by placing an eighteen-pound shot in the lap, putting a bullet thereon, then flattening the latter with a hammer. As this was taking place after dark, many awkward fellows hit their fingers instead of the bullet. One such was the elder midshipman, who hit one of his digits such a crack as to almost break the bone. Being laughed at, he drew the candle to his side of the table. The mid shipman on the other side, being now unable to operate at all, drew the candle back, declaring ‘The church should always stand in the centre of the parish.’ This led to one throwing an eighteen-pound shot at the other, instantly returned, the whole culminating in a challenge to meet onshore next morning at daylight, where instead of shooting doves they would shoot each other – myself named as a ‘second’. This would be my first duel as witness. Previously at Madeira I had once had a brush in the coffee room with a marine officer where we each drew our swords. Thanks to the fencing master at Durham House, I soon pinned my adversary’s wrist to his breast, after which I returned on board as quickly as possible, quite satisfied that what is called ‘satisfaction’ is about the most unsatisfactory thing in the whole world.

At 5 a.m. the following morning I was summoned to attend my friend, and all concerned soon landed and cut into the woods until we came to a narrow path admirably adapted for guiding the eye and finishing the quarrel. We measured the ground at ten paces, but as we had only a pair of small pocket pistols, shortened this to eight. Placing the parties in good positions to be shot, we told them to blaze away at discretion. One midshipman immediately did so, but his pistol missed fire and he quietly walked off his ground to prime it again. I maintained that a miss went for a fire, for which I was called a fool.

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