Wreck of the Medusa: Mutiny, Murder, and Survival on the High Seas by Alexander McKee

Author:Alexander McKee [McKee, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Nonfiction, Retail, Shipwreck
ISBN: 9781602391864
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2007-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

11

“THERE’S ONE WHO’LL NEVER GET TO FRANCE”

In Paris and St. Louis, September to December, 1816

WHEN Surgeon Savigny reported to the naval authorities at Brest, he was advised to go to Paris and present his report in person. He was told that his misfortunes should procure a sympathetic hearing at the Ministry of Marine, headed by Vicompte Du Bouchage. Not all his wounds had healed and he still wore one arm in a sling. Merely by surviving in such circumstances, he had done something extraordinary.

The report he carried, which concerned the raft only, was clear, frank, and surprisingly objective in the circumstances. Of course, no mere words could actually describe the experience, but the means by which he and his fourteen companions had lasted long enough to be rescued were detailed without evasion. That is, by consuming the bodies of the slain and by a series of “mercy killings” of those too weak to last much longer.

When Savigny reached Paris on September 11 the news of the loss of the Medusa had been public property for less than twenty-four hours. The official Moniteur Universel of September 10 had carried one small paragraph placed in an inconspicuous position which read:

On 2 July, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the frigate Medusa was lost, in good weather, on the shoals of Arguin twenty leagues distant from Cape Blanc (in Africa, between the Canaries and Cape Verde). The Medusa’s six launches and lifeboats were able to save a large part of the crew and passengers, but of 150 men who attempted to save themselves on a raft, 135 have perished.

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