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Chapter 4 - There Go the Ships -
From There Go the Ships by George Shirley

Page 66
the ship. They pulled them up, but it was too late. She heeled right over, and all struggled to the portholes to get through, but scarcely any got out, for they were jammed in; and one who jumped from the deck into the sea described the sight as awful indeed, despair being depicted in every face. She sunk with nearly all her crew between decks, and nearly nine hundred persons, crew and visitors come to bid farewell, lost their lives, together with Admiral Kempenfeldt and nearly all the officers. I have often passed the large grave in Kingston churchyard

 
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where the bodies found were buried; most of them never came out of the ship, but were imprisoned there. "Here was a very careless watch." I have a box turned out of one of her timbers, blown up by Colonel Chesney in 1857 or thereabouts, so as to clear away the danger, and remove the buoy that marked the spot where her wreck lay. A gaze at this box, which I have had for fifty years, carries me back to its whole history. It was more than fifty years under water, and the ship was many years building, and it grew either in an English or Italian forest, and three or four hundred years before this some hog may have trodden an acorn into the earth from whence came this tree. I have only to look at my box, and in it is the whole story of the loss of the Royal George and the careless watch.

And there are times when we feel so secure and safe as not to watch. at all. This feeling of self-security is very dangerous. The Master says, "But I say unto you, Watch." One of our cruisers chased a French privateer schooner, but she escaped by

© Peter Smith 2009