The master of the Arniston, doubtless, after making every allowance, according to the best authorities, and working by the most exact rules of navigation of which he could avail himself, naturally inferred that his ship was more than a hundred miles to the westward of the Cape, and he probably considered himself justified in bearing up before a south-easterly gale, and steering, as he had so much reason to suppose he was doing, straight for St. Helena.

It is very important to remark, in passing, to professional men, that no ship off the Cape, and under any circumstances, ought ever to bear up, without first heaving the deep sea-lead.  If soundings are obtained on the Bank, it is a sure symptom that the ship is not sufficiently advanced to the westward to enable her to steer with safety to the north-north-westward for St. Helena.  It is clear the ship in question must have omitted this precaution.

All that is known of this fatal shipwreck is simply that the Arniston, with a flowing sheet, and going nine knots, ran among the breakers in Struy’s Bay, nearly a hundred miles to the eastward of the Cape.  The masts went instantly by the board, and the sea, which broke completely over all, tore the ship to pieces in a few minutes; and out of her whole crew, passengers, women, and children, only half-a-dozen seamen reached the coast alive.  All these could tell was, that they bore up and made all sail for St. Helena, judging themselves well round the Cape.  This scanty information, however, was quite enough to establish the important fact that this valuable ship, and all the lives on board of her, were actually sacrificed to a piece of short-sighted economy.  That they might have been saved, had she been supplied with the worst chronometer that was ever sent to sea, is also quite obvious.  I am sure practical men will agree with me, that, in assuming sixty seconds a-day as the limit of the uncertainty of a watch’s rate, I have taken a quantity four or five times greater than there was need for.  Surely no time-keeper that was ever sold as such by any respectable watchmaker for more than thirty or forty guineas, has been found to go so outrageously ill as not to be depended upon for one week, within less than ten or fifteen seconds a-day.  And as I have shown that a chronometer whose rate was uncertain, even to an extent five or six times as great as this, would have saved the Arniston, any further comment on such precious economy is needless.

CHAPTER XV.

SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS DIMINISHING THE NUMBER AND SEVERITY OF NAVAL PUNISHMENTS.

I trust that most of my brother-officers who have commanded ships can lay their hands upon their hearts and conscientiously declare they have never inflicted an unjust punishment.  I can only confess with much sorrow, that I, unfortunately, am not of that number.  But as mere regret on such occasions contributes nothing towards remedying the evils committed, I have long employed my thoughts in devising some plan which might lessen the number of punishments at sea, and thus, perhaps, save others from the remorse I have felt, while it might tend to relieve the service from the discredit of an improper degree of severity in its penal administration.