I first wrote about Captain Frederick Hickey, Charles Austen’s colleague and friend on the North American station, in my blog for October 2020, titled “Captain Frederick Hickey and the Loss HMS Atalante.” Hickey’s leadership in a time of disaster marked him out as a hero. But there were other men and women from the shore community whose efforts also merited recognition. This blog relates to their contribution to the rescue of the survivors of the wrecked Atalante.
On Wednesday, 10 November 1813, about 10:00 o’clock, the fine Bermuda-built sloop of war, Atalante went to pieces, fifteen minutes after she had run aground on the treacherous Sisters and Blind Sisters shoal off Sambro, Nova Scotia in dense fog. In the days that followed her captain, Frederick Hickey, was widely praised for his courageous action is the face of imminent catastrophe. Passenger Jeremiah O’Sullivan later wrote: “to the honour of Captain Hickey, he was the last who left the wreck; his calmness, his humanity, and his courage, during the entire awful scene, was superior to man: everything was lost but our lives.”[1] It was a matter of huge relief that all on board survived.
Fig 1: HMS Atalante Passing Sambro, Halifax. N.S. The Sisters and Blind Sister shoal are located to the left of the lighthouse.
Fig. 2: Captain Frederick Hickey, school of Gilbert Stuart, 1810.
At the point when the remains of the Atalante disappeared beneath the waves, the 133 survivors were thankful to be free of the wreck as they sheltered in three small, overloaded boats saved from the Atalante. Yet, their worries were by no means over. According to Hickey’s subsequent report, they rowed “for two hours, guided only by a small dial compass, which one of the quarter masters had in his pocket.” By what must have seemed like a miracle, they were finally, as Hickey puts it, “picked up a fisherman, who piloted the boats safe into Portuguese cove where we landed, the boats containing 133 persons.”[2] Hickey’s official description of the events does not record the elation he and his men must have felt when they detected, through the fog, the outlines of a fishing boat, and the appearance of its captain, an “ old fisherman,” who Hickey later identified as John Chapman. He knew the waters and the offshore hazards which must be avoided, and so he was able to lead the pinnace and two smaller boats safely to shore. We do not know why Chapman happened to be at sea at the time, as fishing in the fog could be dangerous. Whatever his current plan, he set that aside in order to get the wet and anxious officers and sailors to the safety of land.
Fig 3: The treacherous rocky shore at Portuguese Cove (Photo: Hugh Kindred)
Fig.4: The narrow entrance to the Cove. (Photo: Hugh Kindred)
Portuguese Cove is a tiny inlet along a dangerously rocky shore guarded by many reefs and shoals.[3] On reaching the safety of the Cove, Hickey discovered that it was sparsely populated; in fact, it was home to only “five poor men and their families.” Although coastal communities might be expected to be sympathetic to the needs of shipwreck survivors, the residents of Portuguese Cove were a scattered, small group of people, with limited resources. It was almost mid-November, when whatever minimal gardens they had tended were no longer productive, and most of the remaining food on hand would have already been put away for the lean winter months ahead. Satisfying the needs of 133 hungry people would be very difficult! Yet, as Hickey related to his superior, commander-in-chief Admiral Sir John Warren, “the whole of the officers and crew received what nourishment and humane attention [the inhabitants] had in their power to bestow.”[4] The “humane attention” presumably included lighting fires to warm and dry out the shivering survivors, some scantily clothed, as they had discarded all clothing but trousers as they swam from the sinking Atalante.
Hickey rushed on to Halifax by boat when he could, anxious to immediately deliver the urgent dispatches he was carrying to Admiral Sir John Warren. He took with him those who had suffered most from fatigue, and exposure to the harsh elements. As it was impossible to house all the survivors at the Cove, Hickey ordered all the able-bodied sailors to march 20 miles to Halifax where accommodation would be provided. Once more local help materialized. John Chapman apparently acted as a guide for this part of the rescue mission, most likely directing the survivors over part of a rough track leading to town himself or recruiting one of the men from the Cove to assist. It was a blessing that the men set out when they did for by Friday, the weather became even nastier, a mixture of “pouring rain and very thick fog” in the morning, then, as the Lt Governor’s wife in Halifax, Lady Sherbrooke, recorded in her diary, “it came on to blow, very much, and from 5 o’clock till 7, blew so hard as to be quite a hurricane.”[5]
In his report to Admiral Warren, Hickey did more than simply praise the “humane attention” he and his men had received from the families in Portuguese Cove. He pointed out that the survivors had been led to safety by John Chapman, who was subsequently given a $50 reward. Hickey also supplied Warren with the names of those who had spearheaded the onshore assistance, suggesting that $100 be distributed among the five heads of family.[6] By 17 November, this sum was paid out by the Commissioner of the Naval Yard in Halifax [7] to John Munroe, George Sadler, John Fegan, Samuel Purcell, and Richard Neale.[8]
Although Hickey’s quick thinking and brave example in a time of crisis, both onboard and afterwards, certainly merits admiration and commendation, it is also important to publicly acknowledge the men and women of Portuguese Cove who stepped up without hesitation and offered care and sustenance to total strangers with no expectation they would be rewarded for their generosity. They were, in effect, the unsung heroes of the day for, without their assistance, some of the sailors might not have survived. Credit must also go to John Chapman, fisherman and pilot, who found the Atalante’s small boats at sea, and guided them to the nearest safe place of habitation, before further dangers befell them.[9]
The hundred dollars sent to the Cove from the Naval Yard would have been a hugely welcome windfall for such a poor community. Let us hope that Christmas, 1813, was a particularly joyous one in Portuguese Cove, Nova Scotia.
Postscript:
Fig 5: Road sign for Portuguese Cove. (Photo: Hugh Kindred)
A roadside sign at Portuguese Cove mentions this location’s connection to the Atalante, although it does so with the bold and misleading claim that this was the “Site of HMS Atalante Wreck.” It would be better to acknowledge that the kindness of the people of the Cove was crucial to the safety of the 133 survivors of the wreck of the Atalante.
[1] Marshall, Royal Naval Biography, 232.
[2] Hickey to Warren, 12 November 1813.
[3] By sea Portuguese Cove is eight miles south of Halifax Harbour. Its name apparently derived from earlier days when Portuguese fishermen worked in the area.
[4] Hickey to Warren, 12 November 1813.
[5] See A Colonial Portrait: The Halifax Diaries of Lady Sherbrooke 1811-1816 (2011) ed. G. Brenton Haliburton Wednesday 13 November, 119.
[6] Hickey to Warren, 12 November 1813, National Archives of Canada.
[7] Wodehouse to RO, 17 November 1813.
[8] According to the 1827 Nova Scotia Provincial Census, fishermen John Munroe, George Sadler, and Richard Neale and their families were still living in Portuguese Cove. They also cultivated small acreages raising some hay, grain and potatoes.
[9] Thanks to Julian Gwyn for the information about the aftermath of the wreck of the Atalante, found in his book, Frigate and Foremast The North American Squadron in Nova Scotia Waters (2003), note 71, 183.