Littell's Living Age/Volume 137/Issue 1767/The Loss of the "Eurydice"
From The Spectator.
THE LOSS OF THE "EURYDICE."
There is reason for sorrow at the loss of the "Eurydice," the beautiful ship, and the trained officers, and the three hundred men or more, so young and so hopeful, for the loss is as great as the misery inflicted, and both are very great. And it is difficult not to be shocked as well as sorrowful at such an illustration of the irony occasionally discernible in the ways of Providence, all in the ship being condemned to a dreadful death in the very hour, so to speak, of success, when she had completed her voyage and returned home, and arrived almost in sight of port, and all on board were full of expectation and cheerfulness, and even glee; one promising officer, for instance, was hurrying to meet his young wife, married to him but a twelvemonth before, under circumstances that promised both a long lease of happiness. We can see, however, no reason for irritation, either with the Admiralty, or the builder of the ship, or the captain of the vessel, though the latter was doubtless actually responsible. Rather, the loss of the "Eurydice" appears to us one of those cases which should teach the public with a certain sternness that in this world arrangements cannot be macfe perfect; that we may strive as we like for an ideal of efficiency, but that after all, all we can obtain is a rough approximation. That disturbing cause, that unforeseen but irresistible factor which we call Providence, and some call chance, can never be completely provided against, more especially when one of the agents to be controlled is anything so uncontrollable as the human mind. There never was an accident which ought so little to have happened. The "Eurydice," by the testimony of all experts, was an excellent vessel, trusted by all on board, which had just made a voyage to the West Indies, and which, so far as appears, had not a weak spar or a frayed rope on board. She was, as a training-ship, over-manned, if anything, with men whose training was just completed, and in the very prime of their health and their efficiency. Her officers were all of them picked men, one or two of them likely to become among the best in the service; and her captain, Captain Marcus Hare, had the best of characters in the navy. He was on deck, attending to his duty, and during the few moments between the catastrophe and his death gave his orders coolly, courageously, and as the evidence would indicate, wisely also. There is a hint in the evidence that the water carried on board had been used to supplement deficient ballast, and that the tanks had not been carefully refilled as they were emptied, a dangerous practice, both because it lightens the ship too fast, and unequally, and because, if the vessel once loses her equilibrium, the remaining full tanks roll with the weight of cannon, and especially dangerous to the "Eurydice," which was remarkable in the navy for the amount of sail she could spread; but with this exception, there was nothing about the ship to suggest or account for her fate. That the captain was at the last moment slightly careless or over-confident is probably true. The barometer had been falling for some hours, all the ports of the ship were open, as, with such a condition of the mercury, they ought not to have been; and the ship was carrying, for such weather as science indicated, far too much sail. The probability is that the captain, joyous at the notion of getting home, elated with the bright, cold weather — first of luxuries to a man just returning from the tropics — and the sun, which shone brightly just before and just after the squall, and with his destination almost in sight, had been careless in consulting the glass, or expected a mere snow-storm, or thought Spithead too near for precautions, and in that carelessness of an hour was his own and his vessel's doom. The mental failure for which no orders or precautions can provide had supervened, and the Admiralty and its jealous care were as powerless as the ship herself. The squall, coming down Luccombe Chine as through a funnel, struck the "Eurydice," and as Wilson sang,—
Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast —
Hush, hush, thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread
Are hurried o'er the deck;
And fast the miserable ship
Becomes a lifeless wreck.
. . . . . . . .
Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;
And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleepers' long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea
The sailor heard the humming tree,
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arm enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife — by turns she wept and smiled,
As she looked on the father of her child
Returned to her heart at last.
He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded the reeling deck he paces,
Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces.
What possible fever of anxiety on the part of the Admiralty, what multiplication of orders, what energy in fitting ships can prevent such an accident as that? The captain had barometers enough. He knew what his ship could do. He knew what sail she was carrying, for he was trying to lessen it when the "Eurydice" capsized; and he had an excellent crew; and still, because of an inattention, a miscalculation, an emotion of eagerness, usually as unimportant as a passing thought, he and his men went down as hopelessly in the snow-storm as if they had been struck by a typhoon in the China Seas. The force of a squall of this kind, its direct impact, is almost inconceivable to those who have not witnessed it. The writer was once in the Red Sea during an incident of the kind. The day was apparently quite fine, when a squall coming from the east, through the aperture between Sinai and Horeb, struck the giant steamer, and though she was of more than three thousand tons, and moving at ten miles an hour, she was thrown on her side, and but for the immense momentum from her engines would have been utterly lost. We have somewhere also, but cannot find, an account of a squall which struck a railway train in New Jersey, and though it was moving, as the drivers declared, at twenty miles an hour, blew it from the rails, a feat which seems, of all incidents that ever occurred through the agency of wind alone — as a rule, when heavy bodies are lifted and deposited far off, there is water, with its unyielding pressure, to help — to be the most impossible. There is practically no one to blame, and no conceivable human method of preventing such catastrophes entirely. There is no substitute for the human mind, and no plan of making the human mind equally efficient, cautious, and decided at all seasons and under all circumstances. Captain Hare's mistake may have been the most accidental thing in the world, and of all human beings he had most to protect him from making it.
It is just the same in all human affairs, and the law is just as often forgotten. In the storm of comment which the modern critical spirit flings upon all occurrences, we forget the limitations of our powers. Make what laws we will, and occasionally they will be harsh, and often inapplicable. Construct what tribunals we will, and the judge will now and again be prejudiced, or tired, or sleepy, the leading juryman stupid, or the counsel forgetful of his duty. Relax punishment as you will, and sometimes it will fall too heavily, or fall, upon the innocent. Abolish the penalty of death, and the sentence may kill as certainly as the guillotine; graduate sentences to imbecility, and no two inflicted for the same crime will ever fall with equal weight; elaborate trials till human patience is overborne, and still perjury will sometimes be successful. All that human beings can obtain by the most unrelaxing effort, and patience, and attention to duty is an approximation to justice, which to beings a little higher, who can see facts, but not motives, must often appear a mockery of fair play. It is a limit put upon us by nature or by God, and we shall not get past it. Arthur Helps was not always profound, but it was a profound thought of his that if the object of the arrangements of the universe was to make man happy, he would have been gifted with at least five minutes' foresight. He will never get one minute, and if he had it, the limit would be but imperceptibly pushed back. Sir Arthur Helps's minute would not have saved the "Eurydice" or her crew.
We have often wished exceedingly that this notion of the occasional necessity of accepting an approximation to the ideal could be made to take a stronger hold in the popular mind. It would create much content, and would prevent much shiftiness in our politics. It is quite hopeless to expect that a reform, or a new constitution, or a war can produce, or be made to produce, all the results expected from them, — as hopeless as to look for an Admiralty whose ships will never be lost. The influence of mind must enter into every human concern, and where mind is present, the mathematical ideal cannot reasonably be hoped for. Some one will always err, whether from incapacity, or vice, or negligence, and the error upsets often half the calculation. All that the politician can do is to fix principles as accurately as possible, to select the best men he can get, to furnish all necessary means, and then to await the result as confidently or as submissively as he can. At the last moment, all his precautions may fail, or his whole plan be overthrown, by a squall as sudden and as unexpected as that which proved fatal to the unfortunate "Eurydice."