the ship’s cutter to bring us from the wreck; he observed to us, ‘you have yet, I perceive, fresh meat;’ to which we were compelled to reply, ‘No, Sir, it is part of a man, one of our unfortunate crew! it was our intention to put ourselves on an allowance even of this food, this evening, had not you come to our relief.’ The master’s wife, who underwent all the most horrid sufferings which the human understanding can imagine, bore them much better than could possibly have been expected. She is now, although much emaciated, a respectable, good-looking woman, about twenty-five years of age, and the mother of a boy seven years of age. But what must have been the extremity of want to which she was driven, when she eat the brains of one of the apprentices, saying it was the most delicious thing she ever tasted: and it is still more melancholy to relate, the person whose brains she thus was forced by hunger to eat, had been three times wrecked before, but was providentially picked up by a vessel after being two-and-twenty days on the wreck water-logged: but, in the present instance, he perished, having survived similar sufferings for a space of twenty-nine days, and then became food for his remaining shipmates! Ann Saunders, the other female, had more strength in her calamity than most of the men: she performed the duty of cutting up and cleaning the dead bodies, keeping two knives in her monkey jacket; and when the breath was announced to have flown, she would sharpen her knives, bleed the deceased in the neck, drink his blood, and cut him up as usual. From want of water, those who perished drank their own urine and salt-water: they became foolish, crawling upon their hands round the deck (when they could) and died generally raving mad.”
We have only to add, that the captain, officers, and crew of the Blonde subscribed a considerable sum toward the relief of those poor creatures, whom, under Providence, they had been the means of preserving from a most dreadful death; and that Mr. Kendall, the master of the unfortunate ship, expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Lord Byron for his great humanity, distinguished benevolence, and unceasing attentions to himself and fellow-sufferers. The Blonde was paid off, at Portsmouth, Dec. 15, 1826.
Lord Byron married. Mar. 18, 1816, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Sacheverel Chandos Pole, of Radbourne, co. Derby, Esq. and has issue several sons and daughters.
Agent.– Messrs. Stilwell.
