Through the opposite port, led one of our hempen cables, shackled to the small-bower chain, the anchor of which was nearly astern; on this was clapped a runner and yard-tackle; – the stream-anchor which had been of necessity dropped among the rocks on the starboard quarter, the day before, was now turned to good account by leading its chain through the same port, and therewith guying the ship into the deepest water. Through the stern port on deck was the shroud hawser; the object in view was to keep an equal strain on the two bowers whilst heaving off; by a rally at the capstan, however, one of the cables gave way; lost no time in recovering its end and re-bending; the power at the capstan was reduced to two hands to a bar, and the falls on the main-deck (or rather the other cable better manned, and by 7 p.m. the ship was in 2 ½ fathoms water; the small bower-chain was then unshackled from the hempen cable, and passed from the starboard quarter port to the hawse hole on the same side, the larboard cable was buoyed and slipped, the shroud-hawser taken to the larboard hawse-hole, the ship swung with her head to the nothward, and moored with nearly three lengths of chain on the starboard cable.
“Dec. 3d. – At 4 a.m. hove up the small-bower. At 8; hove up the hempen bower, and commenced warping the ship towards Garden Island; left an officer with a party at Pulo-Carnac for the protection of the stores and provisions. Ship making three feet water an hour. At 7-30 p.m., anchored in Cockburn Sound, in 9 fathoms, veered to 28 fathoms, and moored ship with a kedge to the northward.
(Signed)“W. C. Jervoise, Captain.”
Nothing short of such wonderful exertions as were used by Captain Jervoise, his officers and crew, (first in extricating themselves from their perilous situation, and afterwards in heaving down and repairing their ship,) could possibly have saved the Success. On his arrival at Trincomalee, he was most highly complimented by that excellent officer and seaman, Sir Edward W. C. R. Owen, in company with whom he sailed for Bombay, in March 1831; it having been previously determined that his little frigate, supposed as she then was, to be no longer fit for the public service, should either be sold or taken to pieces. On her being docked however, the surveying officers reported, that, with the exception of her wanting a new rudder, she was perfectly fit for service.
At this period, Captain Jervoise was ordered to assume the command of the Calcutta, a new 84; but, as Sir Edward Owen had resolved that the Success should neither be sold nor broken up in India, he requested permission to stick by
