MEDUSA SHIPWRECK TRAGEDY
Méduse was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1810. She took part in the Napoleonic Wars during the late stages of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 and in raids in the Caribbean.
In 1816, following the Bourbon Restoration, Méduse was armed en flûte to ferry French officials to the port of Saint-Louis, in Senegal, to formally re-establish French occupation of the colony under the terms of the First Peace of Paris.
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| The frigate Méduse, brig Argus and corvette Écho |
Doomed by Ineptitude
On June 1816, the French frigate Méduse, captained by Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, departed from Rochefort, bound for the Senegalese port of Saint-Louis. She headed a convoy of three other ships: the store-ship Loire, the brig Argus and the corvette Écho. Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys, a recently returned royalist émigré, had been appointed captain of the frigate by the newly restored Bourbon administration despite having scarcely sailed in 20 years.
In an effort to make good time, the Méduse overtook the other ships, but due to poor navigation it drifted 160 kilometres (100 mi) off course. On 2 July, it ran aground on a sandbank off the West African coast, near today's Mauritania. The collision was widely blamed on the incompetence of De Chaumereys.
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| The Méduse hits a reef shortly before a storm strikes, the fleet is scattered |
Frantic Effort
Efforts to free the ship failed, so, on 5 July, the frightened passengers and crew started an attempt to travel the 100 km (60 mi) to the African coast in the frigate's six boats.
Although the Méduse was carrying 400 people, including 160 crew, there was space for only about 250 in the boats. The remainder of the ship's complement and half of a contingent of marine infantrymen intended to garrison Senegal—at least 146 men and one woman—were piled onto a hastily built raft, that partially submerged once it was loaded.
Seventeen crew members opted to stay aboard the grounded Méduse. The captain and crew aboard the other boats intended to tow the raft, but after only a few miles the raft was turned loose. For sustenance the crew of the raft had only a bag of ship's biscuit (consumed on the first day), two casks of water (lost overboard during fighting) and six casks of wine.
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| The raft nicknamed La Machine saw 132 people lose their lives horrifically |
146 men and 1 woman escaped to the raft (la Machine) could carry few supplies, had no means of steerage, no navigational tools, and took on water easily. Seventeen men, fearing disaster, chose to stay with the sinking Méduse and await rescue.
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| Wreck of the Medusa by Jean Louis Theodore Gericault |
On the raft, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Instead of water, only wine had been packed; drunken fights broke out between the officers and passengers on one hand, and the sailors and soldiers on the other. On the first night adrift, 20 men were killed or committed suicide.
A storm then hit, and more survivors were either trampled to death in a panic or swept overboard to drown. Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day there were only 67 people left alive on the raft, and some resorted to cannibalism (part of the Custom of the Sea) to survive.
On the eighth day, the fittest decided to throw the weak and wounded overboard, leaving just 15 men remaining, all of whom survived another four days until their rescue on 17 July by the brig Argus, which accidentally encountered them.
There is another part to this story. The journey of the other life rafts across the desert is equally horrific, but has been overshadowed by the terror of the event that took place on 'la Machine'.
Never heard of this before, but I remember the painting. The ghost story you shared was awesome, keep it up!
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