Fate
In the autumn of 1814 Sir John Sherbrooke was outward bound from Halifax with a cargo of oil and dried fish. She encountered the American privateer Syren, which captured her and put a prize crew aboard her. However, a British squadron came along and chased Sir John Sherbrooke ashore. The American crew managed to get away with all the valuables on board despite the fire of the British frigate's guns. The frigate sent her boats to attempt a rescue, but gunfire from a nearby fort drove them off. Salvage was impracticable, so Sir John Sherbrooke was set on fire and burned to the water's edge.
Ironically, on 16 November 1814, boats from Spencer and Telegraph, herself a former American privateer, ran Syren ashore under Cape May, where her crew destroyed her.
Read more about this topic: Sir John Sherbrooke (Halifax)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“We are hedged about, we think, by accident and circumstance; now we creep as in a dream, and now again we run, as if there were a fate in it, and all things thwarted or assisted.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)