Fate
On 9 June 1801 Capel and Meleager were cruising Bahia del Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico when just before midnight lookouts spotted breakers ahead. Even though the helmsman tried to turn her, Meleager ran hard onto a reef. Despite their best efforts, the crew could neither pull Meleager off the reef nor could the pumps keep up with the water coming in. The crew put provisions in the boats and then abandoned ship before she sank. The boats sailed to Vera Cruz. Here, in mid-July, Apollo picked the crew up. The subsequent court martial ruled that the wreck was due to the charts on Meleager being greatly in error with respect to the location of the Triangles Shoal on which she had run aground.
Read more about this topic: HMS Meleager (1785)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“So the old flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,
‘Twas fastened and burned at the stake as heretic,
While the flames roared around it they heard a strange
noise—
‘Twas the old flute still whistling ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 37–40)
“For when we must resign our vital breath,
Our Loves by Fate benighted,
We by this friendship shall survive in death,
Even in divorce united.
Weak Love through fortune or distrust
In time forgets to burn,
But this pursues us to the Urn,
And marries either’s Dust.”
—Thomas Stanley (1625–1678)
“Is it our job to judge? The gendarme, policemen and bureaucrats have been especially prepared by fate for that job. Our job is to write, and only to write.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)