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:
“Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate,
That fate is thine—no distant date;
Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives , elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush’d beneath the furrow’s weight,
Shall be thy doom.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
“It seems our fate to be incorrect ... and in our incorrectness stand.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)