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:
“The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“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)
“In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)