Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/50

 42 The Eagle and the Romney with their crews shared the same fate; the Firebrand also was lost, but her captain with most of her men were saved. "The other men-of-war with difficulty escaped by having timely notice." In this storm between fifteen hundred and two thousand people were drowned in one night.

A day or two before this took place, one man, a native of Scilly, is said to have persistently warned the officer of the watch on board the Association that unless their ship's course was altered she, with all the fleet, would soon be on the Scilly rocks amongst the breakers. These warnings so exasperated the officer that he repeated them to his admiral, and he, vexed that a common sailor should think that he knew better than his superiors how to navigate a vessel, summarily ordered him to be hanged at the yard-arm for inciting the others to insubordination and mutiny. The man before his execution begged, as a great favour, that the chaplain should be allowed to read him one of the Psalms. His request was granted, and he chose the 109th, repeating after the reader in a loud voice all the curses it contains. And with his last breath he prophesied that the admiral, with those who saw him hanged, would find a watery grave. Up to this time the weather had been fair, but as soon as his body had been committed to the sea it changed, the wind began to blow, and his ship-mates were horrified to see the corpse out of its winding-sheet, face up, following in their wake, and even before their vessel struck they gave themselves up for lost men. Some say that Sir Cloudesley's body came ashore on a hatch, on which he had endeavoured to save himself, with his favourite little dog dead by his side. Others, that after the wreck it was cast naked on Forth Hellick beach, where it was discovered by a soldier, who took off his ring which he still wore, and buried him in the sands.

Another account, on the authority of Robert, second Lord Romney, Sir Cloudesley Shovel's grandson, runs thus:—"There is one circumstance relating to Sir Cloudesley Shovel's death that is known to very few persons, namely, he as not drowned, having got to shore, where, by the confession of an ancient woman, he was put to death. This, many years after, when on her death-bed, she revealed to the minister