Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/60

40 MEMOIR OF LIEUT. TUPPER. who were in the launch, escaped unhurt. After lingering for eight days, he breathed his last in a state of delirium on board the Sybille, at Malta, and passed from time to eternity totally unconscious of the awful change that was awaiting him. His remains were interred in the quarantine burial ground, where a monument was erected by his captain and messmates, with this inscription of their esteem and regard.

It was placed between the tombs of Charles Locke, Esq., British consul general for Egypt, and Theodore Gatton, Esq., the only mementos of the living then seen throughout the cemetery to indicate that aught, which once breathed, was laid below. Captain Gordon and Mr. George Johnstone, the surgeon, in letters to the family in Guernsey, after their return to England, thus feelingly and eloquently expressed themselves.

The former said : —

"It will be some consolation to an afflicted family to learn that no one had been more esteemed, and none more regretted, by his captain, brother officers, and shipmates, than poor William. He was a good officer and an excellent seaman, and in whom Sir John Pechell had always the greatest reliance. … Your poor brother was too amiable and honorable a young man not to have possessed proper religious feelings. He bore his sufferings with fortitude, — during the six days previous to my being landed I never heard him complain, although I have little doubt he was conscious that his wounds were mortal."