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192 HISTORY OP THE INDIAN NAVY. ;
It is probable that the world has long since forgotten the
circumstances attending the wreck of the Honorable Company's
ship 'Antelope,' of fotn-tecn guns, Captain Henry AVilson, off
Coorora, one of the Pclevv Islands, on the 9th of August, 1783,
and the description of the natives given by Mr. (r. Keate,*
together with the fate of Prince Lee Boo, son of the King,
Abba Thnlle, who, accompanying the crew of the vessel to
England, fell a victim to small-pox on the 27th of December,
1784, at the age of 20, and was interred in Rotherhithe Church-
yard, where the Company erected a tomb, with a suitable
inscription, to his memory. In Mr. Keate's interesting account
of the loss of tlie 'Antelope,' justice is done to the excellent
discipline maintained by Captain Wilson and his officers in the
terrible hour when, at midnight, and amid a raging storm, the
ship went ashore on an unknown coast, and not less on the
following morning, when Captain Wilson proposed that the
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spirit casks should be staved. Keate says : " All the sailors,
with the utmost unanimity, and with one voice, declared, that
however they might suffer from the accustomed recruit of
strong liquor, yet, being sensible that having access to it, they
might not at all times use it with discretion, they, to their
lasting honour as men, gave their full assent to the Captain's
proposal, and said, they were ready to go immediately to the
ship and stave every vessel of liquor on board : which, on this
day, they conscientiously performed ; every cask was staved
and so scrupulously did they execute their trust, that there was
not a single man amongst them who would take or taste a fare-
well glass of any liquor. Circumstanced as these poor fellows
were, nothing but a long and well-trained discipline, and the real
affection they bore their Commander, could have produced the
fortitude and steady firmness which they testified on this
occasion." On landing, the officers and crew at once set to
work and extemporized a dockyard, and commenced the con-
struction of a schooner from the materials of the wreck. Our
—
author says : " Each determined (unskilled however he might
be) to exert his abilities and personal strength to promote and
standard authority by those wlio survive liim, it is a sufficient proof of their
excellence, and as much as he himself could desire. Those of Lieutenant
McCluer have stood the test of nearly forty years ; the considerable addition they
formed to the stock of hydrographical information justly entitled their author to the
acknowledgments of the maritime world ; and at this distance of time we readily
bestow oiu- tribute to the memory of a man who has perpetuated his name by his
vahiable works. His first essay in tlie Persian Gulf, which alone proceeded from
a desire of benefiting navigation, was a fair promise of tliat zeal which he after-
wards displayed in the survey of the coast of Hindostan."
* See " An Account of the Pelew Islands, composed from the joiu-nals and
communications of Captain Henry Wilson, and some of his officers, who, in
August, 1783, were there shipwrecked, in the 'Antelope,' a packet belonging to
the Hon. East India Company, by George Keate, Esq., F.R.S," London, 1788.
In this work is a plan, with soundings, of the harbour called " Englishman's
Harbour," in which tliey were wrecked, by Captain Wilson.