TH

CHAPTER X.

MORE STIRRING EVENTS.

'HE year 1851 will long be remembered as that of the first Great Universal Exhibition, the parent of innumerable other International Exhibitions, which was opened on 1st May.* We were of course among the countless thousands who visited that Exhibition. The vast and splendid building in Hyde Park - a veritable fairy palace of (as it seemed) almost illimitable dimensionsits broad avenues filled with light and beauty, resonant with music, gay with trees, shrubs, flowers, fountains, and statuary; stored with samples of all productions of the earth; enriched with many fine and costly paintings; and thronged with people of all nations, can never be forgotten by any who beheld it. Such Exhibitions, as has been said, have given a greater impetus than anything else to science and art, and to technical and even elementary education in this country.t

The Admiralty sent to the Exhibition a magnificent set of models of sailing and steamships of the most recent construction, viz.:

I. A series of sailing ships of all classes, from the Queen, a first-rate man-of war, to a brig of 10 guns.

2. A series of screw ships of various classes, from the St. Jean d'Acre, of 100 guns, to a sloop of 12 guns, the

*This year is also memorable as being the first in which the gross income of the Post-Office under the old system was exceeded under the Penny Postage System (inaugurated January 10, 1840).

Sir John Donnelly, Chairman of the Council of the Society of Arts, 1894.

most modern being the St. Jean d'Acre, the Agamemnon, and

A beautiful model of the Royal yacht Osborne may also be mentioned.*

By an Admiralty order of the 5th May, all workpeople employed in dockyards were allowed two clear days to visit the Exhibition (the Yards being closed, without loss of pay, for the occasion), and a free railway pass and entrance fee given to each person.

The year is also memorable for the formation of the MEDWAY STEAM RESERVE. This comprised four divisions, and consisted of:

Ist Division. To be kept in perfect readiness to receive officers and men; a Navigating Officer, Chief Engineer, and Warrant Officers residing on board.

2nd Division.-Hulls and all fittings, etc., to be complete; stores not to be on board, but selected and kept ready for immediate use.

3rd Division.- Hulls to be complete except hammock nettings and such fittings as would be likely to receive injury from exposure to weather.

4th Division.-All ships waiting repair.

The ships in reserve were arranged in harbour divisions, irrespective of the divisions to which they belonged; and each of these divisions was under the charge of a Lieutenant

* This model received a prize of £40.

of the Reserve.* The ships in which these officers lived

were

Ist, the Clyde, on the Lapwell.

2nd, the Leonidas, at Blackstakes.

3rd, the Wellington.

The headquarters of the Steam Reserve were to be at Sheerness. It was doubtless a very important step for the protection of our shores.

The business of the Yard went on regularly from day to day throughout the year. Strict discipline seems to have been maintained. Very different, indeed, was the state of things from that of old times-of the time, for instance, when the Dutch came up the Medway. We learn, for example, that the Superintendent at that time was Sir Peter Pett (son, it may be remembered, of the famous Phineas Pett†), of whom it is said that he was a man of pacific habits and slightly indolent disposition, probably a good clerk and an excellent correspondent, and careful to a degree about small matters, but incapable of taking the lead in a crisis or of compelling discipline and obedience from his subordinates. Of discipline, indeed, there seems to have been, at that time, none, the workmen apparently keeping their own times, and doing as little or as much work as they pleased. It must, however, be stated that they had received no regular wages for some considerable period, but, like the seamen, had been paid with tickets or Government I O U's; while the credit of the Government was so bad, and the corruption of officials so great, that these tickets were not negotiable by ordinary means.

Great numbers of visitors to the Exhibition, from all parts of the world, were admitted to see our Yard, the special

* About 1892, the MEDWAY STEAM RESERVE was abolished, and the ships divided into two classes, called "The Dockyard Reserve" and "The Fleet Reserve." The first comprises all the ships that are being brought forward in the Dockyard, which are under the charge of the Captain of the Dockyard Reserve (under the Admiral Superintendent at Chatham), and when completed in every way and fully stored, are passed, by a Board of Officers, into the Fleet Reserve, which is in charge of the Captain of the Fleet Reserve under the Commander-in-Chief, and is required to be ready for sea at twenty-four hours' notice.

† See pp. 40, 94.

orders of the Admiralty for admission being of course required for foreigners.

The estimates for 1851-52 for wages to the established workmen of Chatham Yard amounted to £88,912; for teams, £1,326; for police, £3,053; and for wages to men employed on new architectural works, improvements, and repairs, £19,232; together with £15,155 in the aggregate to all the Yards for the men of the Yard-craft.

Vice-Admiral the Hon. Joceline Percy was appointed Commander-in-Chief at the Nore in succession to Admiral the Hon. George Elliot on the 23rd June, 1851. (The appointment, it may have been observed, is usually a three years' one.)

The nation had not lost its interest in the Franklin Expedition. In May, 1851, the Prince Albert, again commissioned by Lady Franklin, left Aberdeen in search of Sir John, under the command of Mr. William Kennedy, who was accompanied by Lieutenant Bellot, of the French navy. After a series of adventures Captain Kennedy and his companions found winter anchorage in Bally Bay, whence a series of marvellous land explorations of almost unparalleled character were made, during which it is computed that they must have travelled at least two thousand miles, the first portion of which was undertaken during the Arctic night. The Herald returned this year to England, the Plover, her companion, remaining in Behring's Strait as a store-ship to the Investigator and Enterprise, the former of which remained in Behring's Strait, while the latter, returning from wintering in Hong Kong, had rejoined her sister ship. The United States expedition, which had been embedded in the pack ice opposite Wellington Channel,

* An interesting account is recorded of a ship found embedded in the ice during the last century: "One serene evening in the middle of August, 1775, Captain Warrens, the Master of the Greenland, whaleship, found himself becalmed among an immense number of icebergs, in about 77 degrees of north latitude. On one side, and within a mile of his vessel, these were of immense height, and closely wedged together, and a succession of snow-covered peaks appeared behind each other as far as the eye could reach, showing that the ocean was completely blocked up in that quarter, and that it had probably been so for a long period of time. Captain Warrens did not feel altogether satisfied with his situation; but there being no wind, he could not move either one way or the other, and

and had drifted about during the whole winter, being at length released (on the 10th June, 1851), then sought to return northwards, but was unable to get beyond Melville he therefore kept a strict watch, knowing that he would be safe as long as the icebergs continued in their respective places.

"About midnight the wind rose to a gale, accompanied by a thick shower of snow, while a succession of tremendous thundering, grinding, and crashing noises, gave fearful evidence that the ice was in motion. The vessel received violent shocks every moment; for the haziness of the atmosphere prevented those on board from discovering in what direction the open water lay, or if there actually was any at all on either side of them. The night was spent in tacking, as often as any cause of danger happened to present itself; and in the morning the storm abated, and Captain Warrens found, to his great joy, that his ship had not sustained any serious injury. He remarked with surprise_that_the accumulated icebergs, which had on the preceding evening formed an impenetrable barrier, had been separated and disarranged by the wind, and that in one place a canal of open sea wound its course among them as far as the eye could discern.

It was two miles beyond the entrance to this canal that a ship made its appearance about noon. The sun shone brightly at the time, and a gentle breeze blew from the north. At first some intervening iceberg prevented Captain Warrens from distinctly seeing anything but her masts; but he was struck with the strange manner in which her sails were disposed, and with the dismantled aspect of her yards and rigging. She continued going before the wind for a few furlongs, and then, grounding upon the low icebergs, remained motionless.

Captain Warrens' curiosity was so much excited that he immediately leaped into his boat with several seamen and rowed towards her. On approaching, he observed that her hull was miserably weatherbeaten, and not a soul appeared on the deck, which was covered with snow to a considerable depth. He hailed her crew several times, but no answer was returned. Previous to stepping on board, an open port-hole near the main chains caught his eye, and, on looking into it, he perceived a man reclining back in a chair, with writing materials on a table before him; but the feebleness of the light made everything very indistinct. The party went upon deck, and, having removed the hatchway, which they found closed, they descended to the cabin.

"They first came to the apartment which Captain Warrens viewed through the port hole. A tremor seized him as he entered it. Its inmate retained his former position, and seemed to be insensible to strangers. He was found to be a corpse, and a green, damp mould had covered his cheeks and forehead, and veiled his open eye-balls. He had a pen in his hand, and a log-book lay on the table before him, the last sentence in whose unfinished page ran thus: ‘November 14, 1762. We have now been inclosed in the ice seventeen days. The fire went out yesterday, and our master has been ever since trying to kindle it, without success. His wife died this morning. There is no relief'

"Captain Warrens and his seamen hurried from the spot without uttering a word. On entering the principal cabin, the first object that attracted their attention was the dead body of a female, reclining on a bed, in an attitude of deep interest and attention. Her countenance retained the freshness of life, but a contraction of the limbs showed that the form was inanimate. Seated on the floor was the corpse of an apparently young man, holding a steel in one hand and a flint in the