The Loss of HMS Tribune – 23 November 1797
In the late autumn of 1797, a sailing master’s misplaced confidence, compounded by a captain’s obdurate determination not to lose his ship, resulted in the disastrous sinking of HMS Tribune and the loss of some 250 men, women and children in a violent gale off Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The frigate Tribune 34 had been launched at Rochefort in June 1793 and commissioned into the French Navy six months later. However, her career under Republican colours had proved to be short, for on 8 June 1796 she had been captured off the Scilly Islands by the British frigate Unicorn 32, Captain Thomas Williams. Purchased into the navy, she spent four months fitting out at Portsmouth between March and July 1797 before being detailed for the convoy duty to Newfoundland and Quebec. Sailing from Torbay on 22 September, she carried crew and passengers estimated to number about 250 people, and her commander, Scory Barker, was an experienced officer with four years seniority as a post captain.
On 19 October, a month after leaving England, and being well to the north-west of the Azores, the Tribune lost company with her convoy. Bending a course for Nova Scotia, she appeared off Halifax harbour at 8 o’clock on the morning of 23 November. It was then that her sailing master made a fateful decision.
As the Tribune approached the harbour, bowling along before a brisk wind from the east south-east, Captain Barker was informed by the sailing master, John Clegg, that he could take the vessel into the harbour with just the assistance of John Cosey, a crew member who knew the area, thereby avoiding the need to wait for a pilot. The master claimed that he was familiar with Halifax, having visited it several times before, and boasted that he had once ‘beat a 44-gun vessel into the harbour’. Furthermore, he argued they should take advantage of the wind being in their favour. Satisfied in his officer’s confidence, Captain Barker took himself below to do paperwork.
With Cosey conning the ship from up forward, the Tribune was approaching the Thrum Cap Shoals off the southern tip of McNabs Island at about noon, when the master began to have doubts over their course. Seeking a second opinion, he decided to consult a masters’ mate by the name of Galvin, who was familiar with the harbour. Arriving on deck from his sick bed, Galvin was just in time to hear the leadsman up forward cry out ‘by the mark five’ and at the same moment Cosey declared ‘Steady!’. In panic the master grabbed the wheel in an attempt to wear ship, but even as Galvin climbed onto a carronade to get a clearer view, the Tribune struck the shoals.
At this point a furious Captain Barker burst onto the deck and harangued the master for his recklessness, even turning his fury on Galvin, who naturally protested his innocence. Distress signals were fired: the first boat to come alongside carried the officer in command of the nearby York Redoubt, Lieutenant Brenton Haliburton. Once aboard the stranded frigate, Haliburton enquired what he could do to help, and when Captain Barker requested that he summon assistance from the dockyard, the army officer returned ashore to make the appropriate signals. Once alerted, boats were manned in the dockyard, while others were launched from the military establishments and the assembled shipping. Yet with the ever-increasing wind blowing against them, only one boat from the harbour was able to reach the stranded ship – on board was a Mr Rockmer, the dockyard boatswain. Three army lieutenants from the military base were also able to reach the Tribune, the officers being North and Campbell of the 7th Royal Fusiliers and Benjamin James of the Royal Nova Scotia Regiment.
Meanwhile, the process of lightening the Tribune had got underway, with all the cannon (bar one used for signals) being jettisoned, along with other unnecessary heavy items. Unfortunately, the cannons were thrown off to leeward, and soon the strengthening wind was slamming the stranded frigate’s hull against the ditched cannons. This mistake only added to Captain Barker’s fury, as did his indignation that the most senior naval officer sent to his rescue was a mere boatswain. Determined not to suffer the disgrace of losing his ship, and aware that an attempt to evacuate the frigate might ignite a panic, he refused permission for anyone to leave, including two men from McNabs Island who had come aboard to help. (A third man did manage to get away by suggesting that he could obtain further assistance from the shore.)
At about 5.30 p.m. the Tribune’s rudder sheared off; she remained aground until 8.30 when with the tide still on the rise, the ship shuddered and floated off the shoals, albeit with seven feet of water in the hold which had been caused by her pounding against the jettisoned cannons. The chain pumps were deployed, and encouragingly, it seemed that they soon began to gain on the leak, whereupon Mr Rockmer advised Barker to let go the best bower anchor. When it failed to hold, the captain ordered it cut away and instead resolved to steer the ship to safety using the jib and foretopmast stay-sail.
The south-easterly gale had not finished with the Tribune. The wind, becoming ever more violent, was now thrusting her towards the rocks on the western shore, while the water in the hold was rising again. When the ship found herself in thirteen fathoms of water, the small bower was let go in a final despairing effort to avoid disaster, and at 10 o’clock the mizzen mast was cut away. Yet neither action altered the dangerous situation, and with hopes for saving the ship fading, Lieutenants North and Campbell left the vessel, the former making his exit into his boat out of one of the gunports. The unlucky Lieutenant James could not be found. The rudderless Tribune was shipping increasing amounts of water as wind and wave drove the ship relentlessly towards the entrance to Herring Cove. The question now was: would she sink before she was wrecked on the rocky shore?
At about 10.30 the frigate lurched twice and began sinking, her masts remaining upright. Immediately, Captain Barker and two hundred and fifty men, women and children were plunged into the sea, either to drown or be smashed against the rocks by the monstrous waves. The jolly boat which might have enabled a few to escape, had earlier been swayed away with four men in it to seek help. In an attempt to save themselves, a number of the crew clambered up the masts, which were still above water.
A desperate night followed, witnessed by the local people who had come down to the shore to assist. They lit bonfires and were so close to the wreck that they were able to shout encouragement to the desperate survivors. Perhaps a hundred people had climbed into the shrouds and the tops when the ship had started sinking, but through the bitter hours that followed, the raging storm and their weakening state saw them fall away, one after another. At midnight the mainmast gave way, taking about forty men with it, although nine were able to regain the main top when it miraculously came to rest on the main yard. By morning, only eight men were left clinging to their lifelines.
One of these survivors was master’s mate Mr Galvin, who apparently had had a miraculous escape when the ship sank. He had been swept up from below where he had been toiling at the chain pumps, pitched into the waist, been half-drowned in the water, stumbled onto a rock, swam back to climb the main shrouds, temporarily been dragged back by three desperate men, and then had dived into the water again to swim back to the wreck. At last, he made it into the main top, only to endure twelve hours clinging to life amid the freezing gale..
The first relief came at 11 o’clock in the morning when a local 13-year-old boy, (nicknamed ‘Joe Cracker’ but probably named John Davis) brought his skiff in so close to the fore-top as to be able to bring off two men, all that his tiny boat could handle. With incredible gallantry, the two fittest survivors in the top assisted their helpless friends into the boat, choosing to await later rescue. Although the boy was unable to repeat his mission, others took heart from his example, and eventually the remaining six men were brought off. The four men in the jolly boat also survived.
No senior officer survived, and so the navy omitted the customary court-martial for the survivors. For a time, the masts of the ship remained visible above water, but the Atlantic waves soon destroyed these reminders of the tragedy. Many years later the ship’s bell was recovered; it now forms the centrepiece of an exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax about the loss of the Tribune. More recently the wreck has become a site for recreational scuba divers to explore, and a number of items have been removed. Even the lost rudder has been found, though rather than being preserved it was cut into pieces as souvenirs. Today a cairn and a small plaque mark ‘Tribune Head’, overlooking the site where 250 souls perished in the freezing waters of the Atlantic.