Wooden sailing ship Newburn
From Newburn [New Bern] North Carolina to Port Glasgow
Cargo: Naval stores [turpentine, wood etc from the pine forests]
Captain John Scott; Crew 12; passengers 2.
Wrecked on Hoyle Bank; 3 lost.
Approximate position: 53° 23.4' N; 3° 20.1' W
Contemporary newspaper reports:
On Wednesday [15 December 1790] about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the ship
Newburn, Capt John Scott, from Newburn, North Carolina, with cargo of
naval stores, staves, etc for Port Glasgow struck on the NW spit of the Hoyle
Bank; soon after which they cut away the masts, the sea breaking violently
over the ship; in half an hour after, the people were obliged to lash
themselves fast to the rails to prevent their being washed overboard, in three
hours, the Captain lost his reason and, about 8 o'clock the same evening, fell dead over
the rope with which he was fastened, and about 11 o'clock at night, Mr James
Davidson, a passenger, and many years master of a vessel from Port Glasgow
also died in same situation, and about 4 o'clock next morning, Jacob White, the
cook of the vessel, died while lashed to the rails.
The following day the weather having moderated a little, the people on board made signals of distress which being observed by Henry Seeds and Mr. Hickson, two men who keep a fishing boat in Hoylake, they, at the extreme hazard of their own lives, ventured out to the assistance of the unfortunate crew, and about 2 o'clock, they reached the vessel and took them all (viz the mate and ten men, one of whom was a passenger) into their boat and landed them safe in Hoylake. Too much praise cannot be given to the fishermen who so humanely adventured to the relief of these distressed people, many of whom at the time of their being taken overboard had lost the use of their limbs, and which some of them are not yet recovered. They were behaved to with utmost kindness by the fishermen after they got safe to shore. The bodies of the three unfortunate sufferers have since been found.
There was no Liverpool Pilot aboard, since their destination was the Clyde not the Mersey. This lack, however, meant that they were not able to find shelter safely. The storm at that time was also responsible for the loss of the Packet Charlemont at Holyhead.
Report of survivors: A study of the effects of cold water, alcohol, etc on shipwrecked mariners was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1792 by James Currie and also in a book by him, published 1805, entitled "Medical Reports on the Effects of Water, Cold and Warm, as a remedy in Fever and other Diseases". It contains details of an investigation into the loss of only three of the 14 men aboard a ship wrecked off the Mersey.
On the 13th of December 1790, an American ship was cast away on a sand bank that lies in the opening of the River Mersey into the Irish Channel. The crew got on a part of the wreck where they passed the night and a signal, which they made, being discovered next day from Hillberry Island, a boat went off, though at a great risk, and took up the survivors. The unfortunate men had remained twenty three hours on the wreck and, of fourteen, the original number, eleven were still alive, all of whom in the end recovered. Of the three that perished, one was the master of the vessel, another a passenger who had been a master but had lost or sold his ship in America, the third was the cook. The bodies of these unfortunate persons were also brought off by the men from Hilberry Island and were afterwards interred in St Nicholas's churchyard amidst a great crowd of spectators. The cook, who was a weakly man, died a few hours before the boat reached the wreck but the two masters had been long dead and this united the sympathy for their loss with a curiosity to inquire into its circumstances and causes. When the following particulars came to be known, this curiosity was increased: Both the masters were strong and healthy men and one of them a native of Scotland in the flower of his life, early inured to cold and hardships and very vigorous both in body and mind. On the other hand, several of the survivors were by no means strong men, most of them had been inured to the warm climate of Carolina and, what was singular enough, the person among the whole who seemed to have suffered least was a negro.
What is extraordinary is seldom long unaccounted for, in one way or other, and the death of the two masters was said to have been owing to their having taken possession of a keg which had contained cherry brandy and which still contained the cherries, these, it was reported, they had kept to themselves and eaten in large quantities after the shipwreck and this, having produced intoxication, was supposed to have hastened their death. Some experienced seamen were satisfied with this account which indeed seemed very rational, for though spirituous liquors may fortify the body against the effects of heat combined with moisture and may perhaps support it for a short time under great fatigue, they are, I believe, uniformly hurtful when taken under severe and continued cold. Pleased to see a doctrine becoming popular which has been so ably supported by Dr Aikin and others, I believed it might receive a striking confirmation from this catastrophe into the particulars of which I determined to examine accurately.
I therefore obtained access to the survivors of the crew
and from them, but more especially from Mr Amyat, the mate, I received the
information which I required:
In repeated conversations with this intelligent
young man, I learnt that Captain Scott, the master of the vessel, died in about four
hours after the ship struck and that Captain Davison, the passenger, died in about
seven, but that the story of their having eaten cherries infused in brandy was
entirely without foundation, of this he was certain, for he saw the keg, which
contained the cherries, staved, while Capt Davison was endeavouring to fill it
with water to make grog for the crew; the cherries fell on the wreck and were
immediately washed into the sea. Mr Amyat expressed his surprise at the early
death of the two masters but could not assign any cause for it. He said there
was no liquor of any kind saved, nor any sort of food; that the whole crew were
on an equality in all points, except that some were deeper in the water than
others, but that the two masters had the advantage in this respect, for they sat
on the only part of the wreck that was out of the sea whereas the poor negro,
who escaped almost unhurt, was perhaps deepest in the sea of any.
He explained this in the following manner: When the ship struck they cut away her masts to prevent her from oversetting and, after this, she drifted over the sandbank into what is called a "swash" on the other side. Here, she floated, and they let go their best bower anchor but it dragged and the vessel struck again in a few minutes on another bank. In this situation, she lay some time, beating against the sand, and the sea breaking over her. In a little while, Mr Amyat saw the tar barrels, which formed her cargo, floating towards the land and, soon after, the bottom parted entirely and was carried in the same direction. Happily for the men, the part of the wreck on which they were lashed was held by the anchor and floated in the water, a small portion, of the after part of the quarter deck, being above the surface. On this sat the two masters, generally out of the sea, but frequently overwhelmed by the surge and at other times exposed to heavy showers of sleet and snow, and to a high and piercing wind. The temperature of the air, as nearly as can be guessed, was from 30 to 33 of Faht and that of the sea, from trials in similar circumstances, from 38 to 40. Immediately before the two masters was Mr Amyat himself. As he was sitting and the deck sloped pretty rapidly, he was generally up to the middle in the water. The situation of the rest may be supposed; some of them were up to the shoulders. They were not at any time able to change their position but kept their legs in pretty constant motion to counteract the cold, their arms being employed in holding by the wreck.
The master of the ship, Captain Scott, a native of North Carolina and about forty years of age, died first. As they were in the dark, Mr Amyat could not see his countenance but he was first alarmed by hearing him talk incoherently like one in the delirium of fever. By degrees, his voice dwindled into a mutter and his hearing seemed to fail. At length he raised himself up in a sort of convulsive motion in which he continued a few seconds and then fell back dead on the deck. This happened about eight in the evening, four hours after the ship went aground. Soon after this Captain Davison, who was about twenty eight, began to talk incoherently in the same manner as the other. He struggled longer but died in the same way at about eleven at night. The cook died in the forenoon of the succeeding day. He was a low-spirited man and desponded from the beginning. All the rest held out, as has been already mentioned, though sorely pinched with cold and hunger till they were taken up about three in the afternoon. Mr Amyat said that his hands and feet were swelled and numb, though not absolutely senseless, he felt a tightness at the pit of his stomach and his mouth and lips were parched but what distressed him most were cramps in the muscles of his sides and hips which were drawn into knots. Though immersed in the sea, they were all of them very thirsty and though exposed to such severe cold, Mr Amyat himself was not drowsy, nor were any of the men drowsy, nor did sleep precede death in those that perished.
Footnote: this same report is also quoted in part by Sam Willis in his book "Shipwreck: A History of Disasters at Sea" - although he wrongly quotes the date of loss.