Sir Cloudesley sailed on the sea, A Royal fleet admiral was he. Coming home from Gibraltar, His course failed to alter, What happened? You shortly will see.It happened in 1707, While aiming for Plymouth in Devon. One crewman said: "Sport, You are too far to port, You're nearer the mouth of the Severn."
Sir Cloudesley said: "Grab that boy, Billy, Who shouts off his mouth, willy-nilly. Hang him from the yard! A punishment hard... "'Twill teach him for being so silly."
Marines on board had him surrounded, With rope, hand and foot he was bounded, And a curse was the last Thing that through his lips passed: "I pray that this ship shall be grounded."
And Billy's prediction proved right. While cruising, full rigged, late that night, The hull it was rent, All the crew's lives were spent, As the ship swiftly sank out of sight.
She'd two other ships in her train, Both speeding full sail 'cross the main, They spotted too late Their admiral's fate, And the crabs further protein did gain.
Near 2000 fine men were lost, Off Scilly their bodies were tossed. 'Cos the man misconstrued The right longitude. Which failure they learned to their cost.
* Notes for further enlightenment: You can find more about Sir Cloudesley Shovell searching on that name on Google.
This disaster triggered a search for accurate methods of measuring longitude, which included very weird suggestions including sending dogs to sea, retaining one of the litter and inflicting pain on this one at a precise time each day, in the belief that its pain would be transmitted to its siblings, and they would yelp. Eventually the chronometer resulted.
Much treasure has been recovered from the wreck over the years.
A non-technical, though not particularly well written book on the subject is Longitude, by Dava Sobel, published in the US by Welker Publishing, 1995, and in the UK by Fourth Estate, 1996.
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First posted: Wed, 15 Aug 2001.
Reference added, typos corrected: Tuesday, September 02, 2003