When Lieutenant William Bligh, Royal Navy, stopped at Table Bay on his way home to England after the historic mutiny on HMS Bounty, one of his courtesy calls was on Lieutenant Edward Riou, commanding HMS Guardian. As Riou listened to Bligh’s story of the seizure of his ship and his unprecedented open boat voyage, there was no way he could have foreseen that he himself would shortly be the hero of a maritime saga fit in every way to rank with Bligh’s feat.
The Guardian was en route to New South Wales with livestock, plants, seeds, and other supplies for the penal colony, and carried a company of about 200 men, including a number of convicts, probably all or most of them having agricultural backgrounds. Riou, Edward Riou about 30 years old, had been selected for the command largely on the basis of his two voyages to the South Pacific under Captain Cook. The ship was an obsolescent ship of the line from which most of the guns had been removed.
Riou departed the Cape of Good Hope in December 1789 and for 12 days the voyage was uneventful. Then, sighting a huge iceberg, he saw in this a most welcome opportunity to replenish his fresh water. Always a problem in sailing ship days, water must have been of especial concern to Riou in view of the demands of the plants and animals he had on board. He lay to and got his boats out, and until dark the crew chopped ice to be melted and run into the casks.
Shortly after clearing the berg, heavy weather and thick fog set in. Lookouts were doubled and hands at stations for emergency maneuvering, but by mischance a berg loomed up dead ahead and it was impossible to avoid it. Instantly the ice was reported, Riou threw down his helm and put his ship to the wind. She almost cleared, but as with the Titanic so many years later, a head-on collision might have been preferable to the glancing slash that she sustained. The unfortunate ship bounced and pounded, swung about out of control and stuck her stern into the berg, thereby losing her rudder. Nevertheless, Riou worked her free and got to open water where he could take stock of damage.
The carpenter reported two feet of water in the hold and rising rapidly. Some of the crew were put to thrumming sails for collision mats, the remainder went to the pumps. Despite the most desperate efforts, the water by midnight had risen to six feet. Riou ordered the cargo—valued at about a million dollars by present standards—-jettisoned. Then over with the guns.
The captain himself turned to, with the chaplain, purser, and clerks, helping toe have the weights overside, sustaining a painfully crushed hand while so doing. Hour after hour, through the night, through the day and through another night (Christmas Eve) the officers, crew, and convicts waged what seemed to be a losing batde against sea and storm.
On Christmas Day, the exhausted crew sent a delegation aft to plead for abandoning ship. Very well, those who wished to leave could have the boats, although he himself, said Riou, would sink or swim with his ship. Five boats were got over; then came a suicidal rush for them. Undoubtedly the convicts had started this and the contagion had spread to the seamen.
Probably intended for last-minute commitment to a bottle, the following letter was penned by Rion after he permitted the majority of the crew of HMS Guardian to abandon ship.
HM Guardian 25 Dec 1789
Lat. 44 dS. Long 40° E.
Sir.
If ever Any part of the officers and crew of the Guardian should ever survive to get home—I have only to say their conduct after the fatal stroke against an Island of Ice was admirable and wonderful in everything that related to their duties, considered either as private men or his Majesty’s service.
As there seems to be no possibility of my remaining many hours in this world, I beg leave to recommend to the consideration of the Admiralty a sister who if my conduct or Services should be found deserving any memory their Favour might be shewn to her together with a widowed Mother.
I am Sir remaining with great respect
Your ever Obedt. and humble Servt.
E. RIOU
Of the five boats, only one was ever heard of again, the launch being picked up two weeks later (most providently in view of the day and place) by a Frenchman.
Riou remained on board with a skeleton volunteer crew, one of whom, the ship’s boatswain, later had this to say:
We was about six hundred leagues from any land. There was about fifty-six men missing; a number drowned jumping into the boats; the sea ran so high that the boats could scarce live.
The commander had a strong resolution, for he said he would soner go down in the ship than he would quid hur. All of the officers left in the ship is the commander, the carpenter, one midshipman and myself.
After the boats left we had two chances— either to pump or sink. We could just get into the sailroom. We got up a new fore-course and stuck itt full of oakum and rags, and put itt under the ship’s bottom; this is called “fothering” the ship. We found some benefit by itt, for pumping and bailing we gained on hur; that gave us a little hopse of saving our lives.
We was in this terable situation for nine weeks before we got to the Cape of Good Hope. Sometimes our upper deck scuppers was under water outside, and the ship lying like a log on the water, and the sea breaking over her as if she was a rock in the sea. Sixteen foot of water was the common run for the nine weeks in the hold.
The midshipman who stood by his captain was named Pitt, a nephew of the great prime minister Lord Chatham. The Pitt family influence was to stand Riou in good stead in the future. As for the boy himself, he had a stormy naval career eventually punctuated by a duelist’s pistol ball.
Once the hold was awash, the Guardian seems to have been floating on her stout lower gun deck, on which was stowed the unusually generous supply of water barrels. By letting out the water and replugging the casks, what the resourceful Riou actually did was to provide his nearly bottomless vessel with a watertight subdivision.
The skeleton crew, which included 20 seamen, does not seem to have suffered any particular privation, so it must be assumed that ample water and provisions were left on board. At any rate, there were no further deaths in the ensuing nine weeks during which Riou, with no means of steering his ship except the sails, navigated toward the Cape. Some assistance was obtained from a Dutchman, but Riou seems to have given scant if any thought to transferring himself and people to that vessel.
The Guardian was also fortunate in the weather, as a severe storm would undoubtedly have finished her. In fact, such a storm finally did so after she had come to anchor in Table Bay and Riou and his men had been taken ashore.
Word of the loss of the Guardian and her captain had eventually reached London, and King George III himself expressed deep sorrow. So His Majesty was particularly rejoiced to receive news that Riou had finally made port. He was immediately promoted to commander and soon afterward to post-rank. Shortly thereafter when it came time to replace the captain of the royal yacht, the King conferred the post on Riou.
But, after some years, the saviour of the Guardian came to yearn for more active command. In 1801, history records that he had the 38-gun frigate Amazon, in Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s expedition against Copenhagen. Gallantly leading a frigate force under Nelson, Captain Edward Riou was struck and knocked to pieces by the very last cannonball fired from the Trekroner fort.