The third book in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, recounts the tale of Edmund and Lucy Pevensie’s stirring adventures on the high seas, accompanied by their disagreeable cousin Eustace Scrubb and brave mouse ally Reepicheep. They travel aboard King Caspian X’s ship, the Dawn Treader, for a year and a day in search of the seven lost Lords of Narnia.
I was reminded of this story when reading Eric Jay Dolin’s Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. An author and historian who specializes in maritime history, Dolin has turned his expert gaze to a chance encounter involving a shipwrecked British brig and American sealing vessel. The real Nanina of the United States, unlike the fictional Dawn Treader of Narnia, doesn’t encounter dragons, sea serpents, and other mythical beings. Nevertheless, it’s involved in a wild, unpredictable adventure that seems too implausible to be real.
This oceanic adventure began with the New York import/export firm John B. Murray and Son, which had “proposed a sealing voyage to the Falkland Islands.” It purchased the 132-ton Nanina at a local auction on Feb. 12, 1812, and hired Charles Barnard to be its captain. Barnard was already “intimately familiar with the risks and rewards of such an expedition,” having captained some sealing voyages to the Falklands, including for Murray and Son. He hired his crew and soon set sail for seal pelt.
Dolin then introduces the Isabella, a 193-ton British brig “preparing to depart from Port Jackson Harbor in the British convict colony of New South Wales” in December 1812. There were some prominent passengers on board, including Robert Durie, who oversaw the Royal Marines. There were also “notorious” passengers, such as Richard Brooks. He was an experienced merchant mariner with a “checkered reputation” due to an unusually high death toll that occurred on the Atlas, a convict transport he captained between 1801 and 1802.
The American sealing vessel and the British brig would soon cross oars, though — despite the outbreak of the War of 1812 — not in the heat of battle.
No, this unexpected encounter occurred because George Higton, the Isabella’s captain, was more scallywag than leader. Twelve days after the ship set sail, it nearly crashed into Campbell’s Island. Higton, who was “drinking, smoking and chatting with some of the other seamen, appeared not to care” when thrice warned about the impending danger. Brooks valiantly took command and prevented certain disaster. A similar scenario occurred at Cape Horn shortly thereafter. Higton took a “more westerly course” toward Rio de Janeiro, but as the Brazilian stormwinds became more fierce, a drunken Higton shirked responsibility once more. The callous and unprofessional captain retired to the bed of Mary Bindell, “one of the former prostitutes and ex-convicts” aboard the Isabella.
In spite of the efforts of Brooks, Lt. Richard Lundin, and others, the Isabella crashed on a reef in the Falklands on Feb. 8, 1813. Several crew members had panicked and deserted the ship, while others demanded liquor from the “frightened passengers.” Dolin wrote that foremast hand Samuel Ansell took a glass of rum from prostitute Mary Ann Spencer, emptied it, and announced, “We shall have no more use for glasses, for this is the last time, either at sea or on shore, that we shall ever drink.”
The Isabella’s surviving crew and passengers would congregate on a nearby island, forming a shipwreck town they called “Newtown Providence.” They gathered supplies from the wreckage, rationed food and drink, and built a storehouse “with walls made of turf ‘bricks.’” They also constructed a longboat, Faith and Hope, to sail for help to Port Egmont — and, if unsuccessful, a trip to Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. Brooks was named captain, and he selected a small crew that included Lundin. The latter excursion proved successful, and a ship under Captain Peter Heywood’s command, the Nancy, was selected for the rescue mission.
By a small measure of good fortune, the Nanina was “holed up” about 110 miles away. The Young Nanina, the main ship’s shallop, which is a boat “with a mainmast and two sails” that enabled the sealing crew “to go on extended hunting cruises far from the brig,” was even closer. Barnard, along with Captains Edmund Fanning and Andrew Hunter and eight crew members, were on board. They saw a “large column of smoke” from one of the Anacan Islands, which included Eagle Island, and went to investigate.
The two ships’ crews struck an unusual deal. Barnard and Hunter offered to take everyone from the Isabella on board the Nanina and drop them off at either a South American port or the U.S. They could then sail to a British port to safety. In return, the Americans “wanted to be given all that remained of the Isabella and the Isabella’s cargo, individual property excepted.” Barnard wisely decided to make the Isabella crew and passengers aware of the war between their two nations. The British ship had “superior numbers” and could have easily overpowered them. The castaways seemed “nonplussed by the startling revelation,” Dolin wrote, and signed this agreement.
Had the story ended there, it would be fascinating in its own right. But what happened next is almost mind-boggling.
A month later, the Nancy arrived. The ship’s young commander, Lt. William Peter D’Aranda, turned out to be a real-life Hollywood villain. He “immediately pronounced Hunter a prisoner of war,” and his clear intention “was to make the Nanina a prize and declare all the Americans his prisoners.” Since he needed an excuse to defend his actions, he claimed it was a result of “maltreatment experienced on board.” As Dolin noted, this didn’t make sense because he declared the ship a prize immediately upon boarding it and without questioning the British passengers beforehand. If something had actually occurred, he wouldn’t have been privy to it. D’Aranda simply desired the profit and glory associated with the capture of an enemy ship.
The Nancy left the Falklands with its ill-gotten gain. Two Americans and three Brits from the Isabella were intentionally marooned, and they struggled to survive the harsh conditions for 534 days. Barnard was one of those left behind. He wrote in this stunning passage in his memoirs, “To be reduced to this deplorable and almost hopeless state of wretchedness, by the treachery and ingratitude of those for whose relief I had long been laboring, and who, by our unremitted exertions, were raised from the lowest depths of despair … was dreadful in the extreme.”
Fortunately, this madcap tale on the open sea ended on a positive note. The five castaways were rescued by two British whaling ships, Asp and Indispensable, in November 1814. The Prize Appeal Court of the High Court of Admiralty ruled in favor of the Murrays in 1818, meaning D’Aranda “was left with nothing” and his reputation sullied. As for Barnard, he would captain more sealing voyages, “warned people not to make the same mistake he had made,” and died in relative obscurity in 1863.
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Michael Taube, a columnist for three publications (National Post, Troy Media, and Loonie Politics), was a speechwriter for former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.