In the year 1816 two stately vessels were sailing on the ocean, in all the pride of perfect equipment and of glorious enterprise.  The one was an English frigate, the Alceste, having on board our ambassador to China; the other was a French frigate, the Medusa, taking out the suite of a governor for one of the colonies of France on the coast of Africa.  The importance of the mission on which each ship was despatched, and the value of the freight, would seem to assure us that the Alceste and the Medusa were officered and manned by the best crews that could be selected.  Two nations, rivals in science and civilization, who had lately been contending for the empire of the world, and in the course of that contest had exhibited the most heroic examples of promptitude and courage, were nautically represented, we may suppose, by the elite who walked the decks of the Alceste and the Medusa.  If any calamity should happen to either, it could not be attributed to a failure of that brilliant gallantry, which the English and French had equally displayed on the most trying occasions.

But a calamity of the most fearful nature did befal both, out of which the Alceste’s crew were delivered with life and honour untouched, when that of the Medusa sank under a catastrophe, which has become a proverb and a bye-word to mariners.  Both ships were wrecked.  For an account of the good conduct, of the calm and resolute endurance, and of the admirable discipline to which, under Providence, the preservation of the crew of the Alceste is to be attributed, see pages 204-226 of this volume.  A total relaxation of discipline, an absence of all order, precaution, and presence of mind, and a contemptible disregard of everything and of everybody but self, in the hour of common danger, filled up the full measure of horrors poured out upon the guilty crew of the Medusa.  She struck on a sand-bank under circumstances which admitted of the hope of saving all on board.  The shore was at no great distance, and the weather was not so boisterous as to threaten the speedy destruction of the ship when the accident first happened.

There were six boats of different dimensions available to take off a portion of the passengers and crew:  there was time and there was opportunity for the construction of a raft to receive the remainder.  But the scene of confusion began among officers and men at the crisis, when an ordinary exercise of forethought and composure would have been the preservation of all.  Every man was left to shift for himself, and every man did shift for himself, in that selfish or bewildered manner which increased the general disaster.  The captain was not among the last, but among the first to scramble into a boat; and the boats pushed off from the sides of the frigate, before they had taken in as many as each was capable of holding.  Reproaches, recrimination, and scuffling took the place of order and of the word of command, both in the ship and in the boats, when tranquillity and order were indispensable for the common safety.