Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 212

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(MARITIME.) Lambert, John. A British naval officer's shipwreck and fight for survival during the American Revolution. Autograph Letter Signed to his uncle. 8 pages, 12 x 8 1/4 inches, on 2 folding sheets; folds, a few ink smudges, minimal wear. Puerto Rico, 14 December 1780
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Lambert was an officer aboard the HMS Deal Castle, which lost its masts in a storm off St. Lucia in October 1780, then drifted until finally wrecking off the coast of Puerto Rico, where the survivors came to land on hastily constructed rafts and were soon captured by the Spaniards. This long letter tells the tale in harrowing detail. Three days after the initial disaster, "I had not a dry thread about me, nor had I a wink of sleep until the 14th at 12 o'clock at night when I was relieved from the watch . . . expecting her to sink every minute, the pumps continually going." After two hours of sleep, he was awakened when the ship struck a reef: "The boats were now sent off with as many as they could hold & the rest were turned to the making of rafts, or what we call cata morants." Lambert was separated from the last raft to leave the ship, but "got on shore after being very nigh drowned & I had been nearly so had it not been for the assistance of one of the seamen who ran into the water & brought me out in his arms." The survivors were then sent on a forced march across the mountains to San Juan, where Lambert and the other officers were released on parole but totally bereft of funds--leading to this desperate letter to his uncle for assistance.