The Acadians and crew on the Duke…
December 1758 CE
Captain William Nichols of Norfolk, the commander and co-owner, has dispatched both the long boat and cutter that are on board so that they might approach any passing vessels.
On the morning of December 13, two English vessels are within sight of the Duke William.
The ships do not stop.
During the possible rescue, the Duke William almost becomes separated from the long boat and the cutter.
As the long boat and cutter return, a Danish ship appears in the distance.
Again those aboard think they are saved, but the Danish ship, like those before, sails away from them.
Ship's boats in the eighteenth century are designed for work, not lifesaving.
Intended to load cargo and supplies as well as shuttle people ashore, the three small boats aboard Duke William can hold only a handful of those aboard.
At the insistence of Noel Doiron, the leader of the Acadians, the two boats on board are lowered into the English channel carrying only the Captain, his crew, and the parish priest Girrard.
Upon lowering the life boats, Doiron sharply reprimands a fellow Acadian, Jean-Pierre LeBlanc, for trying to board a lifeboat while abandoning his wife and children.
As the priest Girrard gets in the lifeboat he salutes Noel Doiron.
After Captain Nichols can no longer see the ship, four Acadians get into a third boat; they will arrive safely in Falmouth, England.
The Duke William sinks about twenty leagues (ninety-seven kilometers; fifty-two nautical miles) from the coast of France shortly after 4:00 p.m. on December 13, 1758, with the loss of over three hundred and sixty lives.
Noel Doiron, his wife, Marie, five of their children with their spouses and over thirty grandchildren are lost—one hundred and twenty family members in total.
The sinking is one of the greatest marine disasters in Canadian history.
Nichols survives the sinking and will receive international attention when his journal recounting the tragic incident is published in popular print throughout the nineteenth century in England and America,