The Guerrero had only 250 miles more to sail before reaching the coast near Havana. It was noon. From HBM Nimbles log:
Sail in sight...Observed stranger to be a suspicious looking brig. I set topsail, cleared for action & fired 2 guns to bring stranger to whom we observed hauling up to avoid us; made more sail.
She was, the British may have thought, one of the slavers that had sailed from Havana for Africa in July. The pursuit was on. HBM Nimble carried officers, marines, and crew totaling 56, had 8 guns (cannon) according to one source but another states two gunades and an 18 [pounder] on a pivot and measured 837 on her deck, 222 beam and 95 depth of hold. Later written of her opponent the Guerrero was this:
Her force was sufficient to have blown the Nimble out of water at one broadside - why the Captain...did not do so, may appear strange; but he says he depended upon his vessels sailing...did not wish to risk the lives of his negroes, when he could escape by superior sailing...
During the first five hours of chasing the Guerrero the weather turned bad from a cold front pushing through. In Nimbles log:
5:00 Strong breezes and squally with a heavy swell, carrying a heavy press of sail & gaining on chase. Observed her bear up.
6:15 Having closed considerably fired a gun to bring her to which was returned immediately by her guns & musquetry. Commenced action.
The events were also later reported in a letter written from Key West, certainly from information given by a member of Nimbles crew:
A sail was reported ahead, to which chase was immediately given, and continued until dark, when she attempted to cross the Nimbles bow, by bearing round up, when at a quarter past six she was brought to action, which was briskly kept up on both sides.
Dusk became night as the ships approached the Florida Reef. The Guerrero appeared to be sailing at the rate of ten miles an hour, a very fast sailing ship for the time. Although most ships of the day had copper sheathing at the waterline to avoid drag from barnacles the Guerrero was coppered all the way to the bottom, hence her speed.
Six miles off Key Largo there was a lightship - stationed by American government one year before, to warn mariners of a dangerous coral reef that parallels the Florida Keys archipelago. Aboard the lightship Caesar Capt. John Whalton could see the flash and hear the report of the guns. The battle between the ships was going on just a few miles to the northeast of his lightship.
The hundreds jammed in the hold of the Guerrero could not have known what was going on above them, why the cannon fire, the gunfire.
After 30 minutes of the sea fight the captain of the Guerrero pretended to surrender to the British by showing a light. The Nimbles log:
6:45 Ceased firing & hauled up after her...
But more went on than was recorded in the ships log. The letter writer at Key West revealed a bluff by the Spaniards:
[The slave ship] having, about a quarter before seven, slackened her fire, she hauled to the wind, fired a blank cartridge, and showed a light to leeward, when the Nimble ceased firing. After having thus apparently struck [her flag, a sign of surrender] the chase made off, and after being again pursued, it was found the Nimble was in 6 fathoms [36] water, off the Florida coast.
The log:
6:45 Having regular soundings from 6 to 4 fathoms approaching Florida reef.
7:30 Observed chase on shore.
Not knowing where in the entire world they were, or what the ship hit, or why, 41 people in the hold perished in the Guerreros collision with the coral. The slavers hull tore open. Then the masts fell. There were about 650 people onboard when this happened, Spanish and African, their cries appalling beyond description. The crew of the Nimble, which was over two miles away, was probably the source of the following in the Bahamas newspaper:
The masts of the chase were heard to fall with a tremendous crash, and a horrid yell from those onboard, which left no doubt of her being a Guineaman.
Reacting to the danger, the British crew tried staying their schooner - trying to go about, to avoid hitting the reef. Five minutes later, at 7:35, HBM Nimble also struck the coral. The intended rescuers had chased a laden slave ship into dangerous waters and had listened to the screams of the people they meant to rescue from a life of slavery cross two miles of ocean.
An anchor was put out in the 4 fathom (24) deep water, the sails furled, ballast and shot were thrown overboard to lighten the warship, but within a half hour her movement in the swells broke the anchor line. HBM Nimble drove further onto the reef. Twenty minutes later, drifted off the reef into 2 fathoms (12), another anchor was put out, but the warship drifted right back onto the reef. The tide receded. The Nimble moved no more. There could be no rescue. It was then about 9:00, and still squally.
President John Quincy Adams would become involved with the fate of many of the Africans aboard the Guerrero. At about that very time, in the evening of December 19, 1827, he was writing the days events in his diary which coincidentally included: a resolution asking for the correspondence with the British Government relating to the erection of lighthouses on the coast of Florida.
The lights of the lightship, apparently, had been too weak to warn where the dangerous reef was.
On the wreck of the Guerrero 90 ruthless Spaniards in the slave trade and 561 helpless Africans were on a ship off an uninhabited coast six miles from land, in cold and stormy weather, at night, sinking.
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