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"Powerful and intensely focused." - Booklist
"Tracy's satisfying narrative constitutes the first modern account. Finely detailed maritime history." - Kirkus Reviews
"It is sometimes difficult to understand why certain events rouse a whole country.... The loss of the Kent East Indiaman is remembered and discussed with an interest that shows that sympathy in the event is still existing." - Charles Dickens, writing forty-one years after the fact
In 1825, the Kent, an East Indiaman, set sail for India with a crew and nearly 600 passengers, mostly men of the 31st Regiment and their families. Reaching the Bay of Biscay north of Spain, the ship was slammed by a ferocious gale, and while a sailor was inspecting the hold for damage, his lantern ignited a cask of spirits. A fire quickly erupted, and even with the desperate expedient of opening hatches and flooding the ship with seawater, the fire burned out of control. As night wore on, the ship became an inferno, with the flames moving toward stores of gunpowder. At this point, everyone on board knew that they would perish, and they began preparing for their ghastly deaths. Despite the raging tempest a sailor climbed to the top of the mast one last time and -- miraculously -- a sail was sighted on the horizon. It was the Cambria, a small brig carrying a crew and twenty Cornish miners on their way to Mexico where they planned to explore abandoned Spanish mines. The Cambria's captain spied the burning Kent and through determination and dogged seamanship, the little brig closed the doomed vessel. Launching their boats in towering seas, the Kent's and Cambria's crews were able to transfer nearly all of the children, women, and men to the brig before the Kent exploded. Dangerously overloaded, the Cambria made landfall three days later. The daring rescue quickly became a sensation around the world, with the event being hailed as proof of divine intervention.
In The Miracle of the Kent: A Tale of Courage, Faith, and Fire, historian Nicholas Tracy reconstructs this extraordinary tale, revealing how those aboard the Kent faced their deaths, only to be offered a second chance. The story of the Kent is both a gripping adventure and an inspirational homage to the capacity of the human spirit.
NICHOLAS TRACY teaches history at the University of New Brunswick. He is author of many books of maritime history, including Nelson's Battles: The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail.
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The Miracle of the Kent: A Tale of Courage, Faith, and Fire