On This Day..

[Thagarr]

On this day, January 1'st, 1109, the Festival of Fools was instituted in Paris, and continued very successfully for 240 years! This festival, with the Lords of Misrule and the Abbots of Unreason, was designed to ridicule the Druidic Saturnalia. Which was descended from the Roman festival of the same name.

In 1513, Portuguese explorer, navigator, and privateer Juan Díaz de Solís is killed, along with several of his crew, by local Charrúa Indians while mounting an expedition in to the recently discovered Río de la Plata on the coast of what is now Argentina. The Charrúa Indians practiced cannibalism, and, according to some reports, they cut up his body in sight of the ship and roasted and devoured it.

Also, in 1761, during the siege of Ponichary, India, a great hurricane destroyed a part of the British fleet; of the crews of three of the ships, 1100 men, all but 14 were lost. This is a quote from the account of the incident in “A History From the Earliest Times to the Present” by Wm. Laird Clowes.

On January 1, 1761, a violent hurricane burst over the city and harbour. Stevens, whose flag was in the Norfolk (74) of captain Richard Kempenfelt, cut his cable, and by gun-signals ordered his captains to do the same; but, owing to the violence of the gale and the amount of spray in the air, the signals were neither heard nor seen.

The Panther (60) of captain Philip Affleck, the America (60) of captain Robert Haldane, the Medway (60) of captain John Bladon Tinker, and the Falmouth (50) of captain William Brereton, were dismasted, yet managed to ride out the storm. A worse fate overtook the Newcastle (50) of captain Digby Dent, the Queenborough (20), and the Protector fireship, all of which drove ashore and were wrecked about 3 km from Pondicherry, though they lost only seven of their crews.

Other vessels were even more unfortunate. The Duc d'Aquitaine (64) of captain Sir William Hewitt, the Sunderland (60) of captain James Colville, and the Drake, storeship, foundered with all hands, except 7 Europeans and 7 lascars. The total sacrifice of life was about 1,100 souls. Stevens, however resumed his position, and renewed the blockade on January 3rd, and was next day joined by Eear-Admiral Cornish with additional ships from Trincomale. Pondicherry was gradually reduced by famine, until on January 15th it surrendered, and was occupied on the 16th by the Navy and army. Thus ended the French power on the coast of Coromandel.