The Caesar

Last Updated on Saturday, 15 January 2011 12:05

1760 - “The Caesar was an Admiralty tender en route from Bristol to Plymouth when she drove into the cliff at Pwlldu Head.   Hers was no ordinary cargo, for down in the holds, and some say tied or handcuffed with their hands above their heads, were at least 68 men, victims of the press gang.”   She had been running from Mumbles on the ebb tide but the tide turned.   In fading light and worsening weather fatal errors were made and “she tore her bilges on the rocks and was driven into a recess ...   She stuck fast, was holed and at the mercy of the rising tide.   The survivors (sixty or so) managed to clamber along the bowsprit onto the rocks and up the cliff... but the ship had started to break up spilling bodies, wreckage and munitions into the breakers.   The pressed men, because they were battened under hatches, were not afforded the same chances of survival.” [The Gower Coast, George Edmunds.)   Maybe 68 men lost their lives.   The bodies were buried in a common grave, marked by a circle of stones, on the headland at a place still called Gravesend.   The gulley where the vessel was wrecked is called Caesar's Hole. (Ref: 081)