I am indebted to Dr Jonathan Roberts who has transferred the text from these narratives into an electronic format so they can be read here.  We have done this so that interested parties can study these if they so wish.  This is one of the major advantages of the electronic format, this type of additional information would not normally be practical if the format were a book.

NOTES

[Courtesy Dr Jonathan Roberts]

1.  Authentic Narrative (Dalmeida) Edition 1

2.  Authentic Narrative (Dalmeida) Edition 3

Probably the most important and influential of the pamphlets, Dalmeida’s narrative was also the closest thing to an official version of events.  It was not, in fact, an official publication of the East India House, but it was written by one of their employees, William Dalmeida, a clerk in the secretary's office of the East India House.  Dalmeida went through at least four editions, of which I have transcribed the first and third. There are very few changes between the first and later editions, but those changes which are made are of considerable significance to William Wordsworth’s response to John’s death (for further details see my article, "Shared Grief in the Elegies on John Wordsworth").

Dalmeida dates his narrative "10^th February, 1805", though it was probably published on the 15^th, as The Morning Chronicle of the 14^th contains the following advertisement^: “The Public are respectfully informed, that on Saturday Morning [15^th] will be published a correct Narrative of the circumstances attending the Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny, Captain John Wordsworth. By a Gentleman in the East India House".  There are copies in the British Library, the Dove Cottage Library, and the Bodleian.

3.  Authentic Narrative (Stockdale)

According to p. 7 of the pamphlet, this is based on Cornet Burgoyne's account. Burgoyne was later to publish another more personal account in Weymouth (see Correct Narrative below).  The article also shares some material with the "further particulars" published in the Morning Post on February 9^th.  This was probably the first of the pamphlets to be published: certainly February 1805, probably the 13^th (for further details see Edwin W. Marrs, The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 3 vols. (London, 1976) II, 159, n).  There are copies in the Dove Cottage Library and the British Library. 

4.  Correct Narrative (Burgoyne)

Written by Cornet G. A. Burgoyne of the 8^th Regiment of Light Dragoons, probably a few weeks after the wreck.  Burgoyne, a survivor and key witness, was dissatisfied with the pamphlets that had appeared immediately after the disaster, and decided to have his own version of events printed in Weymouth.  There is a copy in the Weymouth public library.

5.  Correct Statement (T.Tegg)

This pamphlet appears to be a condensed version of the Stockdale Authentic Narrative.  It shares details with some of the newspaper reports, particularly The Times (8^th February) and The Morning Post (9^th February).  The date of authorship (“compilation” might be a better word) may be inferred from the state of the recovery operation which is described at the end of the article, though publication of this article was probably as late as 1808.  Thomas Tegg bound this narrative together with a number of others to form a booklet of marine disasters. The date inscribed on the frontispiece reads "London Pub by T. Tegg. Dec. 24 -1808."  With the exception of its introduction and conclusion, it is almost identical with the account given in Popular Shipwrecks (see below).  There is a copy in the Bodleian, Oxford.

6.  Dreadful Loss

I do not know the author of this item, though it is very similar to Correct Statement insofar as it is almost entirely a reproduction of other sources, particularly The Times account of February 8^th, with some additions from The Morning Chronicle (February 8^th) and The Morning Post (February 9^th).  There is a copy of the pamphlet in the Bodleian, Oxford.

7.  Popular Shipwrecks / Mariner’s Chronicle

This account is taken from “Popular Shipwrecks”, Volume 4.  The text is almost identical to that of Correct Statement (see above).  It also appears, virtually identically in The Mariner's Chronicle vol. IV (in six vols.) printed by James Cundee, Ivy-Lane, Paternoster-Row by Archibald Duncan. Esq. Late of the Royal Navy.  The article may have originally appeared in the Mariner’s Chronicle (by Archibald Duncan), 3^rd number, 15^th February 1805.  There are copies of both in the British Library.

8.  Authentic Narrative (Pocock)

Printed (and presumably written) by Robert Pocock in Gravesend in 1805.  Pocock was a Gravesend historian, and author of “Pocock's Gravesend Water Companion.”  He wasn’t on the Abergavenny, and certain details of the narrative suggest that he might have got his account from the ship’s carpenter John Attwater.  The pamphlet contains a good deal of anecdotal evidence about the earlier part of the voyage that is not present in any of the other pamphlets.  Much of this evidence, as well as the account of the wreck itself, is taken from the perspective of the carpenter.  There is a copy in the Dorset county library.

9.  Shipwrecks and Disasters (Dalyell)

Collected by John Graham Dalyell, in his Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea.  Published in Edinburgh in 1812.

10.  Gentleman’s Magazine (Gramshaw)

An extract from the Gentleman’s Magazine, giving an account of the narrow escape of Mr. Gramshaw, a Cadet.