"DEPEND upon it, sir, remarked Dr Johnson, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fort night, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." So, too, it used to be said does the experience of drowning, during which it was believed the whole of a man's life flashed before his eyes. In the 19th century, an account by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of such a misadventure attracted much attention among savants with an interest in such matters.
Francis Beaufort was born 223 years ago today, on May 27th, 1774, in Navan, Co Meath, and in 1806, as a naval commander, he devised the famous Beaufort Scale of Wind Force that was to make his name a household word. It was 15 years earlier, however, in July 1791, that the young midshipman of 17 fell from a dinghy into Portsmouth harbour, and came within an ace of drowning. Years later, in a letter to a scientific colleague, he described in detail how he had felt:
From the moment that all exertion had ceased, a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquillity superseded the previous tumultuous sensations. Though the senses were thus deadened, not so the mind; its activities seemed to be invigorated in a ratio which defies all description. Every past incident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature; in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic view; and each act seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right and wrong, or by some reflection of its cause or consequences; indeed many trifling events which had been long forgotten then crowded into my imagination and with the character of recent familiarity."
Beaufort, luckily enough, was rescued by a fellow sailor, albeit in the nick of time, and professed himself amazed at the sheer volume of the reminiscences that had flashed upon his inward eye: "The length of time that was occupied with this deluge of ideas, or rather, the shortness of time into which they were condensed, I cannot state with precision: yet certainly two minutes could not have elapsed from the moment of my suffocation to that of my being hauled up."
He concludes his account with typical Victorian meiosis: "If these involuntary experiments on the operation of death afford any satisfaction or interest to you, they will not have been suffered in vain by
Yours, very truly,
Francis Beaufort."