No one should doubt the extraordinarily destructive power of lightning. A dramatic illustration of this power occurred in 1830, when the packet ship Boston was hit by a bolt of lightning in the Atlantic and burned to the waterline, with the loss of one unfortunate passenger.
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The following story is found within the pages of an 1840 volume entitled The Book of Shipwrecks and Narratives of Maritime Discoveries and the Most Popular Voyages. The narrator of the tale, as seems to have been the custom in those days when relating first-hand accounts, has omitted some specific details, such as the ship’s name, the dates, and the identities of major protagonists.
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As part of the 1815 Peace of Paris settlement that ended the Napoleonic Wars, England agreed to cede to France some West African possessions near Gambia and Senegal. To implement this turnover, the French maritime authorities sent the vessel Medusa and three smaller ships to the Senegalese coast: these were named the Echo, the La Loire, and the Argus. The Medusa itself was captained by one Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys, a man who had had very little navigational experience. The Medusa sailed from the island of Aix on June 17, 1816.
Quintus Curtius 
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