King George III came to view the scene of the wreck with several members of his family.
 
The Dorset poet William Holloway wrote a poem about the royal visit to the spot.

An anonymous poem was published called the "Monody on the Death of Captain Pierce".

On 30 January 1786 the Eidophusikon show reopened at Exeter Change in an auditorium that held 200 people, a show that combined pictures with lighting effects and sounds.
Opening just three weeks after the tragedy, the new show included an "exact, awful and tremendous Representation of that lamentable event".

The show was put on by Philip James de Loutherbourg, a former scenery painter.
Henry Meriton and John Rogers, two officers who managed to escape, later published their account of the events.

To commemorate the event, Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann composed "The shipwreck, or the Loss of the East Indiaman Halsewell", an orchestral symphony.
Henry James Pye published a poem that began,
What language can describe, what colours shew,

Each varied form of terror and of woe?


With pallid features, and dishevell'd hair,

In all the agony of dumb despair,

Here on the deck the wretched victim lies,

And views approaching death with lifted eyes,

Here piercing cries, drown'd by the founding main,

Invoke an abient mother's aid in vain.


In February 1787 the County Magazine published a poem by George Smith that began, 
What dreadful scenes on Albion's rocks!


The very thought all nature shocks!


How painful to relate!


Oh, Halsewell!
and thy wretched crew!


Methinks I have them still in view,

  In their distracted state!

The wreck was still being discussed fifty years later.

The idea of the father with his two daughters waiting in the roundhouse for their fate, 
and the scene of the cave below the sheer cliff, added drama to the story.

An 1830 article advocating construction of a breakwater in the Portland Roads between Plymouth and Portsmouth implied that if such a haven had been available, the Halsewell would not have had to make for Portsmouth, and so would not have been wrecked.

An article in The Temperance Tales of 1853 said the wreck "arose from the drunken desperation of the crew."

Charles Dickens wrote a short story called "The Long Voyage" that recalled the shipwreck, published in 1853.

An 1856 account said that some old people of the region still remembered the wreck, and that sometimes fragments of the ship's timbers and copper were washed ashore or found in the rocks.
Many of the ship's guns had been recovered, but more remained at the foot of the cliffs, covered with debris.
The mounds of four long graves could still be discerned in a flat area nearby where the cliffs were broken by a small valley formed by an intermittent stream.
King George III came to view the scene of the wreck with several members of his family.  
The Dorset poet William Holloway wrote a poem about the royal visit to the spot.
An anonymous poem was published called the "Monody on the Death of Captain Pierce".
On 30 January 1786 the Eidophusikon show reopened at Exeter Change in an auditorium that held 200 people, a show that combined pictures with lighting effects and sounds. Opening just three weeks after the tragedy, the new show included an "exact, awful and tremendous Representation of that lamentable event".
The show was put on by Philip James de Loutherbourg, a former scenery painter.Henry Meriton and John Rogers, two officers who managed to escape, later published their account of the events.
To commemorate the event, Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann composed "The shipwreck, or the Loss of the East Indiaman Halsewell", an orchestral symphony.Henry James Pye published a poem that began,
What language can describe, what colours shew,

Each varied form of terror and of woe?

With pallid features, and dishevell'd hair,

In all the agony of dumb despair,

Here on the deck the wretched victim lies,

And views approaching death with lifted eyes,

Here piercing cries, drown'd by the founding main,

Invoke an abient mother's aid in vain.

In February 1787 the County Magazine published a poem by George Smith that began, 
What dreadful scenes on Albion's rocks!

The very thought all nature shocks!

How painful to relate!

Oh, Halsewell! and thy wretched crew!

Methinks I have them still in view,

  In their distracted state!
The wreck was still being discussed fifty years later.
The idea of the father with his two daughters waiting in the roundhouse for their fate, 
and the scene of the cave below the sheer cliff, added drama to the story.
An 1830 article advocating construction of a breakwater in the Portland Roads between Plymouth and Portsmouth implied that if such a haven had been available, the Halsewell would not have had to make for Portsmouth, and so would not have been wrecked.
An article in The Temperance Tales of 1853 said the wreck "arose from the drunken desperation of the crew." 
Charles Dickens wrote a short story called "The Long Voyage" that recalled the shipwreck, published in 1853.
An 1856 account said that some old people of the region still remembered the wreck, and that sometimes fragments of the ship's timbers and copper were washed ashore or found in the rocks. Many of the ship's guns had been recovered, but more remained at the foot of the cliffs, covered with debris. The mounds of four long graves could still be discerned in a flat area nearby where the cliffs were broken by a small valley formed by an intermittent stream.
Halsewell (East Indiaman)