were placed, without a murmur, in the boat, which was immediately lowered into a sea so tempestuous, as to leave only a faint hope that it should live in it for a single moment. Twice the cry was heard from those on the chains that the boat was swamping. But He who enabled the Apostle Peter to walk on the face of the deep, and was graciously attending to the silent but earnest aspirations of those on board, had decreed its safety, The tackle, after considerable difficulty, was unhooked, the boat was dexterously cleared from the ship, and after a while was seen from the poop, battling with the billows; now raised, in its progress to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several seconds, as if ingulfed "in the horrid vale" between them. The Cambria having prudently lain to at some distance from the Kent, lest she should be involved in her explosion, or exposed to the fire from our guns, which, being all shotted, afterwards went off as the flames successively reached them, the men had a considerable way to row; and the movements of this precious boat, incalculably precious, without doubt, to the agonized husbands and fathers immediately connected with it, were watched with intense anxiety by all on board. In the course of twenty minutes, it was seen alongside the "ark of refuge;" and the first human being that happened to be admitted, out of the vast assemblage that ultimately found shelter there, was the infant son of Major Macgregor, a child of only a few weeks old, who was caught from his mother's arms, and lifted into the brig by Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate of the Kent.

It being impossible for the boats, after the first trip, to come along side the Kent, a plan was adopted for lowering the women and children by ropes from the stern, by tying them two and two together. But, from the heaving of the ship

and the extreme difficulty in dropping them at the instant the boat was underneath, many of the poor creatures were unavoidably plunged repeatedly under water; and much as humanity may rejoice that no woman was eventually lost by this process, yet it was as impossible to prevent, as it was deplorable to witness, the great sacrifice it occasioned of the younger children; the same violent means which only reduced the parents to a state of exhaustion or insensibility, having entirely extinguished the vital spark in the feebler frames of the infants that were fastened to them.

Two or three soldiers, to relieve their wives of a part of their families, sprang into the water with their children, and perished in their endeavours to save them. One young lady, who had resolutely refused to quit her father, whose sense of duty kept him at his post, was near falling a sacrifice to her filial devotion, not having been picked up by those in the boats until she had sunk five or six times. Another individual, who was reduced to the frightful alternative of losing his wife or his children, hastily decided in favour of his duty to the former. His wife was accordingly saved, but his four children, alas! were left to perish. A fine fellow, a soldier, who had neither wife nor child of his own, but who evinced the greatest solicitude for the safety of those of others, insisted on having three children lashed to him, with whom he plunged into the water; not being able to reach the boat, he was again drawn into the ship with his charge, but not before two of the children had expired. One man fell down the hatchway into the flames, and another had his back so completely broken, as to have been observed quite doubled falling overboard. These numerous spectacles of individual loss and suffering were not confined to the entrance upon the perilous voyage between the two ships. e man,

who fell between the boat and the brig, had his head literally crushed to pieces; and some others were lost in their attempts to ascend the side of the Cambria.

Seeing that the tardy means employed for the escape of the women and children necessarily consumed a great deal of time that might be partly devoted to the general preservation, orders were given, that, along with the females, each of the boats should also admit a certain portion of the soldiers; several of whom, in their impatience to take advantage of this permission, flung themselves overboard, and sunk in their ill-judged and premature efforts for deliverance.

One poor fellow of this number, a very respectable man, had actually reached the boat, and was raising his hand to lay hold on the gunnel, when the bow of the boat, by a sudden pitch, struck him on the head, and he instantly went down. There was a peculiarity attending this man's case that deserves notice.His wife, to whom he was warmly attached, not having been of the allotted number of women to accompany the regiment abroad, resolved, in her anxiety to follow her husband, to defeat this arrangement, and accordingly repaired with the detachment to Gravesend, where she ingeniously managed, by eluding the vigilance of the sentries, to get on board, and conceal herself for several days; and although she was discovered, and sent ashore at Deal, she contrived, a second time, with true feminine perseverance, to get between decks, where she continued to secret herself until the morning of the fatal disaster.

While the men were thus bent in various ways on self-preservation, one of the sailors, who had taken his post with many others over the magazine, awaiting with great patience the dreaded explosion, at last cried out, as if in ill humour that his expectation was likely to be disappointed, "Well! if she won't JULY 1825.

blow up, I'll see if I can't get away from her;" and, instantly jumping up, he made the best of his way to one of the boats, which he reached in safety.

As the day was rapidly drawing to a close, and the flames were slowly, but perceptibly extending, Colonel Fearon and Captain Cobb evinced an increasing anxiety to relieve the remainder of the gallant men under their charge.

To facilitate this object, a rope was suspended from the extremity of the spanker boom, along which the men were recommended to proceed, and thence slide down by the rope into the boats. But as, from. the great swell of the sea, and the constant heaving of the ship, it was impossible for the boats to preserve their station for a moment; those. who adopted this course, incurred so great a risk of swinging for some time in the air, and of being repeatedly plunged under water, or dashed against the sides of the boats. underneath, that many of the landsmen continued to throw themselves out of the stern windows on the upper deck, preferring what appeared to be the more precarious chance of reaching the boats by swimming. Rafts made of spars, hencoops, &c. were also ordered to be constructed, for the two-fold purpose of forming an intermediate communication with the boats,-a purpose, by the bye, which they very imperfectly answered,-and of serving, as a last point of retreat, should the farther extension of the flames compel us to desert the vessel altogether.

Captain Cobb, in his immoveable resolution to be the last, if possible, to quit his ship, and in his generous anxiety for the preservation of every life entrusted to his charge, refused to seek the boat, until he again endeavoured to urge onward the very few still around him, who seemed struck dumb and powerless with dismay. But finding all his entreaties fruitless, and hearing the guns, whose

2 M

tackle was burst asunder by the advancing flames, successively exploding in the hold, into which they had fallen, this gallant officer, after having nobly pursued, for the preservation of others, a course of exertion that has been rarely equalled either in its duration or difficulty, at last felt it right to provide for his own safety, by laying hold on the topping-lift, or rope that connects the driver boom with the mizen-top, and thereby getting over the heads of the infatuated men who occupied the boom, unable to go either backward or forward, and ultimately dropping himself into the water.

The means of escape, however, did not cease to be presented to the unfortunate individuals above referred to, long after Captain Cobb took his departure: since one of the boats persevered in keeping its station under the Kent's stern, not only after all expostulation and entreaty with those on board had failed, but until the flames, bursting forth from the cabin windows, rendered it impossible to remain, with out inflicting the greatest cruelty on the individuals that manned it. But even on the return of the boat in question to the Cambria, with the single soldier who availed himself of it, did Captain Cobb, with characteristic jealously, refuse to allow it to come alongside, until he learned that it was commanded by the spirited young officer, Mr. Thomson, whose indefatigable exertions during the whole day, were to him a sufficient proof, that all had been done that could be done for the deliverance of those infatuated men. But the same beneficent Providence which had been so wonderfully exerted for the preservation of hundreds, was pleased, by a still more striking and unquestionable display of power and goodness, to avert the fate of a portion of those few who, we had all too much reason to fear, were doomed to destruction.

appear,

It would for the poor men themselves gave an extremely

confused, though probably not a wilfully false, account of themselves, that shortly after the departure of the last boat, they were driven by the flames to seek shelter on the chains, where they stood until the masts fell overboard, to which they then clung for some hours, in a state of horror that no language can describe; until they were most providentially, I may say miraculously, discovered and picked up, by the humane master (Bibbey) of the "Caroline," a vessel on its passage from Egypt to Liverpool, who happened to see the explosion at a great distance, and instantly made all sail in the direction whence it proceeded. Along with the fourteen men thus miraculously preserved, were three others, who had expired before the arrival of the Caroline for their rescue.

After the arrival of the last boat, the flames, which had spread along the upper deck and poop, ascended with the rapidity of lightning to the masts and rigging, forming one general conflagration, that illumined the heavens to an immense distance, and was strongly reflected on several objects on board the brig. The flags of distress, hoisted in the morning, were seen for a considerable time waving amid the flames, until the masts to which they were suspended successively fell, like stately steeples, over the ship's side. At last about half-past one o'clock in the morning, the devouring element having communicated to the magazine, the long-threatened explosion was seen, and the blazing fragments of the once magnificent Kent were instantly hurried, like so many rockets, high into the air; leaving, in the comparative darkness that succeeded, the deathful scene of that disastrous day floating before the mind like some feverish dream*.

.

Shortly afterwards, the brig, which had been gradually making sail, was running at the rate of nine or ten

9

*The brig was about three miles distant from the Kent at the period of its explosión.

miles an hour towards the nearest port.

Although, after the first burst of mutual gratulation, and of becoming acknowledgment of the Divine mercy, on account of their unlookedfor deliverance, each felt inclined to wrap himself up in his own reflections; yet during this first night, a full idea was not entertained of the extreme misery and danger to which they were still exposed, by being crowded together, in a gale of wind, with upwards of 600 human beings, in a small-brig of 200 tons, at a distance, too, of several hundred miles from any accessible port. The little cabin, which was only calculated, under ordinary circumstances, for the accommodation of eight or ten persons, was now made to contain nearly eighty individuals, many of whom had no sitting room, and even some of the ladies no room to lie down. Owing to the continued violence of the gale, and to the bulwarks on one side of the brig having been driven in, the sea beat so incessantly over the deck, as to render it necessary that the hatches should only be lifted up between the returning waves, to prevent absolute suffocation below, where the men were so closely packed together that the steam arising from their respiration excited at one time an apprehension that the vessel was on fire; while the impurity of the air they were inhaling became so marked, that the lights occasionally carried down amongst them were almost instantly extinguished. Nor was the condition of the hundreds who covered the deck, less wretched than that of their comrades below; since they were obliged, night and day, to stand shivering, in their wet and nearly naked state, anole deep in water. Some of the older children and females were thrown into fits, while the infants were pitifully crying for that nourishment which their nursing mothers were no longer able to give them.

The only hope, amid these great

and accumulating miseries, was, that the same compassionate Providence which had already so marvellously interposed in their behalf, would not permit the wind to abate or change, until the vessel reached some friendly port; for all were convinced that a delay of a very few days longer at sea, must inevitably involve them in famine, pestilence, and a complication of the most dreadful evils. These hopes were not disappointed. The gale continued with even increasing violence; and Captain Cook, crowding all sail at the risk of carrying away. his masts, so nobly urged his vessel onward, that in the afternoon of Thursday the 3d, the delightful exclamation from aloft was heard, "Land a-head!" In the evening they descried the Scilly lights; and running rapidly along the Cornish coast, the Cambria cast anchor in Falmouth harbour, about half-past twelve o'clock on the following morning.

On reviewing the various proximate causes to which so many human beings owed their deliverance from a combination of dangers, as remarkable for their duration, as they were appalling in their aspect, it is impossible not to discover and gratefully acknowledge, in the beneficence of their arrangement, the over-ruling providence of that blessed Being, who is sometimes pleased, in his mysterious operations, to produce the same effects from causes apparently different; and, on the other hand, as in this case, to bring forth results the most opposite, from one and the same cause. For there is no doubt that the heavy rolling of the Kent, occasioned by the violent gale, which was the real origin of all these disasters, contributed also most essentially to the subsequent preservation; since, had not Captain Cobb been enabled, by the greatness of the swell, to introduce speedily, through the gun ports, the immense quantity of water that inundated the hold, and thereby checked for so

long a time the fury of the flames, the Kent must unquestionably have been consumed before many, perhaps before any, of those on board could have found shelter in the Cambria,

The Cambria, which had been, it seems, unaccountably detained in port nearly a month after the period assigned for her departure, was, early on the morning of the fatal calamity, pursuing at a great distance a-head of us, the same course with ourselves; but her bulwarks on the weather side having been suddenly driven in, by a heavy sea breaking over her quarter, Captain Cook, in his anxiety to give ease to his labouring vessel, was induced to go completely out of his course, by throwing the brig on the opposite tack, by which means alone he was brought in sight of the Kent. Not to dwell on the unexpected, but not unimportant facts, of the flames having been mercifully prevented, for eleven hours, from either communicating with the magazine forward, or the great spiritroom abaft, or even coming into contact with the tiller ropes, any of which circumstances would evidently have been fatal; it was remarked, that until the Cambria hove in sight, the Kent had not discovered any vessel whatever for several days previous. It is to be remembered too, that had the Cambria, with her small crew, been homeward instead of outward bound, her scanty remainder of provisions, under such circumstances, would hardly have sufficed, to form a single meal for the vast assemblage; or if, instead of having her lower deck completely clear, she had been carrying out a full cargo, there would not have been time, under the pressure of the danger and the violence of the gale, to throw the cargo overboard, and certainly, with it, not sufficient space in the brig to contain one half of the number of sufferers.

When the disastrous consequences that must have followed are considered; if, during the passage home,

which was performed in a period most unusually short, the wind had either veered round a few points, or even partially subsided, which must have produced a scene of horror on board, more terrible if possible than that from which we had escaped; and, above all, when the extraordinary fact is remarked, that the Cambria had not been above an hour in Falmouth harbour when the wind, which had all along been blowing from the south-west, suddenly chopped round to the opposite quarter of the compass, and continued uninterruptedly for several days afterwards to blow strongly from the north-east; one cannot help concluding, that he who sees nothing of a Divine Providence in our preservation must be lamentably and wilfully blind "to the majesty of the Lord."

As little time as possible was lost, after their arrival at Falmouth, in reporting to Colonel Fenwick, the Lieutenant-Governor of Pendennis Castle, the deplorable circumstances under which the Cambria had returned to port; and with the tender sympathy which characterises that old and distinguished officer, he hastened, long before day-light, to take steps for the disembarkation and comfort of the troops and sailors. Captain King, R. N. called into immediate requisition the numerous boats at his disposal; and in the course of the morning the sufferers prepared, with thankful and joyful hearts, to replace their feet on the shores of old England.

The ladies, always destined to form the van-guard, were the first to disembark, and were met on the beach by immense crowds of the inhabitants who appeared to have been attracted thither less by idle curiosity, than from the sincerest desire to alleviate in every possible manner their manifest sufferings.

The sailors and soldiers, cold, wet, and almost naked, quickly followed; the whole forming, in their haggard looks and the endless variety of their costume, an assemblage at