minutes, the ship split fore and aft: the larboard fore-channels gave way, and the foremast, with the rest of the crew, were consigned to the deep. Still, with the persevering tenacity with which we cling to existence, did three cling to the rigging; the mast had fallen across the starboard side of the ship, and had formed a kind of raft, on which, it is affirmed, that the captain was seen standing erect, and holding firmly on by the foretop-mast cross-trees. The lee rigging was still fast to the starboard channels; and as the wreck still touched the bottom, its drift towards the shore was slow and even uncertain. By ten o'clock, no vestige was left for fancy to form into a vessel; she was entirely swept to pieces; and each wave contributed to separate the few planks which still held together.

From this moment to the arrival of the dead and living on shore, all is conjecture. Our authority for these statements avers that he was calm and collected, and although frequently on the point of being swept from his hold, he still maintained his position, until fearing that the raft would entirely go to pieces, and that some of the wood might be more fatal than useful, he boldly gave up all his confidence in the mast, which had saved him, and throwing himself clear of the ropes, he was carried by the sea within his depth, and reached the shore unhurt. He declares that he was at least two hours in the water; but we, who have known and faced some danger of this melancholy kind, know full well that time lingers when the miserable are in peril, and existence seems of short duration when we dread its sudden termination.

The people who lined the shore, some really and truly prompted by humane and kind consideration-others, who looked for the certain plunder-and many from idle curiosity, now were on the alert. About ten o'clock, the first body was washed on shore. It was immediately taken to the house belonging to the Humane Society, and the general means of resuscitation applied, but without success; from that time until two in the morning, those people who watched the surf succeeded in finding thirty-six bodies, principally women, not one of whom could be restored to life. In fact, although every attention was paid which the narrow limits of the place afforded, yet an establishment intended for the protection of bathers could not be supposed to contain sufficient apparatus or space for sixty-three patients; the consequence was, that before one had a fair chance, another was brought in supposed to have more life; the former one was neglected and died, whilst the whole exertion of the people in attendance was turned to her who promised best. In this manner throughout the night was the same unsuccessful method pursued; and, with the exception of three of the crew, all perished.

We shall proceed with the dead, in order not to interrupt the narrative. The next morning more were found, and all carried to the hospital. Here they remained under the charge of the French authorities; and the rush of curious females to see the heaps of drowned women, astonished us most of all the events which that awful night and the following day supplied; they literally thronged the door, and some forced an admission to gaze on those sights which female delicacy should have avoided, and which only tend to harden the heart and consequently to deprive women of that timid sensibility which places them

under the protection, and makes them the admiration, of the rougher part of human nature. Others, led by the hope of turning the dead to the benefit of the living and to themselves, gained an easy admission, and, with more calculating coolness, drew the teeth and cut off the hair of those whose youth and beauty attracted attention. At three o'clock, P.M., on the Monday, sufficient coffins having been provided, every respect was paid to the deceased. They were honourably buried; and many attended the extensive funeral.

Thus terminated the career of, in all, 134 human beings; some, whose lives would have been forfeited had not the worst of criminal codes undergone some amelioration, which saved the forgerer from the gallows, and led the public to view with abhorrence the constant and common sight of a public execution; some, who had faced the ocean and its perils for twenty-five years, now found that ocean their grave; and some, who had witnessed the cold ingratitude of the mother country, and who were anxious to try if the child was more beneficent than the mother, were cut short in the moment when the hope of better days seemed to break through the dull atmosphere of life.

Now let us turn again to the shipwreck. The first question which has agitated the public mind has been proposed by the correspondent of an Evening Paper, who was on the spot, and who lent his time, his attention, and gave his money to procure all that could be procured for the benefit of the sufferers,-namely, if the Amphitrite, on board of which so many human beings were forced, was sufficiently sea-worthy to have made the voyage? And the question has arisen in consequence of some of the timbers, the floor-heads, and other material parts of a ship, which were plentifully supplied the next morning, having been found to have been rotten. The question is again mooted on another ground, namely, the fact that the Amphitrite had already been upwards of thirty years in constant employment-a period of time when ships are certainly counted rather old, and are none the better for the service they may have experienced; but ships are safe, perfectly safe, at fifty or a hundred years, provided the main timbers, the floor-heads, and the knees are good; and we have seen woods that even the wear and tear of fifty years had left as sound as the first day they were put together. Now we saw the total wreck of that vessel; we stood upon her keel examined her floor-heads, and with the greatest care tried the value of each large and essential piece which came under our observation; and the result is this, that, although some parts were rotten, very rotten, yet it is our firm and conscientious belief that the Amphitrite might have made her voyage good, and would have done, had not the unfortunate accident occurred. So much for the ship. Those who argue differently from us affirm that no vessel would have been made so complete a wreck-in short, that no vessel would have gone to pieces in the short space of time which the Amphitrite did. Here we are again opposed to such arguments. The vessel was broadside on; her weakest parts were assailed by the full force of the sea; that sea was immensely high, and the sand, particularly where she struck, uncommonly hard; and we ourselves heard some very old and experienced officers of his Majesty's Navy, who were eye-witnesses, affirm that, in their belief, no vessel in his Majesty's navy could have held together during that angry and tempestuous night.

The next position is, that the captain was not qualified for his command. We have on this point examined the survivors, and they unanimously agree that he was an experienced seaman; had long followed that stormy profession; and had made half a dozen voyages before. We think that one or two great errors in judgment were committed. In the first place, when the wind increased, and chopped round so as to prevent his proceeding, he should have returned to the Downs, and awaited a more favourable opportunity. The next error was his not having run the vessel stern on, and immediately proceeded to give intelligence to the consul of his freight, and then have landed the convicts; whereas he allowed his ship to go broadside on; and he then, after she had struck, and was hard and fast, let go his lee anchor. If the vessel lifted after this oversight, she would have fallen on the anchor, and in all probability it would have forced itself through the vessel. Some, willing to make allowances for the event, declare, that it was the object of the captain to get his ship end on to the shore, and that the anchor was let go to lighten her a fatal argument, and better never broached!-because, if that had been the intention of the captain, why did he not run the vessel stern on when she was afloat; or, when she struck, why not have let go the other anchor? the guns, or all but one, could have been thrown overboard; the main and mizen masts could have been cut away, and the vessel lightened by every means in his power; and when the tide fell, and the vessel was immovable, he could have landed his convicts. But no; it is positively affirmed that he lost his presence of mind, and, instead of suggesting some remedy, betook himself to the poop-cabin with the women, and there remained; else, how account for the persevering stupidity of not listening to Hénin? for, had he been on deck, he would have seen this man standing under his starboard fore-chains, not out of his depth; and he would have seen, what everybody else saw, that his vessel was irrevocably lost -that no boat, however good, could have laid his anchor out to windward for him; and he must have known, from the high ridge of the breakers outside of him, that he was too far on the shoal ever to have got off. On this subject, we think that, although the captain might have been an efficient seaman afloat, yet that he (to use our informer's own words) "lost his head, and did not know what he was about." The story of his standing on the gangway, with his pistols, to shoot the first man who attempted to get on shore, is every word false; and equally untrue are the aspersions cast upon the surgeon and his wife.

Now come we to this important point-whether that assistance was given from the shore, both before and after the ship went to pieces. It seems rather strange that, when a vessel is seen off the port in a hard gale of wind, the sea running high, and no prospect of her clearing the coast, no precautions were taken to warn the authorities of Boulogne of the fact, that, even when she grounded, no very great exertions were made to force the captain to land his crew, neither were fires lighted to guide, or even to animate with hope, those who should trust themselves to the waves, and endeavour to save themselves by swimming. Nay, the only signal which seems to have been given was by M. Lennoy, one of the senior officers of the Custom-house, who fired a musket three times, which could, from the spray and the flying sand, the wind

and the waves, neither have been seen nor heard, and who afterwards stuck a handkerchief on a bayonet, and endeavoured by that means, equally fruitless, to warn the stranded men of their danger. But the most crying neglect is, that those of the authorities present, and we all know how mighty precautious these authorities generally are-did not send an official notice to the English consul, and warn him of the certain wreck of an English vessel.

In the next place, whatever might have been the disposition of the humane class of people, all their laudable intentions were frustrated by that barbarous law before mentioned, touching the douaniers. And here, in order not to appear prejudiced by any national feeling, we shall quote a passage from the Annotateur. It immediately follows the description of the wreck, and when the hull suddenly disappeared:

"Une seule pensée se présenta alors à l'esprit d'une partie de la multitude assemblée sur le port, ce fut de se précipiter sur la plage; et de s'avancer dans les flots pour secourir les malheureux qui pourraient gagner le rivage sur les débris: presque tout le monde s'y porta; mais ces généreux efforts furent tout-à-coup entravés et paralysés par les employés de la douane, qui, conformément à leur consigne, s'efforcèrent d'empêcher que plus de vingt-cinq personnes se rendissent sur les lieux où les secours allaient devenir si nécessaires. Nous n'hésitons pas à le dire cette consigne de la douane a été dans cette nuit déplorable, funeste au-delà de toute expression; c'est par une appréciation bien. juste et bien raisonnée de ce qu'il y avait à faire en ce moment, que la population entière s'est élevée contre elle et l'a blamée."

After such a quotation, we only beg leave to add our censure, and to call with, we hope, a sufficiently loud voice, to draw the attention of the British legislature to the existence of a law so prejudicial to rendering aid where it is most required, and to urge them to take immediate steps, by applying to the French government to rescind or to alter that law in such a manner, that human life may not be sacrificed under the fallacious mask of preventing either plunder or smuggling.

Plunder-that word opens a new view of the case is the law made to prevent plunder? if it is, we will show how preciously inefficacious it is under circumstances like the above; we hesitate not to say that more open plunder took place on that night and the following day than in the sacking of Badajoz ;-never was there more violation of all the laws of civilization than when that convict-ship was wrecked. Undismayed by the feeble resistance of the douaniers on this point, the victims were, in some cases, stripped entirely, and thus exposed to public gaze were handed into the house belonging to the Humane Society. Now, if these rigid laws were really intended to prevent either plunder or smuggling, why were not the National Guard turned out? and where were these eternal drummers, who beat their infernal copper kettle from daylight to dusk, to call into activity this civil guard when they were doomed to quit their shops to practise firing at a mark, or to go through the manual exercise for no possible use? Why, when they could have been serviceable, were they allowed to slumber and to snore when the work of devastation and of death were in full force within hail of them? where was the vigilant police, so famed in the writings of every traveller, when the body of Mrs. Forrester was found in her black dress, and we know

we are correct in our statement, for she was recognized by the work on some of her garments,-where were the police, that the body could have been divested of every particle of covering, and in broad daylight was handed into the hospital, naked, by heavens! as naked as she was born, not even her stockings left!!

Now let us, in conclusion, briefly review the whole case :-a ship is wrecked in droad daylight, within pistol-shot of a populous town, on a sand. The authorities know nothing of the fact; the English, who form the principal portion of the inhabitants, are equally ignorant of the event; the ship goes to pieces; 134 people are drowned, or those who out of that number succeed in getting ashore alive are murdered, because the aid which would have been offered was frustrated; the bodies are mangled, are mutilated, the teeth are extracted, the hair is cut off, the living and the dead are pillaged and plundered in broad daylight, and all these brutalities are committed in a town, with a strong National Guard for the protection of its inhabitants-a town which has risen to its present splendour entirely through the sums of money expended by the English. We do not mention this fact for the purpose of claiming from it any extra exertions in behalf of suffering humanity, but to show that, long as we have associated ourselves with these good people, we most certainly have not entirely eradicated the bitter feeling they so long entertained against "the most brave and the most constant of their enemies."

The whole affair is almost incredible, and we quit the subject to turn to more charitable people; but it must be borne in mind that many of the French used their utmost exertion to protect the weak and to shelter the distressed, and amongst these M. Mechin may safely take the first place; his unremitted kindness and attention during the disaster, and his charitable assistance afterwards, for ever entitle him to the gratitude of our countrymen. A subscription was set on foot for the survivors, and likewise for the widows of those drowned; nearly four thousand francs were collected, the clergy used their talents in the cause; and had not a kind of apprehension been spread abroad that the sums collected would have been wasted in the purchase of a life-boat, which no one would venture on board of, and which had already been ineffectually tried, and that a disproportionate sum was likely to be lavished on those who did not do what they certainly might have done, the subscription would have been double its present sum. Amongst the larger donations we remark that of the Duke of Orleans, amounting to 500 francs. A petition was drawn up and numerously signed, to request Lord Palmerston to urge the French Government to rescind their barbarous law, and most sincerely do we hope that, should another unfortunate wreck fall on this coast, the disgrace on the national character may be obliterated, the living rescued and sheltered, and the dead neither pillaged nor mutilated.