We had a leading wind to take us through the Needles, could we have ventured on the attempt.

Since we entered the Channel we had seen but one vessel; and as the morning advanced we again had her distinctly in view, about two leagues a-head; and with the help of our glasses we discovered her to be one of our late convoy. While forward, observing this vessel, the boy Bill whispered to me, that the seamen below were breaking into the late captain's cabin through the steerage, and had already got at his stores, and helped themselves. I consulted Tom Bateman as to what could be done to prevent farther mischief. His reply assured me that our control was entirely lost by the conduct of the mad captain; "And the only thing," said Tom, "these men wanted was a scramble at the skipper's lockers; and they meant no harm to us." Shortly after these men came on deck dressed in their best clothes, (a sure sign of an expectation of wreck, or abandonment of the ship,) and evidently the worse for liquor.

To venture on a remonstrance with men in their state would have been insane. The boys were sober, and so was Bateman and the foreigners; and it curred to me that, by making the others completely drunk, we might render them powerless. I therefore ordered up a bottle of rum and one of Madeira, and challenged them for a half-hour's spell at the pumps-the officers and the boys against the old seamen, commencing the trial with nearly a tumbler of rum each (we taking our wine.) To work we went: each seaman, as his spell of eight or ten minutes ended, was plied with rum in abundance. The plan succeeded: they worked like angry devils; and having put their own pump out of order, came to ours, and shoved us away with a rudeness which we could readily pardon, and worked at that until completely exhausted: they then reeled forward, and found. their way down the fore-hatch to sleep off their intoxication.

Whatever doubt we might have entertained of Bateman, from his altered manner during the last two days, he now proved himself stanch to us at the moment when his fidelity was most required. He spoke to the outrageous captain with a degree of firmness and good sense I little expected; although in his own rude northern dialect, he told him in a few words that he would command and would be obeyed, or, as he emphatically concluded, "Yauw aund oye shawll see whaw's the better maun-moind thaut, Mister Coptain!"

After an ineffectual appeal to us to support his authority, this intemperate man retired to the cabin, to make a draft of the charges he meant to exhibit against the whole of us, com-. prising the crimes of insubordination, disobedience of orders, mutiny, and sedition! and which he had the folly to send us by one of the invalid sergeants, with orders to consider ourselves. under arrest.

CHAPTER XLI.

"Hark! what means that dreadful cry?"

A THICK SNOW-storm, which lasted nearly two hours, had sent us on a dozen miles; and it was just clearing off, when an alarming shout from one of the boys, who was forward on the look-out, struck all ears with the dismal sounds of " Breakers a-head, and a ship ashore!!!"

Bateman, who had been leaning on the capstan in a desponding attitude during the last half hour, scarcely removing the flakes of snow that formed in drifts round his ample chest, and occasionally sighing like a wounded bear, instantly rushed forward, and his powerful voice was soon heard by the helmsman, "Hard a port!"-" Brace up main yard!". "Run up main stay-sail!"-"Mon in the chains!" In an instant all the crew were on deck except the three drunkards, who were lying below insensible to danger. There was a strong flood-tide setting right on the reef, on which the hapless vessel was transfixed, and it required all our skill to prevent the ship falling to leeward.

"What have you got?" cried Tom to the man in the chains.. "Quarter less five!" (sung out the man.)

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Heave again! po-o-rt, po-o-rt!"

"And a-half Six!"

Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!" (cried Tom.)

"By the mark SEVEN!"

"No near! keep her a clean full! Now, my mon?" "By the deep ELEVEN!"

“Hurrah! hurrah! my boys-all clear! steady that."

Tom's cheers assured us of our own safety from our late imminent danger, and we now ranged ourselves along the leequarter to take a sad view of the unhappy beings, whose destruction we saw was inevitable, and from whom all hope must have fled, when at our nearer approach, they beheld the nakedness of our deck-not a boat, not a spare spar was to be seen; our forlorn appearance sufficiently betokened our utter inability to afford the slightest relief.

We were near enough for some moments to hear the heartrending cries of our perishing fellow-creatures; to behold them

in all the agony of despair, with hands uplifted towards our vessel, as if imploring that aid which we had not the power to afford! The sea made free passage over the vessel amidships; and we every instant expected to see her part. A cluster of men, whom we supposed to be the crew, were crowded on the forecastle and bowsprit; while, on the poop, we could discern a group of several females, whose frantic shrieks pierced our ears during the distressing period in which we passed within three hundred yards of the wreck; our own agonies were only inferior to those of the wretched sufferers.

"Oh 'twas a sight to blanch joy's rosy cheek !"

Even the feeling of self-security, so dear to our frail nature, lost its force for the moment. To our anxious question, "Tom, Tom, can we do nothing to save even the women?" poor Bateman, who stood beside the helmsman blubbering like a child, replied "Nauw, gentlemen, nauw!" and as with his tarry cuff he wiped off the tide of tears which flowed down his rugged cheeks, he exclaimed, "God be wi em, poor-poor saulls! nauwthing-nauwthing caun save them nowe!" These words, uttered in tones of the deepest melancholy, were scarcely pronounced, ere his ready eye caught the symptoms of a furious squall approaching, and a thick cloud of fleecy snow ready to burst upon us.

"Stand by topsail halliards! Dom me be quick!" roared out Tom: "don't ye see what's arter us? Dowse all!"

The squall soon caught us; but we were pretty well prepared to meet its fury: we scudded for about a quarter of an hour, when a clear to leeward gave us a parting sight of the breakers; but, alas! not the ship!-she had gone to pieces, and every soul on board had perished.

Two seamen, who on her first striking had cast themselves off on the wreck of a topmast, and were fortunate enough to have been picked up, after being four hours in the water, clinging to their frail support, gave these particulars, which we afterwards learnt also from the newspapers, which stated that twenty-seven persons had perished: amongst the number were the wife and three daughters of Major Morden, of the eightyseventh regiment, with three servants.

This was the unhappy group we had beheld in their last moments of life, and whose dismal shriek of death I never can forget!

The day was now waning apace, when Tom Bateman, who had just plummed the well, called us together, and with the most perfect calmness of voice and manner, pronounced the doom of the ship.

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"Poor Ellison," said he, "has not mauny hours to float!" a general expression of horror escaped us. 'Sautly! sautly, gemmen!" said this hero of his own sphere, "aul's naut laust that's in danger; it's nauw three quarters floud, and if we could foind a good berth to roon her ashore, whoy, all on us moight be saved, snoug and quoiet. Saw, whilst it's day loight suppose we close the shore, and foire a goon or two, and mawhaap soome of these here coast-crauft chaups may put off to us."

The love of life was too dear in all to allow any one to offer an objection to a plan which held out the only chance of its preservation. We had already four feet water in the hold! with a momentary increase. Three of the best seamen on board were lying drunk, and wholly unserviceable to us; the remainder of the crew, and the poor foreigners particularly, behaved like men to the last.

Three of our remaining guns were serviceable, and powder was brought up from the magazine for a few charges; after which, to avoid any additional calamity that might arise in the search for plunder, we drowned the remainder, except a cartridge we brought up in hand. As to saving baggage, or indeed any thing but our lives, we entertained no hopes. We opened our trunks, which had all been deposited in the magazine, to obtain what money each contained. In this scramble the box of the unfortunate widow, in which was cash to the amount of nearly one hundred pounds, totally escaped our recollection, having been placed in a corner out of observation.

Even in this awful state of our affairs, that pitiful maniac, Captain Hawkins, continued to torment himself and us, with threats for our mutiny and disobedience! He had been scribbling the whole of this unhappy day, and seemed intent alone on preserving himself and his writings, indifferent to the loss of property, which now appeared inevitable, or even to the risk of life. All I could muster, was twelve joes in gold, and a few dollars in silver; with these in my pocket, with my pistols, and the sword of my respected general, I re-ascended the deck, calmly prepared to meet whatever fate Providence might de

cree.

The clouds of night already gathered around us. Williams, with my other associates, assisted in loading the guns: we fired one each minute for a few rounds; then ceased, and threw our guns overboard; chopped the anchors from the cat-head; got up as many of the water-buts as we could, and started their contents; they were then lashed together by threes; the topmasts were unfidded and lowered; we then turned her head for the low sandy beach, right before the wind, under the mainsail. After half an hour's agonizing anxiety as to the fate that waited us in this last and desperate attempt, we got into. shoal water.

Although we had screwed up our minds to the very sticking place of courage, to meet the shock of striking, when that awful moment arrived, and the bold Tom shouted out, "Hauld hard, all hands, she stroikes!" a general cry followed the shock-many were knocked down; even those who felt themselves most secure by holding on by the rigging, were lifted off their legs by the violence of the first stroke from which the vessel rose, and on the top of a long shoal wave, assisted by the wind, gained a couple of hundred feet, before her keel made a second and final bed in the hard and unyielding strand!

We had scarcely been fixed a minute, when the foremast came tumbling aft, threatening destruction to all within its vortex. The broken water roared over the shallow on every side! The piercing cries of the poor women and children rent our hearts, while we still felt it our duty to chide their clamour.

Rising above this war of sounds, the loud and distinct voice of the unsubdued Northern made itself be heard. The ship had taken a partial and unsteady heel to starboard, to which side the wreck of the foremast inclined in its fall. All the pas sengers were huddled together to larboard on the quarterdeck; but the ever-watchful Tom, perceiving that another heave of the sea would change her position, ordered us all as far aft as we could stow ourselves, while with the remainder of the crew, he was employed in clearing a passage for the wreck of the falling foremast. A lofty ground-swell threw the hull of the vessel with a sudden shock on her larboard bulge, when the foremast thundered over the lee-side with a horrid crash, sweeping in its ruin an unfortunate sergeant of the Royal Irish Artillery, who had just crawled up from his berth, as it were to court that death he had so instantly encountered. One wild and piteous shriek, the howl of his native country, was all he uttered: the next moment he was no more!

The passage from the quarter-deck to the forecastle could only be performed with difficulty; but it was more than once traversed by the adventurous mate, with the humane intent of rousing the sleeping drunkards, whose voice we at length heard forward in noisy altercation with that unhappy-minded man, Captain Hawkins, who, in the confusion of the moment, had gone to the head of the ship, when she first struck, to look

out.

He was now completely in the power of those who could have wreaked their ready vengeance on him; but British sailors were never known to be assassins. Sobered by the dangers of the scene, these men employed themselves in lashing