WRECKS ON THE PURBECK COAST. 145 



making with the crew, a total of one hundred and two. She 

 struck on Cuttle Ledge, near Kimmeridge ; and again the same 

 Officer had the gratification of saving the Crew of her foiir-oared 

 galley which had been swamped. The risk was indeed great, 

 and the action was no doubt its own reward: at the same time 

 it cannot but be regretted that, according to official rule, the 

 British authorities were precluded from marking, by honorary 

 distinction, the well-earned thanks they freely expressed. 



During the same period of twenty two years, about eleven 

 vessels are recorded to have been stranded on the same line of 

 coast. I purpose hereafter at some length to notice the " Tyne," 

 grounded in 1857; and the escape of the "Sarah Park" also 

 deserves a separate record. That vessel, an American bark, 

 sailing from Dieppe with Emigrants, and holding, I believe, con- 

 siderably upwards of three hundred souls on board, got on shore 

 early in the morning of October 3rd, 1854. She lay about three 

 hundred yards west of the Freshwater Steps, and a like distance 

 south of the shore. As she was said to have been seen by the 

 Coast Guard on St. Aldhelm's Head, before striking, the fog 

 could hardly have been such as to excuse the accident. The 

 wind at the time was S. or S. W. It was strongly urged on 

 the Captain by those locally acquainted with the coast and its 

 dangers, that the passengers, consisting chiefly of emigrants of 

 a poor class of French and Germans, should be landed. Should 

 the wind, it was said, remain in this quarter, and increase, the 

 vessel which must be already damaged will suffer severely, and 

 with a heavy sea may well go to pieces : and how then on this 

 shore can the living freight be saved? It was offered that the 

 passengers should be either landed or left in safety afloat till the 

 afternoon's high tide should decide whether she should float or 

 stick fast. But certain loss of money prevailed over the proba- 

 ble danger to life, and the Captain declined to "break bulk," 

 and should any of the passengers leave the ship, he declared he 

 would not again receive them on board. As it happened fortune 

 favoured the audacious ; the south wind on shore became north- 

 erly and off shore, the tide rose high, and, hardly crediting our 

 happiness in witnessing the retreat of our unwelcome visitors, 

 the inhabitants of Encombe Valley saw the great vessel slowly 

 warped off the nearly fatal ledge. So purely mercenary seemed 



