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REFLECTIONS ON MARITIME PURSUITS. 



Among the multitudinous and multiplicious vehicles, that tra- 

 verse the great rail-road of the ocean, how many break down by 

 the way 1 How many of our seamen are annually consigned to 

 the deep, or cast upon the rocky coasts of our continents and 

 islands ! We can seldom take up a newspaper, without meeting 

 with passages detailing instances of shipwreck and loss of life ; 

 it has even been ascertained, that, on an average, there are ten 

 British merchant vessels shipwrecked every week. In a great 

 maritime nation like Great Britain, whose ships may be seen on 

 every sea, that washes the shores of the civilized world, it may 

 be expected that frequent accidents will happen among our ships, 

 exposed as they are to all the vicissitudes of climate, and changes 

 of weather, from calm to gale, and from tempest to hurricane. 

 The weary, weather-beaten, and worn-out mariner, whose ship 

 is driven upon, and dashed to atoms on, our shores, is received on 

 the beach with the hand of Charity, and Christian kindly feeling; 

 should the vital spark have perished in the " pitiless storm," the 

 manly, though mangled, remains are decently consigned to a 

 iilent though obscure tomb, over which the stranger drops a tear 

 of compassion. In other lands and other climes, the stranded 

 ship and her hapless crew may be doomed to suffer increasing 

 misfortunes : the seaman, if he reach tlie shore alive, may be 

 stripped by the robber, murdered by the savage, or find himself 

 naked and alone upon a solitary island, or coral reef. Such 

 misfortunes excite our compassion, and awaken the best feelings 

 of our hearts. There are, however, other circumstances under 

 which a ship may be wrecked, which entail still more <leplorabIe, 

 more pitiable, and more dreadful sufterings, than those to which 

 we have alhided. The stranded ship is soon destroyed, and her 

 crew are either saved, or not saved : in either case the sufferings 

 of the men are soon at an end. Not so with a leaky, worn-out, 

 and water-logged " timber ship ! " her unfortunate crew are 

 doomed to toil at her pumps, as long as she continues to swim 

 on her bottom, but the intrusive briny fluid continues to invade 

 the hold, through innumerable chinks and crannies in the crazy 

 old hulk; a gale of wind comes on, the waves are augmented, 

 and climb the ship's sides, straining and working her worn-out 

 and superannuated fabric. The exhausted crew can no longer 

 keep the hold from filling with water ; the hold at last is filled, 

 and the buoyant materials within, instead of keeping the ship in 



