THE LOST FOUND. 251 



with the waves, yielding to them as they rolled on, but now the little boat has to breast 

 the waves, and is tossed high in the air, and again plunged far down, running great risk 

 of being overturned. " The difficulty now is how to get the men out of the boat, for they 

 dare not haul her up closer to the vessel, as she will not ride with a shorter scope of rope. 

 They send another rope down to the boat, with a bowline knot made in it, for the men 

 to sit in, and then shout to the men, ' We will haul you on board one at a time ! ' " A 

 moment's question as to the order in which the men shall go is quickly decided, for 

 each feels that at any moment the boat may sink or upset. They leave in the order in 

 which they sit, and one after another they plunge into the waves, and are hauled on board, 

 dripping, but saved ! Very soon the boat fills and turns over, and hangs by the ropes till 

 morning. 



The captain will hardly credit their story at first. " Impossible ! impossible ! " says 

 he. " No boat could live in such a sea, and over the Sands. Impossible ! " But he 

 becomes convinced at last, and all on board show every attention and kindness. A little 

 brandy and some dry clothes at once, a beefsteak supper and a glass of "grog later on, 

 followed by warm beds made up on the captain's cabin floor, and their adventures in an 

 open boat were but the memory of a horrid dream. The coxswain, however, fell very ill 

 soon after, and was nigh death's door; he did not recover his strength for a twelvemonth, 

 so greatly had the anxiety of that night's work told upon him. 



Meantime, the lugger, after cruising backwards and forwards, the crew keeping an 

 anxious and fruitless look-out for their comrades in the boat, is obliged to put in for Dover, 

 from whence they telegraph the sad news that six of their men are to all appearance lost. 

 Next morning they make one more effort to find some traces of their lost companions, and 

 then steer, sad and disheartened, for Ramsgate. There the arrival of the lugger is most 

 anxiously awaited. Alas ! it is as they feared, and many a household is plunged in grief. 

 While this is going on, the boatmen leave the American ship and row steadily for Rams- 

 gate, near which they fall in with another lugger, on which they are taken. The lugger's 

 flag is hoisted, in token that they are the bearers of good news, and great is the curiosity 

 of the men about the harbour. A crowd hurries down the pier to watch her arrival, and 

 as soon as the men missing from the Princess Alice are recognised, the cheers and excite- 

 ment are wild in the extreme. Men rush off to bear the good news. " One poor 

 woman, in the midst of her agony and mourning for her husband, and surrounded by her 

 weeping friends, is surprised by her door being burst violently open, and at seeing a boatman, 

 almost dropping with breathlessness, gasping and gesticulating and nodding, but trying in 

 vain to speak ; and it is some seconds before he can stammer out, ' All right ! all right ! 

 Your husband is safe coming now ! ' ' 



The danger incurred by the hovellers is well illustrated by the following example, 

 recorded by our leading journal* some years since. Nine of these men endeavoured to 

 save a sloop, the Wool-packet, of Dartmouth, stranded on Bideford Bar, and the crew 

 must have lost their lives but for the noble service performed, under great risks, by 

 Captain Thomas Jones, master of the steam-tug Ely, of Cardiff. A shipowner of Bideford, 

 who was an eye-witness of the brave deed, stated that the crew of the vessel had aban- 



* The Times, November 5th, 1866. 



