288 THE SEA. 



paralysed. The sun was just about to shed his last ray of light upon our eyes and hope in 

 our hearts, when those on board the vessel saw us, heard us, bore down upon us, and took 

 us on board. Had not the great God sent us this timely succour, no account of our fate 

 could have ever been made known, for any one of the storms which prevailed during the 

 following eight or nine days must have destroyed us. We were hauled on board by means 

 of ropes, and stowed in a little cabin, 6 feet by 4| only ; but yet, what a palace compared 

 to the horrors from which we had just been rescued ! This vessel was a small Dutch galliot, 

 and had a cargo of sugar from Amsterdam, consigned to Leghorn; and was, therefore, 

 desirous of landing at Gibraltar, it being on her course. However, adverse winds set in; 

 the captain of the galliot knew not his position ; he was unable to take an observation ; 

 and was, in consequence, knocked about for nine days with this serious addition to his crew. 

 I had been visiting the house of a noble friend but a few weeks before, but what was it 

 compared to our present little home ?" They were at length safely landed at Plymouth. 



Among so many gloomy incidents, one of another nature may well be recorded. The 

 name of Lieutenant Grylls has been mentioned as one of the survivors. But the Cornwall 

 Gazette of January 8th had the following announcement : " Lost, on board the Amazon, 

 mail steam-packet, on Sunday, the 4th inst., in which vessel he had taken his passage to 

 join H.M.S. Devastation, to which ship he had been appointed as first lieutenant, Lieutenant 

 Charles Gerveys Grylls, R.N., aged twenty-five, eldest surviving son of the Rev. Henry 

 Grylls, vicar of St. Neots." But early in the morning of Friday a special messenger arrived 

 at St. Neots, bearing a letter to the good vicar from his son, stating that he was alive and 

 safe, and that he hoped to be with him in the evening. The news soon spread ; all the neigh- 

 bouring hamlets turned out their inhabitants, the village bells were rung, and a party of about 

 150 persons set off on the road to Plymouth to draw him home by hand. This the gallant 

 lieutenant would not allow, being too anxious to return to his friends. A triumphal 

 procession was, however, formed, escorted by which this witness from the dead was restored 

 to his bereaved father. One can imagine the joy in the household, and the strong revulsion 

 of feeling there ! 



" On taking a review of this overwhelming catastrophe," says the Rev. C. A. Johns, " the 

 reader will rise from a perusal of the narrative having his mind painfully impressed with the 

 fearful loss of human life ; and as he endeavours to picture to himself the incidents as they 

 severally occurred, he will be more inclined to doubt that any one was possessed of nerve 

 sufficiently strong to stand the first half-hour's ordeal rather than to wonder that so few 

 escaped. A vessel, constructed of the best material employed in ship-building oak, teak, and 

 Dantzic pine but, nevertheless, a structure of wood, bearing, in addition to cargo, crew, and 

 passengers, 1,000 tons of inflammable coal, and a framework of massive iron, unceasingly 

 grinding with the force of 800 horses sixteen furnaces and as many huge boilers, all 

 employed in generating the most powerful instrument of usefulness or destruction (as 

 the case may be) which man has reduced to his will a store-room in the vicinity of the 

 boilers, plentifully stocked with oil and tallow well might the lip quiver and the cheek 

 blanch at the bare idea of FIRE being allowed to creep with but a flickering light beyond 

 its prescribed limits. But, besides all this, he will remember that to this concatenation 

 of perils themselves too terrible to dwell on must be added contingencies which aggravat 



