251 THE SEA. 



A schooner, the Coitpland, attempted the harbour during a fearful gale, but could not 

 succeed in entering. She drifted rapidly amid foaming billows that chased each other like 

 huge mad cataracts, until she struck immediately opposite the Spa promenade. In the mean- 

 time the lifeboat was manned, and sent out to the relief of the vessel, now in most imminent 

 danger. The sea broke upon the sea-wall with such terrific violence that the massive stones- 

 on the parapet were dislodged. The rebound of the waves caused such a sea as no small 

 craft but the lifeboat could have borne. Arrived at this point, she was watched, and her 

 crew spoken to by the people on the Spa. The crew of the lifeboat seemed terror-stricken 

 at their awful position. Suddenly a fearful lurch of the boat pitched out a veteran boat- 

 man, the leading man in her, and one of great experience and good judgment. He was 

 quickly washed up to the Spa wall, and was saved by a life-buoy. Another of the crew 

 was ejected a few minutes after, and was saved by the same means, after a fearful struggle. 

 The oars were now dashed out of the hands of the lifeboatmen, and they were at once 

 rendered powerless. The boat was washed heavily up against the wall, and nothing but her 

 great strength and excellent qualities preserved her from being at once dashed to pieces. 

 Ropes were thrown from the boat to the promenade, and she was drawn through the surf 

 to a landing-place at the southern end of the wall. Here a fatal occurrence took place. 

 Having touched the ground, the men jumped out before the water had receded, and, seeing 

 the danger they were in, a rush down the incline was made to assist them. In the momentary 

 confusion that ensued another run of the sea came, and nearly all the party were thrown 

 from their feet, and were now scrambling to save their lives. Many succeeded in getting 

 up, but another wave washed off those who were yet below. Two or three times they were 

 carried out and back again. Among these were Lord Charles Beauclerk, two of the boat's 

 crew, and five or six others. A large wave was seen to lift the lifeboat with fearful force 

 against the wall ; and as the boat sank down again, it was found that Brewster, one of the 

 crew, had been literally crushed to death between it and the stone sea-wall. Lord Charles 

 Beauclerk experienced the same horrible fate, but was not immediately killed ; he was washed 

 to the foot of the cliff, when two gentlemen rushed to his assistance. A rope had been 

 previously thrown to him, but he was powerless to grasp it. The gentlemen just named 

 succeeded in fastening a rope round him, and drew him up the incline, the life just ebbing 

 out of him. He was conveyed to the Music Hall adjoining (sad irony of fate !), where a 

 physician pronounced him dead. Two or three others were seen under the boat, when the- 

 waves threw her up almost in the air. One of them was the son of a Scarborough banker. 

 All these men perished. 



Attention was now given to the shipwrecked crew, who had been witnesses of all these- 

 horrors, and they were eventually all hauled off safely by the rocket apparatus. In the same 

 gale fourteen poor fishermen of Scarborough lost their lives. Twenty were lost at Yarmouth, 

 and there were wrecks strewed all over the east coast. 



And now for a true story with a happier ending, very graphically told by a lady visitor 

 to Scarborough.* It occurred in the mid-winter of 1872. " I can't write decently/ 7 wrote 

 she ; " my hands are still trembling from the excitement of the morning, such a tremendous: 



* In a letter to The Shipwrecked Mariner, January, 1873. 



