302 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



Mary and the Restoration was lost, including Beaumont. 

 From the Stirling Castle and the Mortar seventy persons 

 were saved. 



So many ships have been lost on the Goodwins, and 

 it has been such a matter of course to expect these 

 disasters, that records of some of the events have not 

 been kept. Little more than passing mention is made 

 of the loss of the transport Aurora on the Goodwins in 

 December 1805, two months after Nelson won Trafalgar, 

 yet three hundred men perished with her ; and little more 

 than allusion to the loss in December 1814, a few 

 months before Waterloo, of the packet British Queen. 

 She left Ostend for Margate, struck on the Sands, and 

 was lost, with all her people. 



The Goodwin nearly claimed a crowd of emigrants 

 some years ago. They were on board the Fusilier, 

 bound to Australia from London. In a December gale 

 she struck the Sands, and there seemed no hope of rescue 

 for the panic-stricken souls, of whom nearly seventy 

 were women and children. The long, dark night passed, 

 and the gloomy morning came. By that time the 

 Fusilier was swept incessantly by freezing seas, and 

 bumped bodily by charging waves. There was faint 

 moonlight and some illumination from lamps on board ; 

 and by these cheerless beams the drenched and shivering, 

 almost perishing emigrants, saw the outline of a lifeboat 

 nearly alongside. 



Two oil-skinned fighters of the Sands had floundered 

 on board. Instantly, in the wild night, clamorous voices 

 were heard prayers of men that their wives should be 

 saved ; appeals of women for their children's sake. At 

 the same time there was a mad rush to the ship's side to 



