340 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



spars and casks of spirits and provisions which were 

 being hurled dangerously about by the seas. 



For two hours the gunner and his crew struggled 

 with the waves, the officers and men, who were crowded 

 on the poop and quarter-deck of the Minotaur, watching 

 them with intense anxiety. Then the yawl was seen to 

 reach the shore, and instantly the desperate survivors 

 fought to get the launch afloat. 



Time after time savage seas had surged across the 

 wreck, and never a snarling mass of water came without 

 carrying back into the whirling deep some despairing 

 human being. The launch was got afloat, and, crowded 

 with men, she reached the land in half the time that the 

 yawl had taken. 



The news of the wreck had been spread ashore, and 

 when the boats landed Dutch and French officers and 

 soldiers were waiting to receive them. The enemy 

 proved as merciless as the sea had been, for the almost 

 perishing survivors were at once made prisoners of war. 

 Appeals were made for help to be sent to the survivors 

 on the wreck. The launch, which was one of the smallest 

 of the kind carried by 74-gun ships, had taken eighty- 

 five men ashore, although one gunwale was entirely 

 broken in and the craft had no rudder ; the yawl had 

 also safely landed yet the Dutch held that the task of 

 rescue was too dangerous, and the officers and men who 

 remained on board the Minotaur saw that there was no 

 chance of salvation except by hurling themselves over- 

 board and trying to swim to the land. The second yawl 

 had been launched, and the captain and about a hundred 

 men tried to reach the shore ; but the craft was capsized 

 and every soul perished. Early in the afternoon the 



