WRECKS. 355 



boat striking him.* The last person coming on the 

 running bowline nearly lost his life, the sling parting 

 and dropping him in the surf; but one gentleman 

 added another to his humane attributes by perilling 

 his lifef to save that of another, and more dead than 

 alive, with reason for the time taking a recess, the half- 

 drowned man was landed J 



Well, everlasting thanks and unceasing gratitude 

 are all that the principal actor in these scenes can 

 render to the noble band of islanders who left their 

 warm habitations on that tempestuous morning in 

 March, to rescue entire strangers and foreigners. 

 Ere the writer forgets the kind treatment experi- 

 enced by the crew of the " Earl of Eglinton," and the 

 spontaneous generosity of the people of Nantucket on 

 that melancholy occasion, " his right hand will forget 

 its cunning and his tongue cleave to the roof of his 

 mouth." 



And now, after thirty-six years, while the writer 

 contemplates the many improved methods since em- 

 ployed for saving shipwrecked seamen, he cannot help 

 thinking that the " bear-a-hand-shifts " that the un- 

 daunted men of Nantucket used were the initiatory 

 steps toward the establishment of the many life- 

 saving stations for the benefit of. shipwrecked sailors, 

 and the improvement of apparatus for giving assistance 

 to vessels in distress. 



The " fish-drail " that did its duty for us, with the 

 lead line to" which it is attached, have an honored place 



* Watson Burgess (deceased;. 

 tCapt. Matthew Crosby (deceased). 

 X Capt. Niven. 



