18 LOSS OF THE KENT. 
But He who enabled the Apostle Peter to walk on the face of 
the deep, and was graciously attending to the silent but ear- 
nest aspirations of those on board, had decreed its safety. 
After one or two unsuccessful attempts to place the little 
frail bark fairly upon the surface of the water, the command 
was at length given to unhook ; the tackle at the stern was in 
consequence immediately cleared ; but the ropes at the bow 
having got foul, the sailor there found it impossible to obey the 
order. In vain was the axe applied to the entangled tackle. 
The moment was inconceivably critical ; as the boat, which 
necessarily followed the motion of the ship, was gradually ri- 
sing out of the water, and must, in another instant, have been 
hanging perpendicularly by the bow, and its helpless passen- 
gers launched into the deep, had not a most providential wave 
suddenly struck and lifted up the stern, so as to enable the sea- 
man to disengage the tackle ; and the boat being dexterously 
cleared from the ship, was seen, after a little while, battling 
with the billows ; now raised, in its progress to the brig, like 
a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for several 
seconds, as if engulfed "in the horrid vale" between them. 
Two or three soldiers, to relieve their wives of a part of their 
families, sprang into the water with their children, and per- 
ished in their efideavors to save them. One young lady, 
who had resolutely refused to quit her father, whose sense of 
duty kept him at his post, was near falling a sacrifice to her 
filial devotion, not having been picked up by those in the 
boats until she had sunk five or six times. Another indivi- 
dual, who was reduced to the frightful alternative of losing his 
wife or his children, hastily decided in favor of his duty to 
the former. His wife was accordingly saved, but his four 
children, alas ! were left to perish. A fine fellow, a soldier, 
who had neither wife nor child of his ovm, but who evinced 
the greatest solicitude for the safety of those of others, insist- 
ed on having three children Jashed to him, with whom he 
plunged into the water ; not being able to reach the boat, he 
was drawn again into the ship with his charge, but not before 
two of the children had expired. One man fell down the 
hatchway into the flames, and another had his back so com- 
pletely broken as to have been observed quite doubled falling 
overboard. The numerous spectacles of individual loss and 
Buffering were not confined to the entrance upon the perilous 
voyage between the two ships. One man who fell beneath 
the boat and the brig, had his head literally crushed fine — and 
some others were lost in their attempts to ascend the sides of 
the Cambria. 
