and relations
of her unfortunate ship's company mostly lived in the neighborhood.
It is dreadful to relate what a scene took place--arms, legs and
lifeless trunks, mangled and disfigured by gunpowder, were collected
and deposited at the hospital, having been brought in sacks to be
owned. Bodies still living, some with the loss of limbs, others having
expired as they were being conveyed thither; men, women and children,
whose sons, husbands and fathers were among the unhappy number,
flocking round the gates, intreating admittance. During the first
evening nothing was ascertained concerning the cause of this event,
though numerous reports were instantly circulated. The few survivors,
who, by the following day, had, in some degree regained the use of
their senses, could not give the least account. One man who was
brought alive to the Royal Hospital, died before night, another before
the following morning; the boatswain and one of the sailors appeared
likely, with great care, to do well.--Three or four men who were at
work in the tops, were blown up with them and falling into the water,
were picked up with very little hurt. These, with the two before
mentioned, and one of the sailors' wives, were supposed to be the only
survivors, besides the captain and two of the lieutenants.

The following particulars were, however, collected from the
examination of several persons before Sir Richard King, the
port-admiral, and the information procured from those, who saw the
explosion from the Dock.

The first person known to have observed any thing was a young
midshipman in the Cambridge guard-ship, lying not far distant from the
place where the Amphion blew up; who having a great desire to observe
every thing relative to a profession into which he had just entered,
was looking through a glass at the frigate, as she lay along side of
the sheer-hulk, and was taking in her bowsprit. She was lashed to the
hulk; and the Yarmouth, an old receiving ship, was lying on the
opposite side, quite close to her, and both within a few yards of the
Dock-yard jetty. The midshipman said, that the Amphion suddenly
appeared to rise altogether upright from the surface of the water,
until he nearly saw her keel; the explosion then succeeded; the masts
seemed to be forced up into the air, and the hull instantly to sink.
All this passed in the space of two minutes.

The man who stood at the Dock-yard stairs, said, that the first he
heard of it was a kind