inaries of obtaining the authority of a magistrate
to remove the bodies, not more than twenty-five were buried that day.
The bodies of Captain Barcroft, Lieutenant Sutherland, Cornet Graydon,
Lieutenant Ker and two women, were then selected to be put into
coffins. Next day, those of Lieutenant Jenner and Cornet Burns, being
found, were distinguished in the like manner.

The whole number of dead found on the beach, amounted to two hundred
and thirty-four; so that the duty of interment was so heavy and
fatiguing, that it was not until the twenty-third that all the
soldiers and sailors were deposited. Of these there were two hundred
and eight, and they were committed to the earth as decently as
circumstances would admit, in graves dug on the Fleet side of the
beach, beyond the reach of the sea, where a pile of stones was raised
on each, to mark where they lay. Twelve coffins were sent to receive
the bodies of the women, but nine only being found, the supernumerary
ones were appointed to receive the remains of the officers.

Two waggons were next sent to the Fleet water to receive the coffins,
in which the shrouded bodies of seventeen officers and nine women had
been placed, and on the 24th were carried to the church-yard at Wyke,
preceded by a captain, subaltern and fifty men of the Gloucester
Militia, and attended by the young gentleman before mentioned, Mr.
Smith as chief mourner. The officers were interred in a large grave,
north of the church-tower, with military honors, and Lieutenant Ker in
a grave on the other side of the tower. The remains of the nine women,
which had been deposited in the church during the ceremony, were next
committed to the earth.

Two monuments have been erected in commemoration of the unfortunate
sufferers, the first bearing the following inscription:

To the memory of Captain Ambrose William Barcroft, Lieutenant Harry
Ash and Mr. Kelly, surgeon of the 63d regiment of Light Infantry; of
Lieutenant Stephen Jenner, of the 6th West India regiment; Lieutenant
Stains of the 2d West India regiment and two hundred and fifteen
soldiers and seamen and nine women, who perished by shipwreck on
Portland Beach, opposite the villages of Langton, Fleet and
Chickerell, on Wednesday the eighteenth day of November, 1795.

On the second monument is inscribed,

Sacred to the memory of Major John Charles Ker, Military Commandant of
Hospitals in the Leeward Islands, and to that of his son, Lieutenant
James K