in the evening. The wind and tide helped him on
the course steered, and a little after midnight the misguided brig
struck on a rock three-quarters of a mile south-west of our point of
land. The wind had then increased to a gale, and was gathering new
strength with every moment. In less than an hour the thumping and
grating of the vessel's keel ceased, and then the captain knew that the
rising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig was
leaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her--whither the captain
knew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suction
of the shore current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection of
our cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she passed
through them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by the
fierce waves. The next day, when the storm had abated, the body was
found far above where the brig lay fastened immovably in the vice-like
fissure of enormous rocks. Twenty sovereigns, which perhaps the poor
fellow had saved to bring home to his old mother, were found in a belt
around his waist.

The damaged cargo was removed, and the wreck sold at auction, my father
being the purchaser.

There was an old church situated on the summit of a neighbouring point
of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor
sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest
to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season
did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the
sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on the
stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied
long, long histories of what might have been that sailor's life; and I
wondered sadly if the poor mother knew where her son's grave was, and
whether she would ever come to look at it. On the stone was written:--

HARRY BREESE
LIES HERE, NEAR WHERE A CRUEL SHIPWRECK CAST HIM,
MARCH 23RD, 1814:
AGED 24 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 17 DAYS.
REST IN PEACE, POOR BODY;
THY SHIPMATE, SOUL, HAS GONE ALOFT,
WHERE THY DEAR CAPTAIN, JESUS, IS.

By the 7th May everything was prepared for our departure. On the next
morning early we were to start in the stage-coach, and, what had lately
added to our brilliant antic