e Minister of
Marine, in which he states, that 'Captain Musquetie, commander in the
Texel Roads, sent, at daylight on the 23rd, two boats to reconnoitre
the Minotaur, but the wind and sea prevented them approaching the
vessel.'

It is to be hoped, for the honour of the Dutch officers, that they
_did_ really put out to the relief of the Minotaur, and that they
considered the attempt an impossibility, which a British sailor deemed
one of little risk. It is evident that there must have been
considerable danger for boats, from the fact of the second yaul being
lost, and Captain Barrett's hesitation before he allowed the gunner to
leave the ship in the first yaul; and in charity we must give the
Dutch the benefit of this evidence. At the same time, we have the
equally conclusive testimony of the safe landing of two boats from the
Minotaur, that it was not 'impossible' for even a somewhat crazy boat
to live on such a sea. At daylight, on the 24th, the survivors of the
Minotaur's crew were marched off as prisoners to Valenciennes. From
which place, the gunner, Mr. Bones, contrived to make his escape on
the 3rd of February. After suffering the greatest privations,
concealing himself in barns and stables by day, and travelling by
night, on the 17th of March he got on board a smuggling lugger, about
a mile from Ostend, the Master of which agreed to land him in England
for the sum of L50.

* * * * *

NOTE BY A NAVAL FRIEND.

The loss of the Minotaur may be attributed to their not knowing their
position; the pilot's desire to put the ship on the starboard tack at
twelve o'clock at night, with the wind from the south-east, showed
that he thought himself on the English coast. This fatal error in the
navigation of the ship is not easily accounted for; it arises in a
great measure from the dread of approaching the dangerous shoals on
our own coast, many of them far off the land, such as the Leman, and
Ower, Smith's Knowl, the Ridge, and others further in shore. Great
fear of these shoals is felt by all hands, and no doubt the man at the
helm would be cautioned not to bring the ship to the westward of her
course, and he would therefore be apt to err on the other
side--currents also may have carried her to the eastward. I am
tempted to offer this opinion from having experienced a similar
danger. In the year of the Battle of Copenhagen, I was in the Lynx
sloop of war on her return from the Baltic, and