re he forsook the task.
First let him tell you in his own words of that tragic storm and its
results.

"At one o'clock of the morning of May 19th, it blew a perfect gale, the
cove was in a far more disturbed state than I had ever seen it before,
the seas rolled up the cliff to an astonishing height, and by daylight
the cove was in a state of awful commotion. The spray was driven so
wildly that while standing on the main platform, at an elevation of 155
feet, I was completely wet and could scarcely resist it. The waves
struck the derrick with steadily increasing force, and I watched it
with all the distressing feelings that a father would evince toward a
favorite child when in a situation of great danger. By six o'clock the
wind threw the waves obliquely against the southeast cliff, and caused
them to sweep along its whole length until opposed by the opposite
cliff from which as each wave recoiled it was met by the following one,
and thus accumulated, they rose in one vast heap under the derrick
stage, beat it from under the bell, and washed away the air-pump,
air-hoses, and semaphore. The stage was suspended at a height of
thirty-eight feet above the surface of the sea in ordinary weather,
from which circumstances an idea may be formed of the furious agitation
of the cove.

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[Illustration: Thetis Cove in calm weather, showing salvage operations.]

Thetis Cove during the storm which wrecked the salvage equipment.
(From lithographs made in 1836.)

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"Nine o'clock arrived, and I had been watching for fourteen hours. The
constant concussions had caused the gear of the derrick to stretch, and
every blow from the sea caused it to swing and buckle to an alarming
degree. Nothing more could possibly be done to save it, and I saw
plainly that unless the gale soon ceased its destruction was
inevitable. I therefore left an officer on watch, and quitted the
cliff to go to my hut and arrange my parties for the work to be put in
hand after the catastrophe. Presently he came down to meet me, and
reported that a stupendous roller had struck the derrick on its side,
and broke it off twenty feet from the heel. Thus in one crash was
destroyed the child of my hopes, and in a very short time the derrick
was dashed into six pieces, forming, with the complicated gear, one
confused mass of